What is love? Like, actually?
Last week, my classmates and I received an introduction class to IB Psychology in which we were exposed to the subject’s learning expectations and assessments. My teacher went on to explain that in IB Psychology, matters are typically analysed from three perspectives: biological, cognitive, and socio-cultural. But this isn’t about that. What really has been grinding my brain this past week is a prompt statement that was shown in my teacher’s presentation: “love is non-existent, it is just a chemical reaction.”
Technically, yes; love is a chemical reaction. I’m pretty sure it has a lot to do with dopamine and oxytocin (and some other chemicals I’m not quite sure of — perhaps, norepinephrine and serotonin; do correct me if I’m wrong), but nonetheless it is a chemical reaction. The way I see it though, just because it’s a chemical reaction doesn’t mean it’s non-existent.
If one says “love isn’t real because it’s a chemical reaction”, would that mean that us humans aren’t real because we’re essentially just cells? I personally would prefer to believe that we’re real, that everything is real — the universe, our actions and its consequences, life, reality, everything.
In fact, I think everything is more than just some scientific phenomenon. I think the idea of classifying human emotion and behaviour and everything that ‘exist’ along with our ‘existence’ as chemical, biological, scientific-whatever reactions truly restricts expressing our experiences while encountering a bunch of matters. For example, being in love.
A lot of people have different experiences with being in love, particularly romantic love. Sometimes it’s positive — the butterflies, the smiles, the blushes, the giggles, checking your phone every 5 minutes to see whether or not they’ve texted, doing stuff you don’t normally do and still enjoying them; and sometimes it’s negative — the anger, the tears, begging for them to come back, having to pretend like you’re strangers. Regardless of your experience with it, I think we can all agree that love is great (great as in big, grand, gigantic, huge), that it is more than just a chemical reaction. It’s an emotion, an experience, a journey — something that has the power to affect one’s being to an extent far greater than an independent variable to a dependent variable in a science experiment.
I’m just saying that there are cases in which people have actually turned insane because of love.
Enough about the ‘debate’ on whether or not love (or even anything, for that matter) ‘exists’, let’s get to the real question: what even is love?
If you typed in “define love” onto your search bar in whatever search engine you use, the first thing that would pop up would be the dictionary definition of the word ‘love’, including,
“an intense feeling of deep affection.” [n]
or,
“feel deep affection for (someone).” [v]
But I think those dictionary definitions do not quite capture the exact essence of love. To call ‘love’ a feeling of deep affection somewhat simplifies it because truth be told, love is complex. It goes far beyond affection; some may even say it transcends earthly and materialistic matters.
As far as I’m concerned, everyone interprets the word ‘love’ uniquely — and they all have different ways of expressing it. Even if, somehow, there’s someone or something that could encompass all love expressed into the form of words, it’d be a very hard-to-read paragraph full of big words and abstract imageries.
So, here’s what love is to me, a 15-year-old high school student who spends most of her time listening to Taylor Swift and Arctic Monkeys songs and reading romance novels.
Beware: very cheesy.
I think love is like the earth; not in the sense of its size, but rather in the sense of its nature. It’s not constant — it’s always changing.
Love can be clear blue skies, fields of red roses, pear sweet air, and sun-kissed beaches. It can be the most beautiful experience on earth — one that is so longed for by hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of people. It’s the idea that you could be so head over heels for someone to the point that you feel like swimming in clouds, maybe even willing to risk or change certain aspects of yourself and/or your life with the hopes of that certain someone eventually reciprocating that same level of emotion and effort.
It’s waiting for their texts, unknowingly staring at them, noticing little details about them, being able to spot them in the midst of a crowd, being reminded of them by the most unassuming objects.
But love can also be gloomy skies, angry sea storms, long droughts, and rough winds — the most painful experience anyone could go through. You could be capable of loving someone so much that you begin to hurt or lose yourself in the process. Love can be terrible.
It’s being let down by the one person you’ve put so much hope in, feeling that your efforts aren’t reciprocated, feeling that you’re not enough for them, heartbreak.
Love can’t just be one of the two — it’s both. The clear blue skies and the gloomy ones. If you aren’t willing to love both, should that even be considered love?
I think that’s what love is: accepting and unconditional. Knowing that you’ll always show the same amount of effort, being willing to stay by their side, accepting all aspects of them and their life — regardless of whatever. And that’s what makes love so grand.
Your turn. What is love?