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.
Šta je to ljubav? Ozbiljno, šta je to? Šta je ljubav? Glagol? Imenica? Opšta istina? Ideal? Zajednička nit svih religija? Kult? Neurološka pojava? Odgovora ima na pretek. Neki su sveobuhvatni. Ona pobeđuje sve. Ona je sve što vam je potrebno. Ljubav je sve što postoji. Ipak, sve ovo su poređenja, načini da se ljubav opiše uz pomoć kontrasta, govoreći da je bitnija od svih drugih stvari, ali da li je? Naravno, ljubav je bitnija od standardnog sendviča sa ćuretinom ali da li je bitnija od smeštaja? Ili zdravog uma? Ili odličnog sendviča sa ćuretinom? Bez obzira na odgovor, vi je samo rangirate, ne definišete je. Još jedan izazov kod definisanja ljubavi je to što to često pokušavamo da uradimo dok se zaljubljujemo ili odljubljujemo. Da li biste nekom ko je tek dobio na lutriji verovali da vam tačno definiše koncept novca? Ili recimo, pitate nekoga da definiše medvede dok se bori sa njima? Ili, zar romansa nije poput dobitka na lutriji? Zar raskidi nisu poput napada medveda? Loša poređenja? U tome je poenta. Ne razmišljam trezveno jer sam zaljubljen, pa eto! Vratimo se korak unazad ili stanimo pod hladan tuš, šta god, ljubav je potencijalno stvar o kojoj se najviše razmišlja u celoj istoriji čovečanstva. Uprkos vekovima opsesije, još uvek nas nadvladava. Neki kažu da je osećanje, magična emocija, osećanje prema nekom kakvo nikad pre niste iskusili. Ali osećanja su neuhvatljiva i nisu čvrsta osnova za definiciju. Ponekad mrzite onog koga volite. Plus, 'ajde, i pre ste se osećali tako, u manjoj razmeri. Veze sa vašom porodicom oblikuju veze sa vašim partnerima. A vaša ljubav prema vašem partneru može biti u sopstvenoj dinamičnoj vezi, zdravoj ili potpuno čudnoj, sa ljubavlju prema vašim roditeljima, braćom i sestrama. Ljubav je i grupa ponašanja koja povezujemo sa osećanjem - držanje za ruke, ljubljenje, grljenje, javni izlivi nežnosti, izlasci, brak, deca ili samo seks. Ali ovi činovi ljubavi mogu biti subjektivni ili relativni u odnosu na kulturu. Možda volite nekog ili ste vi neko ko ne može da ima decu ili ne želi, ko veruje u brak ali i u razvod, ko je iz kulture gde ljudi ne idu na sastanke na kakve mi mislimo, ili neko ko samo ne želi da se ljubi u autobusu. Ali ako je ljubav nešto što možemo definisati, kako onda može imati suprotna značenja za toliko ljudi? Možda je ljubav samo u vašoj glavi, lična misterija koja se kreće vašim nervnim putevima i pokreće prijatne, prirodne nagrade u vašem nervnom sistemu. Možda su ove nagrade zarazne. Možda je ljubav privremena ili trajna zavisnost od neke osobe, isto kao što neko može biti zavistan od droge. Ne bih da budem oštar poput neke pop pesme. Postoje dokazi da hemikalije u vašem mozgu koje stimuliše druga osoba mogu da prouzrokuju sticanje navike ka toj osobi. Ta osoba zadovoljava fiziološku potrebu i vi želite više. Ali ponekad, polako ili iznenada, to se ne dešava. Odljubili ste se, zavisnost je prestala, zauvek. Šta se desilo? Da li razvijemo toleranciju ili dostignemo granicu? Zašto neki ljubavnici ostaju zavisni jedni od drugih celog svog života? Možda da stvore nove živote, da produže vrstu? Možda je ljubav samo najbolji metod za DNK da omogući svoju kopiju. Postoje evolucioni argumenti za svako ljudsko ponašanje u vezi sa razmnožavanjem, od toga kako se prikazujemo potencijalnim partnerima, preko toga kako se ophodimo jedni prema drugima u vezi, do toga kako odgajamo decu. Stoga neki kažu da je osećanje koje mislite da imate u vašoj duši samo način da vas biologija natera da produžite vrstu. Priroda vas je odabrala da se zatreskate u zgodne ljude, isto kao što tera majmune da se zatreskaju u zgodne majmune i biologija ide dalje. Ali da li je ljubav samo to? Još gore, možda je ona samo ideja, lažni koncept kojim jedni druge uveravamo da treba da proživimo zbog lažnog osećanja svrhe? Možda je to konstrukt, ali hajde da budemo precizniji o tome šta je konstrukt jer je ljubav sačinjena od stvarnosti: naših iskustava, osećanja, hemije mozga, kulturnih očekivanja, naših života. Ova tvorevina se može posmatrati kroz bezbroj dimenzija: naučnu, emocionalnu, istorijsku, duhovnu, pravnu ili samo ličnu. Ako ne postoje dve iste osobe, ne postoji ni ista ljubav dve osobe. U svakoj vezi gde je prisutna ljubav, ima dosta toga za razgovor i partneri treba da budu otvoreni za to, inače veza verovatno neće potrajati. Ljubav je uvek otvorena za diskusiju i naravno, nije završena. Ako ne možemo da je definišemo, to je dobar znak. Znači da je još uvek svi vodimo. Stanite, nisam mislio, znate na šta sam mislio.