The Nature Of Love

[lupestripe]

Is love just a form of pleasant brainwashing?

Comments

[metamorphosys.livejournal.com]

Some days I would agree, others not. Take care.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends what else is going on in your head, I agree.

[kitsunefury.livejournal.com]

Nobody can force you to love someone. Likewise nobody can force you not to, and nor can you really choose who you love or don't. It just sort of happens, much as we'd like to have control over that. Goodness knows I'd really like to be able to not love certain people that I do, but... eh. That's how things go I guess.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

So is it brainwashing? Emotional manipulation? If we have no control over it, it implies something sinister, even if it can be the most pleasurable thing ever.

[sphelx.livejournal.com]

"Love is a device designed by bank managers to make us overdrawn"

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Arnold Rimmer :P

[alexf0x.livejournal.com]

I would say that it's more like a drug hit. It's amazing when your on a high, but the cold turkey is a bitch.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I guess drugs act in a similar way - releasing endorphins and dopermine. I imagine love is merely a legal drug, an emotional one, which makes it all the more dangerous in many respects.

[agrajag-fur.livejournal.com]

Love is equally as pleasant as it is crushingly heart rending. It's the good times we hold out for, of course.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Indeed. It's the hope that kills us though.

[agrajag-fur.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's the hope - "hope lives 'ever in the soul". It's something else: something inconceivable and mysterious. I wish my affections were returned the way I give them.

[dark-raven-wolf.livejournal.com]

by you... of yourself.. yes

twice I have found myself.... wishing to exist... purely for the pleasure of someone else.. letting them set the game and the rules (wiht in reason)

which is.... as you should realise by now.... kinda contrary to my regular personality.... where I play on my terms by my rules

if that is not a form of self-minipulaton... I don't know what is

someone can't force you to love them... but you would be supprised how little your own life matters.... if it's the right someone and how much you would give.... even the world is not enough in payment for their happyness

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I tend to get a sense of perspective though. I find it painfully difficult to trust and I also have a sense of realism about things. I am often scared that things will fall through and this stops me from enjoying the moment so many times. I agree with what you say though, sometimes things have happened in my life as you describe.

[dark-raven-wolf.livejournal.com]

*nods*....i'm a great cynic.... it takes me at least 6 months to reach that point

I make dam sure I know what I'm doing first and that it is really worth that much..... that I have no doubts about what I'm doing

but in the moments....I suppose I just don't think...about anything but the pleasure of that moment

the rest of the world can go to hell for as long as that moment lasts

[tr-wolf.livejournal.com]

Well no, cos it's not making you get rid of your thought patterns, as brainwashing usually does.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

But it certainly influences your thought patterns, which is something that brainwashing also does.

[selth.livejournal.com]

depends on what you concentrate! to a neurologist, this will be checmicals reaching in a brain... to a psychologist, the act of breaking completely from your parents (alright, I'm no psychologist), to a poet something I can't even describe...

and to a nerd like me, well... I'll just throw a link, it'll explain it too well : http://xkcd.com/55/

anyway... what is love? why do I remember a video all of a sudden?

sorry, this won't help!

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Lols no worries. You sound like my Dad :P

[selth.livejournal.com]

meep!

[kiwihunter8.livejournal.com]

If it is, it's nature brainwashing you

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

We should stop nature from committing this sinister crime.

[symphonic-rp.livejournal.com]

More like self-deception and illusion. When in love I see things through rose-colored glasses. I see nothing for what it really is, and that which I love appears more beautiful than it actually is.

Love is like selective blindness. I know this person is dispickable and has many faults and failings besides. But I love this person. So I choose not to see all that. I choose instead to see an illusion I have built around the person. And I will believe in the illusion in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Potentially but then if you reside in bitterness or unhappiness, you could say the same is true. If it's a look on the world then is it brainwashing or merely how your brain is at any particular time? I see what you say but perhaps all emotions are merely brainwashing - infecting the rationale and the ego with their confusions.

[symphonic-rp.livejournal.com]

I think what you're trying to get at is what some would call the human condition. Is it part of the human condition that we constantly impress illusions on ourselves? And if so, is any human capable of seeing the world with true clarity?

Basically we are dreamers. We see certain things or certain people as being essential to the dreams we want to build.

I and my former mate both did this. We built illusions around each other so that we would see each other as what we each wanted and thought we needed. While we were able to hang onto these dreams that we impressed on each other, the relationship was successful. But the instant the illusions fell away, the relationship disintegrated. Love could not withstand the realization of reality.

If we are brainwashed into this sort of thing, I think the brainwashing comes from our cultures and religions, which lead us to have certain unrealistic expectations. We tend to believe there is some magical force out there called love which is capable of surmounting all obstacles. We get this idea from our music, literature and movies. And maybe we see other people in the real world who seem to have proved it for themselves.

But, if you see a couple that's been in love a long time, they're living in a dream. And that, I suppose, is how nature intends it. That which nature can't create, we make up for it with our dreams.

Perhaps the brainwashing really occurs from society when it tells us not to believe in the power of our own dreams. Otherwise we might just go ahead and create our own ideal dream reality, in which we'd live happily ever after.

But we're trained to think about these things rationally. We ask, "What is love? Is it real? Is it brainwashing?" And when we realize that love is a state of illusionary thinking, perhaps we project another illusion onto ourselves that we don't need it. And now we've got all these people walking around who can't dream.

Well, at least they think they can't dream. But really they've only traded one state of illusion for another. And instead of bright happy dreams they live dark despondent dreams. They fall to depression, which is an opposite form of brainwashing or delusion.

Whereas the illusion of being loved fills one with hope and self-esteem, depression fills one with hopelessness and self-doubt.

Funny things, human beings. We love extremes. True clarity of sight on these matters is not something that comes to us naturally. But that's the way it has to be, because without the illusions, the dreams, the brainwashing, we wouldn't be able to assign value to anything. Everything and everyone would just be there, worthless to us, until by the influence of some personal fixation we say, "I love this, and therefore it has value."