Crazy little thing called love

Poems have been written on it, people have given their lives for it and in many people this little word evokes the grandest of emotions.
“The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth and delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that your world has been transformed.” J Krishnamurti

So you have fallen in love, Cupid’s guided missile-like arrow has struck and triggered off a series of responses ranging in intensity from mild obsession to pure insanity. When the person who is the object of your affections happens to be with you, strange things happen. Suddenly music plays, a spontaneous burst of fireworks embroiders the sky, star dust falls all around you, your heart beats just that little faster and your breathing turns shallow. You feel more than perfectly okay. Love does this to you, particularly when freshly brewed. Poets, writers, playwrights all over the world have us believe all along that this emotion is something out of the ordinary, and it turns the ordinary in us to something very special. True perhaps.

Also true that love is identified as one of the emotions central to our lives as human beings. Emphasising the significance of this emotion in our lives, US-based love coach Robin Gorman Newman, founder of www.Lovecoach.com, says: “Everyone wants love in their lives. What is life about without it? We want to be fulfilled in our relationships, personal, professional, and certainly, romantic. Love feels good. It gives meaning and depth to our everyday existence. It makes you wake up in the morning. Falling in love can be a euphoric state. When you are able to connect with someone at a heartfelt level, and know that it’s mutual and real, it’s like an elixir.

“Romance is wonderful. A glance. A touch. With the right person, it means everything. Self-love is important too. You need to practice self-care and be in a positive place so that you can recognise and invite true love into your life. Otherwise, it could be right under your nose, and you wont seize it.”

But despite all these eloquent thoughts on this speeding-train-without-brakes like emotion which we believe is centred somewhere deep in our heart, there is a new breed of people who are slowly but surely washing off the pink patina over love and revealing it to be mere concoction of brain chemicals you have no control over. Scientists say love is nothing but a chemical high, a very ‘head-y’ thing as opposed to a heart experience. A cocktail of  chemicals in your brain suddenly soars and keel over with its collective might. In several tests carried out, biochemists have been able to prove that all of that floaty feeling is nothing but an interplay of chemicals, hormones, enzymes and pheromones in our body and that feeling of being in love can be reduced to an equation as simple as a+b=c.

So much for stars in our eyes! These days, you will be advised to see your opthalmologist immediately. Floaty or floaters? Better determine that.