So February is all about: L-O-V-E, love. I've blogged about this a few times... It confuses me and I know I'm not alone in that! The truth is, I think I am indeed what a certain jerk once dubbed me: Lovelorn.
In a few days it will be the 14th and as much as we all despise the silliness that is the Hallmark Holiday, there's no reason to hate love, right? I want to love love! I admit it, and this year I'm going to try (just a teensy bit harder) to be less cynical about the whole thing. Plus, V-day gives me another excuse to to ponder my favorite, or least favorite 4-letter word. I'm still not sure. So while some friends are shopping for garter belts or planning weekends away, I'm blogging. Yeah.
I happen to be one of those horoscope reading girls but only the good ones and this week I was especially excited by the advice Mr. Brezsny gave me about my heart. Whether or not you care about astrology or oracles, this site is still full of interesting advice and ideas. Feeling hungry for a little more insight I decided to go ahead and read all the signs today! Maybe that's against the astrological rules or something but why stop with just mine when there are so many little nuggets of love-related advice for the week? I couldn't help myself!
Since I can't seem to define it, I'm always tickled by other peoples' ideas about love. Below are some of the things that caught my eye this week! From horoscopes other than my own, these are the quotes I liked:
"When we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours," wrote author Robert Fulghum, "we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness -- and call it love."
For best results, cultivate the attitude described by the philosopher Voltaire in a letter to his partner Marie Louise Denis: "Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed."
Gertrude Stein defined love as "the skillful audacity required to share an inner life."
"The person one loves never really exists," said Arthur C. Clarke, "but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion."
"May the color blue behold your body while sun washes your shoulders near the window. May your lips refuse the kiss unless your heart is home. May euphoria find you in the place where you are lonely. May you light a billion candles with your mind." - artist and poet Wolff Bowden
"Greet one another with a holy kiss," says the Bible's first book of Corinthians
OK. So I'm thinking the first one is the best. I like that one. And I keep thinking of a quote from the movie "True Romance", if you've seen it you know how it relates. I may or may not be on the path towards love, but right now what sounds best to me is the prospect of finding someone to say this to:
"you're so cool"
Oh, and as much as I love avoidance, this is the advice I got from my own horoscope:
Capricorn, carry out the following assignments. First, practice loving something or someone you don't understand. Second, any time you start longing to be loved more than you are, make it a point to go out and love someone more than you have in the past. Third, visualize your heart growing softer and warmer and more receptive.
OK, alright, added to the list...
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Cuddle Season
Little by little the nights are getting colder, the soft flannels are coming out and things made with pumpkin can be found in every coffee shop. All of this indicates to me that it is now (as a friend once dubbed it): Cuddle Season. Since the only cuddling I’m doing at the moment is with my books, and everyone around me seems to be in a relationship I must once again return to the ever-relevant topic of love.
I have looked to friends, artists, musicians, writers, poets, philosophers and even a few terrible movies with the hope of finding a truer and clearer definition for love, yet I’m always left wanting a little more. This time I’m trying out science. A few facts can surely sort out this mess… right?
A couple of weeks ago I had a wonderful dinner with a "coupled" friend. She is one of the ones in love and we were discussing relationships and dating, among other things. During the conversation she mentioned a book she had just read called "The Female Brain" and since she's also the reason I read "Cunt" (which I highly recommend) I decided to pick it up and mix up my nighttime reading. Seeing as how all of the women authors I had been reading in the past couple of weeks were ones who’d committed suicide early in life, it seemed like a good idea to switch it up and mellow out with a female scientist; Louann Brizendine, M.D.
The book focuses on the female brain and is broken down into phases starting from the womb and finishing with the postmenopausal brain. It also highlights some of the characteristics of the male brain along the way. A lot of what Brizendine covers seemed somewhat obvious to me but there were certain things that stood out particularly from the chapter entitled "Love and Trust". It’s easy to understand the positive feel-good side of love, (especially if you’re in it) but what about all the other shit? Well, according to this book both sides can be traced back to chemicals.
Romantic love seems to have a way of betraying us, and sometimes that means going against our own better judgment. Brizandine states that, "Once a person is in love, the cautious, critical-thinking pathways in the brain shut down. Evolution may have made these in-love brain circuits to ensure we find a mate and then focus in exclusively on that one person […] Falling in love is one of the most irrational behaviors or brain states imaginable for both men and women. The brain becomes "illogical" in the throes of new romance, literally blind to the shortcomings of the lover. It is an evolutionary state." (p. 65) So, love can make us a dumb version of ourselves? Ok, I think we can find plenty of evidence in books and song lyrics alone to support that idea but what makes love so powerful?
What I find most interesting about the neurology of love is how closely it resembles addiction. "Passionately being in love or so-called infatuation-love is now a documented brain state. It shares brain circuits with states of obsession, mania, intoxication, thirst, and hunger. […] The brain circuits that are activated when we are in love match those of a drug addict desperately craving the next fix." (p. 66) She even goes on to describe how it’s almost the exact same thing as taking Ecstasy and says that, "romantic love is a natural Ecstasy high." (p. 66) If our brain is telling us that the love of our life is on the same level of importance as water it’s a pretty intense sense of need, and yet that’s not the reality! Or is it? We know that biology steers us towards procreation but why do our bodies and brains make us betray our hearts at times? If the physical system is designed for perfect matching why do we seem destined to make so many mistakes along the way?
In an example of the initial meeting between a particular man and woman Brizandine describes how everything falls into place in terms of connection and all of a sudden, "wham, hot, knee-buckling waves of attraction and desire are flooding her body with a heady rush of dopamine – sparking euphoria and excitement." (p.59) As I’ve discussed some of these topics among friends and swapped a few of our "knee-buckling" experiences, it seems to be the same among women I know from the age of 18 to 50; the best feeling ones are always the worst in the end! (This may seem like an unfair generalization regarding men but it just so happens to be the common experience from what I know and hear.) Obviously there are a million other factors that go into this but it got me thinking about how I conduct myself in terms of relationships and physical interactions with men. If all of these chemicals are firing off in my body what level of control do I have?
Whether or not it’s a relationship, casual dating or simply "hooking up", it’s interesting to observe how we can end up submitting ourselves to different levels of torture. We may intend to enter a relationship and take all of the risks that come along with it, and this is often rewarding even if there’s pain involved; but I used to think casual sex could be safe from the emotional let-down as long as I could do it without attachment. I’ve been frustrated to discover that it’s not that simple (even though my logical brain wishes it could be) and now I begin to see why.
Even something as simple as a hug can start the chemical surge that my body will find pleasure in and later crave. "From an experiment on hugging we know that oxytocin is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug from a partner – sealing the bond between the huggers and triggering the brain’s trust circuits." (p. 68) Not only does a hug release the same chemicals as an orgasm, but it can create a trust bond that may not be deserved! So we have to be careful when we’re making physical contact, it can end up being as dangerous as tempting your body with a new and highly addictive drug.
Poetry… chemicals… confusion. The mystery of love still remains. As always, for every question I can answer for myself a million new ones arise. So for now I have to let it (and myself) rest. It’s nice to understand what happens in the body and brain and it can sometimes be nice not to. Tonight I will curl up in my feather down comforter, tomorrow I may drink a pumpkin latte and to all you couples; enjoy your oxytocin-dopamine highs while they last.
Happy Cuddle Season!
I have looked to friends, artists, musicians, writers, poets, philosophers and even a few terrible movies with the hope of finding a truer and clearer definition for love, yet I’m always left wanting a little more. This time I’m trying out science. A few facts can surely sort out this mess… right?
A couple of weeks ago I had a wonderful dinner with a "coupled" friend. She is one of the ones in love and we were discussing relationships and dating, among other things. During the conversation she mentioned a book she had just read called "The Female Brain" and since she's also the reason I read "Cunt" (which I highly recommend) I decided to pick it up and mix up my nighttime reading. Seeing as how all of the women authors I had been reading in the past couple of weeks were ones who’d committed suicide early in life, it seemed like a good idea to switch it up and mellow out with a female scientist; Louann Brizendine, M.D.
The book focuses on the female brain and is broken down into phases starting from the womb and finishing with the postmenopausal brain. It also highlights some of the characteristics of the male brain along the way. A lot of what Brizendine covers seemed somewhat obvious to me but there were certain things that stood out particularly from the chapter entitled "Love and Trust". It’s easy to understand the positive feel-good side of love, (especially if you’re in it) but what about all the other shit? Well, according to this book both sides can be traced back to chemicals.
Romantic love seems to have a way of betraying us, and sometimes that means going against our own better judgment. Brizandine states that, "Once a person is in love, the cautious, critical-thinking pathways in the brain shut down. Evolution may have made these in-love brain circuits to ensure we find a mate and then focus in exclusively on that one person […] Falling in love is one of the most irrational behaviors or brain states imaginable for both men and women. The brain becomes "illogical" in the throes of new romance, literally blind to the shortcomings of the lover. It is an evolutionary state." (p. 65) So, love can make us a dumb version of ourselves? Ok, I think we can find plenty of evidence in books and song lyrics alone to support that idea but what makes love so powerful?
What I find most interesting about the neurology of love is how closely it resembles addiction. "Passionately being in love or so-called infatuation-love is now a documented brain state. It shares brain circuits with states of obsession, mania, intoxication, thirst, and hunger. […] The brain circuits that are activated when we are in love match those of a drug addict desperately craving the next fix." (p. 66) She even goes on to describe how it’s almost the exact same thing as taking Ecstasy and says that, "romantic love is a natural Ecstasy high." (p. 66) If our brain is telling us that the love of our life is on the same level of importance as water it’s a pretty intense sense of need, and yet that’s not the reality! Or is it? We know that biology steers us towards procreation but why do our bodies and brains make us betray our hearts at times? If the physical system is designed for perfect matching why do we seem destined to make so many mistakes along the way?
In an example of the initial meeting between a particular man and woman Brizandine describes how everything falls into place in terms of connection and all of a sudden, "wham, hot, knee-buckling waves of attraction and desire are flooding her body with a heady rush of dopamine – sparking euphoria and excitement." (p.59) As I’ve discussed some of these topics among friends and swapped a few of our "knee-buckling" experiences, it seems to be the same among women I know from the age of 18 to 50; the best feeling ones are always the worst in the end! (This may seem like an unfair generalization regarding men but it just so happens to be the common experience from what I know and hear.) Obviously there are a million other factors that go into this but it got me thinking about how I conduct myself in terms of relationships and physical interactions with men. If all of these chemicals are firing off in my body what level of control do I have?
Whether or not it’s a relationship, casual dating or simply "hooking up", it’s interesting to observe how we can end up submitting ourselves to different levels of torture. We may intend to enter a relationship and take all of the risks that come along with it, and this is often rewarding even if there’s pain involved; but I used to think casual sex could be safe from the emotional let-down as long as I could do it without attachment. I’ve been frustrated to discover that it’s not that simple (even though my logical brain wishes it could be) and now I begin to see why.
Even something as simple as a hug can start the chemical surge that my body will find pleasure in and later crave. "From an experiment on hugging we know that oxytocin is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug from a partner – sealing the bond between the huggers and triggering the brain’s trust circuits." (p. 68) Not only does a hug release the same chemicals as an orgasm, but it can create a trust bond that may not be deserved! So we have to be careful when we’re making physical contact, it can end up being as dangerous as tempting your body with a new and highly addictive drug.
Poetry… chemicals… confusion. The mystery of love still remains. As always, for every question I can answer for myself a million new ones arise. So for now I have to let it (and myself) rest. It’s nice to understand what happens in the body and brain and it can sometimes be nice not to. Tonight I will curl up in my feather down comforter, tomorrow I may drink a pumpkin latte and to all you couples; enjoy your oxytocin-dopamine highs while they last.
Happy Cuddle Season!
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Love Schmove
Maybe it was due to the bad weather last week or the fact that we just started running our show... or maybe it's just another part of the "quarter-life-crisis". Whatever it may be, I've been feeling emo lately and I can't stop thinking about love...
This pesky-fucking-word has been giving me trouble lately. I can't quite define it but I can't get it off my mind either! This problem is keeping me up at night and taking up my precious dream-space so I've embarked on a mini quest to find out more about the word as well as the concept of love.
Part I: The Problem with Love
How can one word be used in so many ways? Why aren't there more words to describe all the different types of love? The only thing I can think of is that it would be impossible for this to happen because as far as I can tell every time "love" is spoken it's completely new! At least for me, I can't love anything or anyone the exact same way, so I guess I would have to make up a new word each time I wanted to say it. Needless to say, this could end up confusing a lot of people...
"I looe you mom"
"I lev that book so much!"
"God, I lof nachos" Seriously, I couldn't live without them.
"I luuuux the way I feel after good sex"
And yes, I do realize that there are other words in other languages, but they all mean the same thing right? How can we even begin to define this word? I want answers! So I started asking people, and of course, no one can pin it down.
Ia: Love, the word
Because I'm an actor I have a love/hate relationship with words. In theatre (and of course in life) words can be beautiful, powerful tools for communication. When used well words can do things. They can convey as well as evoke feelings, they can paint pictures in the imagination, they can hurt and they can heal. But sometimes words just mess everything up! Sometimes the best communication happens without words and sometimes words are abused.
When it comes to the word love I guess it all boils down to intention and understanding. In acting we try to communicate something to the audience using words, tone, inflection, context, movement and intention. These areas of focus can help make something more clear; but ultimately everyone will interpret the work in their own unique way. People communicating with each other in life can only get so far using these same devices, often unconsciously. How can you ever know if you're truly connecting though? It seems to me that all you can really know is your own intention and the clearer that is the better you can hope to communicate it.
Part II: That Thing
The Beatles said "All you need is love"
Stevie Nicks asked "Mirror in the sky what is love?"
Joni Mitchell has "looked at love from both sides now..."
And the Asteroid in our show has a few things to say about it too!
But really!!! What is it???
Well, being the impatient and impulsive girl I am I thought I could figure it out if I put my mind to it, asked around, did the research, talked about it in therapy. But apparently it doesn't work that way. And it's not that I've never said "I love you" or had it said to me...But each time is different and as these loves become a part of my past they start to feel like dreams I can't quite recall. I know I was there and I remember the feeling, sort of, but I can't get back. I can't identify with it in the same way so I guess I have to let it go and make space for something new.
Sometimes it feels like a silly thing to chase but at some point I hope I can rediscover love and find out once more what all the fuss is about. For now all I can say is:
Love schmove.
This pesky-fucking-word has been giving me trouble lately. I can't quite define it but I can't get it off my mind either! This problem is keeping me up at night and taking up my precious dream-space so I've embarked on a mini quest to find out more about the word as well as the concept of love.
Part I: The Problem with Love
How can one word be used in so many ways? Why aren't there more words to describe all the different types of love? The only thing I can think of is that it would be impossible for this to happen because as far as I can tell every time "love" is spoken it's completely new! At least for me, I can't love anything or anyone the exact same way, so I guess I would have to make up a new word each time I wanted to say it. Needless to say, this could end up confusing a lot of people...
"I looe you mom"
"I lev that book so much!"
"God, I lof nachos" Seriously, I couldn't live without them.
"I luuuux the way I feel after good sex"
And yes, I do realize that there are other words in other languages, but they all mean the same thing right? How can we even begin to define this word? I want answers! So I started asking people, and of course, no one can pin it down.
Ia: Love, the word
Because I'm an actor I have a love/hate relationship with words. In theatre (and of course in life) words can be beautiful, powerful tools for communication. When used well words can do things. They can convey as well as evoke feelings, they can paint pictures in the imagination, they can hurt and they can heal. But sometimes words just mess everything up! Sometimes the best communication happens without words and sometimes words are abused.
When it comes to the word love I guess it all boils down to intention and understanding. In acting we try to communicate something to the audience using words, tone, inflection, context, movement and intention. These areas of focus can help make something more clear; but ultimately everyone will interpret the work in their own unique way. People communicating with each other in life can only get so far using these same devices, often unconsciously. How can you ever know if you're truly connecting though? It seems to me that all you can really know is your own intention and the clearer that is the better you can hope to communicate it.
Part II: That Thing
The Beatles said "All you need is love"
Stevie Nicks asked "Mirror in the sky what is love?"
Joni Mitchell has "looked at love from both sides now..."
And the Asteroid in our show has a few things to say about it too!
But really!!! What is it???
Well, being the impatient and impulsive girl I am I thought I could figure it out if I put my mind to it, asked around, did the research, talked about it in therapy. But apparently it doesn't work that way. And it's not that I've never said "I love you" or had it said to me...But each time is different and as these loves become a part of my past they start to feel like dreams I can't quite recall. I know I was there and I remember the feeling, sort of, but I can't get back. I can't identify with it in the same way so I guess I have to let it go and make space for something new.
Sometimes it feels like a silly thing to chase but at some point I hope I can rediscover love and find out once more what all the fuss is about. For now all I can say is:
Love schmove.
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