Humans tell stories, and that is a central way in which we differ from other animals. We weave the elements of our lives together like a tapestry. Story telling is a way to create familiarity, and in this way stories create safety.
Who doesn't like a good story? Stories are used to impart morals and values, to tell others about the sentinal events that shaped us, and to pass culture to the next generation. Stories connect us to our past, give meaning to our present, and to cement a direction to the future. Story telling must have begun soon after languge appeared in humans: it is so compelling that we cannot sit long without anyone telling or listening to one.
In the same way, love is a story.
Love is a product of our mind that interprets for us, makes sense of, our pair bonding experience. Love is about creating a new story that binds lovers together in a timeline that is remembered as a series of varying contexts and events. No love is without a story: where you met, the first time you made love, the bitter way that it ended. Stories about love are told through ballads, books, blogs and countless venues. Almost all bars are filled with simultaneous story telling groups, male or female, old and young. The conversations at water fountains are frequently stories about love gone well or badly or longed for. All mythology is story. Religions are all story.
Love is a powerful, often referenced phenomenon, ubiquitous and omnipresent throughout human history. Love is biologically based and neocortex-mediated for each individual. There is no specific region in the brain where "love" resides (although the dopamine center releases its stuff when we think about or see pictures of our beloved), but you would expect there to be one: it is probable that "love" is nothing more than what you decide to call the release of dopamine and other hormones and neurotransmitters that gives us the "special feeling" as we desire a particular person. If we feel sexual desire for anyone, it may or may not be that we have decided to interpret this as love; more likely, love begins as we expand our experiences with someone in the throws of sexual interaction. The sex becomes a cement to the story we are building.
When we behave in ways that ensure our partner's well-being, growth and development are as important to us as our own, than we have made them the central character in our story.
Who doesn't like a good story? Stories are used to impart morals and values, to tell others about the sentinal events that shaped us, and to pass culture to the next generation. Stories connect us to our past, give meaning to our present, and to cement a direction to the future. Story telling must have begun soon after languge appeared in humans: it is so compelling that we cannot sit long without anyone telling or listening to one.
In the same way, love is a story.
Love is a product of our mind that interprets for us, makes sense of, our pair bonding experience. Love is about creating a new story that binds lovers together in a timeline that is remembered as a series of varying contexts and events. No love is without a story: where you met, the first time you made love, the bitter way that it ended. Stories about love are told through ballads, books, blogs and countless venues. Almost all bars are filled with simultaneous story telling groups, male or female, old and young. The conversations at water fountains are frequently stories about love gone well or badly or longed for. All mythology is story. Religions are all story.
Love is a powerful, often referenced phenomenon, ubiquitous and omnipresent throughout human history. Love is biologically based and neocortex-mediated for each individual. There is no specific region in the brain where "love" resides (although the dopamine center releases its stuff when we think about or see pictures of our beloved), but you would expect there to be one: it is probable that "love" is nothing more than what you decide to call the release of dopamine and other hormones and neurotransmitters that gives us the "special feeling" as we desire a particular person. If we feel sexual desire for anyone, it may or may not be that we have decided to interpret this as love; more likely, love begins as we expand our experiences with someone in the throws of sexual interaction. The sex becomes a cement to the story we are building.
When we behave in ways that ensure our partner's well-being, growth and development are as important to us as our own, than we have made them the central character in our story.
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