Love

Ancient Greek cultures identify four different types of love: familiarity, friendship, sexual and/or romantic desire, and self-emptying (divine love). Many other cultures also distinguish various other forms of these types. Compared to other emotions, the varied use, understanding, and meanings of love makes it difficult to accurately define. Biological models of love tend to view love as a drive of the human body, like hunger or thirst. A leading expert in the field of love, Helen Fisher, divides the experience of love into three overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. These three stages seek to put a scientific face to the term, and explain love by means of biology. For instance, Lust, is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. There are studies in neuroscience indicating that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including the neurotransmitter hormones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Psychologist, Robert Sternburg, formulated a triangular theory of love, and argued that love has three different components: intimacy, commitment, and passion, and all forms of love are observed as varying combinations of these three components. Robert A. Heinlein wrote that, “love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” The philosopher Aristotle said, “love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” John Mayer is convinced that, “love ain’t a thing, love is a verb.” According to the Beatles, “all you need is love.” But, if you ask me, love was a made up word by a less than articulate guy who made matters unimaginably more complicated for everybody else down the line with his fatuousness.