Love is as old as humanity itself, and probably the reason why were still around. Love can be the cause of extreme happiness, and suicidal depression, yet is often the end goal for most people. When I think of love in a communal standpoint I think of a quote by the ancient Greeks "Happiness of our race lies in the fulfillment of love". But what is love? Are there different types of it? Are there different concentrations of it? At a scientific standpoint love is when your brain releases a whole bunch of "feelgood" chemicals as a response to seeing of hearing someone you feel affection to, these chemicals include dopamine, adrenaline, and norepinephrine. But theirs more to love than just that, right?
From my understanding theirs multiple types of love, lustful love, friendly love, and true love. Lustful love is when you think you are in love with someone but are only attracted to them to fulfill your lustful desires, commonly felt by high schoolers who mistake it for true love. Next is the love that you feel for your friends, (hopefully) not lustful and not nearly as strong as true love, friendly love is basically just a less potent, and not nearly as damaging version of true love. Finally the third and most sought after version of love is true love. True love is when you retire your ego and put another before you, when that person means more to you than yourself and you'd do anything in your power to protect, and be with them for the rest of your life. True love is the reason why humanity has survived, and the key factor of true, and ever long happiness.
I agree with your thoughts on the different kinds of love. I also really liked the questions asked in the beginning. I sat and thought about the question "there's more to it than just that. right?. Its so surreal to think about how every single feeling we have throughout the day is some tiny little chemical reaction going on in our brain. You're entire life could be falling apart and every awful feeling you think is such a minor thing going on in your brain. Or, in this case, you could be so truly in love with someone, but is it really "all in your head?" Would feelings of love be the same if the human brain was altered? Very fun but also irritating questions to think about.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a lot of high schoolers experience lust, and they become infatuated with certain girls for short periods of time, but why call that type of emotion love at all if it is just lust? But I could not have agreed with you more when you said that true love puts aside your ego and places another one before you. Since you say true love is the reason humanity has survived, do you think love is real? Or is it just our biological systems working to keep us alive?
ReplyDeleteI like that you have started off with questions about the nature of love. It's smart- I'm already thinking about the potential answers to those questions now.Your description of "lustful love" is great. It's concise and descriptive. This is certainly a thought-provoking post.
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