What is love? Seriously, though, what is it? What is love? A verb? A noun? A universal truth? An ideal? A common thread of all religions? A cult? A neurological phenomenon? There's no shortage of answers. Some are all-encompassing. It conquers all. It's all you need. It's all there is. These are all comparisons, though, ways of defining it by contrast, by saying it's more important than all other things, but is it? Sure, love matters more than your standard turkey sandwich, but does it matter more than shelter? Or sanity? Or an exceptional turkey sandwich? No matter your answer, you're just ranking it, not defining it. Another challenge to defining love is we often try to do so while falling into it or out of it. Would you trust someone who just won the lottery to accurately define the concept of currency? Or, I don't know, ask a guy to define bears while he's fending them off? Or is romance not like winning the lottery? Are break ups not like bear attacks? Bad comparisons? That's my point. I'm not thinking right because I'm in love, so ha! Taking a step back, or taking a cold shower, whatever, love is potentially the most intensely thought about thing in all of human history. And despite centuries upon centuries of obsession, it still overwhelms us. Some say it's a feeling, a magical emotion, a feeling for someone like you've never felt before. But feelings are fluid, not very concrete foundation for a definition. Sometimes you hate the person you love. Plus, come on, you've felt feelings like it before, sort of in miniature. Your relationships with your family shape your relationships with partners. And your love for your partner may be in its own dynamic relationship, healthy or totally weird, with the love of your parents and siblings. Love is also a set of behaviors we associate with the feeling: Holding hands, kissing, hugging, public displays of affection, dating, marriage, having kids, or just sex. But these loving actions can be subjective or culturally relative. You may love or be someone who can't have kids or doesn't want to, who believes in marriage but also in divorce, who's from a culture where people don't really date the way we think of dating, or who just doesn't want to make out on the bus. But if love is a thing that we can define, then how can it mean opposite things for so many people? So, maybe love's just all in your head, a personal mystery winding through your neural pathways and lighting up pleasing, natural rewards in your nervous system. Perhaps these rewards are addictive. Perhaps love is a temporary or permanent addiction to a person, just like a person can be addicted to a drug. I don't mean to be edgy like some pop song. Evidence shows that chemicals in your brain stimulated by another person can make you develop a habit for that person. The person comes to satisfy a physiological craving, and you want more. But then sometimes, slowly or suddenly, you don't. You've fallen out of love, become unaddicted, for a spell. What happened? Does one develop a tolerance or hit a limit? Why do some lovers stay addicted to each other their entire lives? Perhaps to create new lives, to proliferate their species? Maybe love is just human DNA's optimal method for bringing about its own replication. There are evolutionary arguments regarding every human mating behavior, from how we display ourselves to potential mates, to how we treat each other in relationships, to how we raise kids. Thus, some argue that the feeling you think you feel in your soul is just biology's way to make you continue our species. Nature has selected you to have crushes on hotties, just like it makes monkeys have crushes on hot monkeys, and biology marches on. But is that all love is? Or, perhaps worse, is it just a construct, some fake concept we all convince each other to try to live up to for a fake sense of purpose? Maybe it is a construct, but let's be more precise about what a construct is because love is constructed from reality: Our experiences, feelings, brain chemistry, cultural expectations, our lives. And this edifice can be viewed through countless dimensions: scientific, emotional, historical, spiritual, legal, or just personal. If no two people are the same, no two people's love is the same either. So, in every loving relationship, there's a lot to talk about and partners should be open to that, or the relationship probably won't last. Love is always up for discussion and, sure, under construction. So, if we can't define it, that's a good sign. It means we're all still making it. Wait, I didn't mean, you know what I meant.
Što je ljubav? Ne, stvarno, što je? Što je ljubav? Glagol? Imenica? Univerzalna istina? Ideal? Zajednička nit svih religija? Kult? Neurološki fenomen? Odgovora nikad ne nedostaje. Neki su sveobuhvatni. Pobjeđuje sve. Sve je što trebaš. Samo ona i postoji. To su ipak usporedbe, način definiranja kontrastom, rekavši da je bitnija od svih drugih stvari, no je li stvarno? Ljubav i je bitnija od običnog sendviča s puretinom, no je li važnija od skloništa? Zdravog razuma? Ili stvarno dobrog sendviča s puretinom? Bez obzira na tvoj odgovor, samo ju procjenjuješ, a ne definiraš. Još je teže definirati ljubav jer to često pokušavamo dok se zaljubljujemo ili odljubljujemo. Bi li vjerovao nekom tko je osvojio na lutriji da precizno definira pojam valute? Ili da, recimo, pitaš čovjeka da definira medvjede dok se od njih brani? No, nije li romantika kao dobitak na lutriji? Nisu li prekidi kao napadi medvjeda? Loše usporedbe? To i govorim. Ne razmišljam kako treba jer sam zaljubljen, ha! Odmaknuvši se, ili stavši pod hladan tuš štogod, ljubav je možda tema o kojoj se najviše razmišljalo u ljudskoj povijesti. Unatoč stoljećima i stoljećima opsjednutosti, još uvijek nas zadivljuje. Neki kažu da je osjećaj, čarobna emocija, osjećaj kakav nikad nisi osjetio. No osjećaji su promjenjivi, nisu čvrst temelj definicije. Ponekad mrziš osobu koju voliš. I, priznaj, osjećao si takve osjećaje prije, samo u manjim okvirima. Tvoj odnos s obitelji oblikuje tvoje veze s partnerima. Tvoja ljubav prema partneru može biti u vlastitoj dinamičnoj vezi, zdravoj ili posve čudnoj, s ljubavi tvojih roditelja, braće i sestara. Ljubav je i skupina ponašanja koje povezujemo s osjećajem: držanje ruku, ljubljenje, grljenje, javni izljevi pažnje, izlaženje, brak, imati djecu, ili samo seks. No ta djela ljubavi mogu biti subjektivni ili ovisiti o kulturi. Možeš voljeti nekoga ili biti netko tko ne može imati djecu, ili ne želi, tko vjeruje u brak, ali i u rastavu, tko je iz kulture gdje ljudi ne hodaju onako kako mi vidimo hodanje, ili se jednostavno ne želiš ljubiti u autobusu. Ali ako ljubav možemo definirati, zašto predstavlja različite stvari različitim ljudima? Pa, možda je ljubav samo u tvojoj glavi, osobni misterij koji vijuga tvojim živčanim stazama, koji stvara zadovoljavajuće prirodne nagrade u tvom živčanom sustavu. Možda možeš biti ovisan o tim nagradama. Možda je ljubav privremena ili trajna ovisnost o osobi, kao što osoba može biti ovisna o drogi. Ne želim biti ćudljiv kao pop pjesma. Dokazi pokazuju da kemikalije u mozgu stimulirane nekom osobom mogu stvoriti naviku prema toj osobi. Osoba onda zadovoljava fiziološku žudnju, i samo želiš još. A onda ponekad, polako ili iznenadno, ne želiš. Odljubio si se, više nisi ovisan, na kratko vrijeme. Što se dogodilo? Razvije li se tolerancija, ili se dođe do granice? Zašto su neki ljubavnici ovisni jedno o drugome cijeli život? Možda zbog stvaranja novog života, zbog održavanja vrste? Možda je ljubav optimalna metoda ljudske DNA za provođenje vlastite replikacije. Postoje evolucijski argumenti o svakom ljudskom ponašanju oko parenja, od načina na koji se pokazujemo mogućim partnerima, do međusobnih odnosa u vezama, te načina na koji odgajamo djecu. Zato neki kažu da je osjećaj, za koji misliš da ga osjetiš u duši, tek metoda biologije za opstanak vrsta. Priroda te odabrala da budeš zaljubljen u zgodne ljude, kao što je odabrala majmune da budu zaljubljeni u zgodne majmune, i biologija nastavlja dalje. Je li ljubav samo to? Ili je, možda, tvorevina, lažni koncept za kojeg se uvjeravamo da je bitno doživjeti ga zbog lažnog osjećaja svrhe. Možda i je tvorevina, no budimo precizniji oko toga što tvorevina je, jer je ljubav stvorena iz stvarnosti: naših iskustava, osjećaja, kemije našeg mozga, kulturnih očekivanja, te naših života. Tu se strukturu može gledati kroz bezbroj dimenzija: znanstvenu, emocionalnu, povijesnu, duhovnu, pravnu, ili samo osobnu. Ako dvoje ljudi nikad nisu isti, ni ljubavi između dvoje ljudi nisu iste. U svakoj vezi u kojoj ima ljubavi, ima i puno tema za razgovor, i partneri bi trebali skloni tomu, jer u suprotnom veza neće potrajati. Ljubav je uvijek sporna i, istina, uvijek u izgradnji. Pa, ako ju ne možemo definirati, to je dobar znak. Znači da ju još pravimo. Čekaj, nisam to mislio, znaš na što mislim.