Okay, obviously I mean ‘what is this thing called love?’ I stole the title from a line in a Benny Hill sketch, and when the girl said it, it was funny. But this is another of those posts where I start typing without thinking about what I am going to say… and I will either come up with something extremely profound, or else I will force you to do some thinking and we will have fantastically deep conversations about really deep stuff… maybe…
So what the hell is love?
Great writers and poets and thinkers and philosophers and romanticists have tried to answer this question down through the ages. I have written countless songs about love… you can hear some of them by clicking that button up there on my top bar called ‘my original songs’ or something clever like that… and the truth is, back in my single days, when I used to carry my guitar around, those songs actually got me some lovin’… just sayin’… I have written poems about love. I have written stories with love in them. But I am not sure I actually understand it.
It is so much more than a feeling. It is an emotion. Without it, what are we? But how much of it is just chemical reactions going on inside us? Are we just, as social mammals, geared towards needing to find other people that we can trust to survive in this big, cold world? Is love just a word that explains a natural process? Is it just our bodies telling us that we need to make babies so we can keep the species alive? Is mother nature just sending us biochemical messages that make us feel a connection with our families so we don’t end up alone?
And where, pray tell, do we draw the line between love and lust? I know damn well that lust is a chemical reaction sent by mother nature. Of course it is always nice when love and lust coincide with each other. It doesn’t get much better than that. That is what led to my oh-so-clever quote: ‘Head over heels in love is nice, but not as nice as the heels over head kind’… HA!
And how sustainable is love, really? Back in the old days we used to live much shorter lives. Maybe love isn’t supposed to last forever. A chemical reaction like that would be difficult to maintain for decades. It would be like being on an adrenaline high for most of your life. We have all been in relationships that have passed beyond the heady early romance stage into a quiet and calm acceptance. That is where love gets tricky. That is when you hope your hormones were thinking clearly when they made you fall in love with someone. When the cute things they do start to get a little annoying, and you are more worried about your job and raising your kids than you are with practicing the act of making new ones… kids, I mean, not jobs.
Love might last, but passion is a mercurial beast. It sort of has to be. Remember when you were a teenager… what sort of primal torrents of love and lust chemicals were raging through your body? Do you think you could lead a productive life if that was still going on inside you now? (This post, now that I think about it, is not aimed at anyone under the age of twenty… not that it is inappropriate, but because you are still a victim of love, and you know nothing about it yet, even though you think you do. Talking to you about love would be like talking to a baby about investment strategies or automobile maintenance).
Is love a real thing? Is any emotion a real thing? Anger, hatred, shame, jealousy? Are these all just words we made up to label chemical signals that give us information on our environment? Are we in love, or have we just found the best mate we could find and have gotten used to having them around? That warm feeling you get when you look at the people you love, that might just be a cookie that mother nature throws us… so we don’t end up punching them in the face when they annoy us, and thereby end up alone. Isn’t that sort of the definition of ‘social animal’? They work better in a group or herd. We even have labels for people who don’t have these ’emotions’ and ‘connections’ with the rest of humanity. We call them sociopaths.
Okay, obviously I didn’t say anything that will shed any light on love. So I guess that means it is up to you…
Pouring My Art Out 
Okay, as a birthday present, you asked bloggers (anyone) to read a past post…I picked ‘love’ at random…et voilà! Have a few mins before leaving for work. I have written under “dating” love and chemical imbalance but that is different …it is the easy part…the attraction…the chemistry…love is beautiful when both persons love with a selfless, romantic lustful love. You have to work at it…yes, I was with my ex 28 yrs….”in love” is different than loving and I think many long term relationships may not be “in love” but the fondness, the love and the history and the connection as bonded loving friends is more powerful. How many have you heard say? I married my best friend. Loving is easy many times…it is “liking” that gets complicated. At least the English language has LOVE and LIKE. In French it is all love…and we say it a lot Je t’aime to friends, our parents, our lovers,…it is the tone and emotion behind it but for a non French person, it can get quite confusing.
I enjoyed your post. You write like you talk and think…which is how I like to write as well. The bonus about your posts are the comments…like your post is YOU sitting in a café sipping a Café au Lait and there are about 20 tiny tables around and people sit and chat…some stay a while, then leave, then another person comes in later and on and on. Like a small café in my small town where I grew up. Not sure if that is what you were looking for but Happy Birthday, kiddo!! Oliana
That was so awesome! Thank you. I was not expecting such insight and depth in a comment… I just figured I would guilt a few people into reading some more or my stuff… I will always save a table and a warm beverage at the cafe for you!
I am a mom of 2 30something adults and a grandmother…so “guilt” does not succeed with me. (well okay, my grandson has dibs still)…BUT birthdays are very important to me…so it was a genuine birthday response. Look forward to the next café Latté 😀
Yay!
I think you’ve pretty well summed it up.
Love, survival instinct, reproductive urges, familial affection, lust
Sustainable love, quiet and calm acceptance, job, raising family
passion, youth
“in love”
best mate
The only trouble seems to be how the English language has only one word to describe all the different types of “love.” Makes it confusing when it all carries the same label. The Greeks had a different word for each of those meanings you have described, or questioned.
What about this kind of love?
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
—John 3:16, KJV
And I didn’t even get into friendship, a few thousand other kinds of love there.
Yep. 🙂
yup
I suspect love differs from couple to couple. For me, there has to be emotional passion and trust that allows shared fear and uncertainty. I can’t remember if I’ve told you this before, if I have I appreciate your indulgence. My husband and I were sitting across from each other at breakfast at a little dive we used to go to before we got married. We were eating, Allman Bros. was playing in the background, when both of us had an uncanny emotional and physical surge. We looked at each other and said at the same time “Did you feel that?” We felt a connection, an energy that filled our hearts at the very same time in a way that can only be described as celestial. The only explanation that I can find that is at all similar is limbic resonance with a biochemical synchronicity.
Having experienced failed romantic acquaintances with shared domiciles and unfortunate legal bindings, I can say I never had that feeling before or since. My husband is unique in that after all of this time I don’t want anyone else and I have never wanted anyone else. The times I made appointments for divorce consultations were exercises in discontent, periods when I wanted more of him and the exclusivity of us. He drives me crazy because he doesn’t even try to reach my standards of tidiness and perfection but I love him more than anyone I’ve ever met and more than anyone I haven’t met. I don’t need him to do things for me or to make a living for me but he is essential to me just like the air I breathe.
Of course sex changes over time because real life is a disruption in the boning marathon.
So I don’t know what love is for anyone other than me and I was no help at all. The End.
Well you got the good stuff, seems to me…
I think I know what happened. I have had two very physically demanding and long days at work. I am tired and metally worn. So I open up you post and read it and get overwhemed mentally by it. What was overwhelming was the number of quesions you asked. I couldn’t find the psychic energy to pick just one, let alone invest deep thought into it. All stimulating questions, but I was in an entertain me mode. Give me a beer, turn on the game and let me fall asleep in a recliner. Screw PBS tonight. This post was PBS, not PBR. I’ll do better later. FYI. I don’t drink beer or watch games or have a recliner with a TV in front of it. It does sound good tonight though.
I will warn you in advance when I am getting deep… maybe a color code like the terrorist alert thing…
Ask Annie Lennox.
No… she scares me…
She is gorgeous. And has written some of the best music ever. Love is a stranger, you know.
no… no… and no…
Love is a stranger of a different kind. Do not deny these words, my friend; in song, you will find few truer truths.
I never deny song lyrics.
Do you know the song? It’s vicious.
Sid vicious?
No. Just a great song.
Which song?
Love is a Stranger. Eurythmics.
Oh yeah… that scary girl again…
Why can men be scary but girls not? I love her.
I do not.
Too much woman?
Not my type… of woman or music.
I believe love has different categories and levels within those categories.
Also, I believe that the longer we are with someone we eventually become complacent. That is the most dangerous level of love in my opinion.
A dangerous level of love… that needs to be a song or a band or a book. Or a t-shirt…
I’m feeling very poetic for some reason… it hit me last night, the post I just did a bit ago… it just went straight from my mind onto paper… in about 30 seconds. It sucks but I made no corrections. At least my writer’s vlock seems to be lifting, even if it is only producing subsatisfactory clumps of words…
writer’s vlock is the worst kind of vlock for a writer to have… I was vlocked for two weeks once… it was vlocking annoying…
Ahh I made a new word without realizing it again. It has a certain appeal to it though…
I like it.
Vlock the vlocking vlockers.
yeah!
Also… in many MANY cases, love becomes more work than it’s worth (I mean in the respect of a romantic type relationship which is only one of the categories of love)
Love can be a lot of work.
Which is ok… if both people are working at it… that’s what I meant by complacency.
I knew what you meant.
Oh yeah… I forgot you have that ability. You have unvlocked the psychic gate.
I feel unvlocked.
Is that a good feeling?
I think so… or sink tho
Have you acquired a lisp?
thertainly
Haha!
Vlock. Sounds like an alien species…
I will use that in book 5…
Awww really? 😀
I will try.
Kat-It sounds like loving you could be just a little complicated what with all those levels and categories.
Ahh Lord Forehead… you have no idea!
The most important level… is level headed…
But… which head is the most important head?
The one I think with… ha!
Um…
exactly…
Like the revised gravatar? Better do, lighting and makeup. Not so ruddy as before. Art will have to find another stick to poke the bear with now.
I thought you looked different… younger… less hedgehoggie…
More handsome, sexier, buff and 20lbs lighter too. Should have done it much sooner. Next I’ll look into those “growth” ads I keep getting in spam. Perhaps a third gravatar. OR NOT.
Your head is 20 pounds lighter???
Commenting on here is neural suicide. Commenting here has to be covered in the DSM V as a mental disorder of some sort.
This is the doorway to wisdom and enlightenment.
Indeed, it can be.
But not all the time…
It is… rad.
(It’s all done with mirrors… and photoshop)
I figured
A little plastic surgery too.
Actually, I think I have a pretty good idea.
Don’t let it die of loneliness…
You obviously don’t know me then… just ask Arthur the Great…
Because I know all…
All the nonsensical stuff anyway…
Oh… yeah… right…
All girls got levels…
Don’t tell me…you got new shoes?
Two pair. 11.5 EEEE
I knew it…I can tell these things you know; all it needs is three weeks of surveillance.
I had size 11 feet… when I was 11…
I only have size 10…I feel so inadequate…
We can’t all be normal sized.
Ha… 15…
I got big shoes…
What can i say TBE? Quad E too. All that length and width too.
umm… huh?
The shoe size. SIGH I don’t blame you for not reading this stuff. I seldom bother myself. I just type something out on a whim and it seems to always get a response. After the first ten comments in a thread all bets are off.
You seem to read the comments on my blog before or instead of reading the posts…
Actually, I did read the post, but I just didn’t feel up to being that deep tonight, know what I mean. This from Girls Being Girls blog post tonight: “It’s the older people in life who have the most beautiful marriage stories. Their stories are full of pain and resolution. They understand that there are rules to marriage, but it’s not the rules that make the marriage last. For a marriage to last and become beautiful, somewhere along the line it has to really break the rules and persevere through the hard times.”
I thought, I’d really like to add to this, but I just don’t have it in me to focus tonight. Sometimes on posts where I feel like that, I click “Like” and just enter “Later,” in the comment box and come back when I can focus. Tonight is one of those nights. I may feel different tomorrow and be more respectful of your effort. I just seem to be a little scattered tonight.
That was pretty good focus for not focusing.
Yeah, but not my words. Willing spirit, crashing body. Just wearing myself down so I can sleep.
I was just teasing.
Bonnie Raitt says love has nothing to do with porcupines or gloves.
I disagree.
It means never having to say you’re sorry… and it stings… or stinks… and cuts like a knife… and it is a many-splendored blind thing.
Sort of like, “And don’t call me Shirley,” following “Surely you don;t mean that!” My favorite when growing up was, “What’s that in the road, a head?”
HA! Is that a Benny Hill quote? I remember one: I call my car the Mayflower, on account of all the puritans that have come across in it… and don’t look now, but a bird is trying to eat your head.
Actually, the Shirley/Surely line comes from one of “The Naked Gun” series of comic movies with Leslie Nielsen, may he R.I.P. The other is just one from my family that goes back a long way. . ..
I thought Naked Gun stole it. Maybe.
Probably. . .I have a feeling it’s been around a long time, too!
Classic is the word.