Happy February you amorous lot.
As we approach the ‘love it or hate it’ season of lurve, I thought I’d take the opportunity to spread a bit of mine….
“Roses are red
Violets are blue
We’re bio-chemically bonded
Therefore, I love you”
Not very romantic I know but it’s not an inaccurate description. Humans have tried for thousands of years to capture, translate, describe and depict the feeling of love. We’ve been consumed with it as a species offering up poetry, sonnet, music, art and literature in an attempt to translate this powerful obsession of humankind. The bottom line peeps, is that it’s chemicals - a very powerful concoction of chemicals that have evolved in our species over millions of years. Let’s assume Darwin was right, the members of our primitive species that were bonded ‘involuntary’ in small groups would have faired far better than those that didn’t. There’s safety in numbers and chemicals bond us to keep us in relative close proximity to one another. The two big chemical compounds here are love and fear. ‘Fearing’ being alone, in other words weak or vulnerable, and ‘Loving’ to be close and protective/protected. These two huge forces that have evolved over eons manipulate us more than any other. They are two of the key driving forces in our survival, in fact, in the survival of our entire species.
Let me share a model with you:
A man and woman’s lust hugely manipulate a very prescribed course of action essential for the ongoing survival of the species… you get the picture…
Lust turns to a powerful consuming love for each other so that the resultant offspring is born with the best chances of survival having united parents.
Baby is born and mum’s body goes mental producing chemical surges to absolutely manipulate an unquestionable bond with the baby.
The baby is also going through it’s own huge chemical bonding process.
Dad, also has a huge release of chemicals massively manipulating him into protecting mum and child.
Mum and dad’s consuming love potion flowing through their veins alters for each other and a strong supportive, bonded love follows.
Without these compounds kicking off mankind simply would not have achieved what it’s achieved, in the biggest sense of the word. Our ridiculously weak, vulnerable and completely inept off-spring wouldn’t survive five minutes let alone the many, many years they take to mature to a state where they are able to fend for themselves. Our species is physically weak. We don’t run fast, we aren’t strong and we’re not very well equipped to hunt or defend ourselves. However, we are able to bond naturally and in VAST numbers.
The nucleus family unit above is just one experience of love manipulating our actions. We all know there are many other experiences of love; the love of a sibling or friend for example. Again, evolution would have favoured the individuals who were capable of bonding in wider circles of people, the one’s with the most efficient ‘love’ chemical response. The love bonding of the ‘hunting pack’ remains strong in all team sports and the love of the extended tribe is what holds families and communities together and encourage them to look out for one another.
So why share this less-than-romantic notion with you just a few days before the ‘most romantic day of the year’? Because my challenge to you, is to ‘choose’ to love. As with all my teachings and philosophy, choice is the one true power our species currently has. We have evolved beyond the pure need of primitive, automated chemical interventions. Our conscious minds are so much more capable than our subconscious gives us credit for. ‘We’, (the conscious voice in us) can choose what to love and what to fear even in the face of these powerful manipulative chemical compounds.
This Valentines day, enjoy the love of your intimate others if you have them, but I challenge you to grow beyond this and allow your love to extend much, much further. Extend it to your friends and families, your communities and beyond. Share it with your fellow man and a stranger on the street and I dare you, no, I double dare you to share and express it in your own way to your enemies.
If we wait for Darwin’s evolution to take us into the next era of mankind, it might still take some time… but if choose to love ALL in this world and beyond, as we love our children and intimate lovers, we will look out for one another, we will defend one another and we will fend for one another in a way not yet experienced in our world. In a world of seemingly increasing fear (which is just perception by the way), the antidote can be found in love.
If you’re one of the many who might ‘feel’ alone this Valentines Day, love the living shit out of the world and feel part of something very, very special indeed. There’s seven-billion of us, trust me, you’re never alone
“Roses are red
Violets are blue
I love you world
Because I CHOOSE to”
With love,
George.
Notable caveats.
Right you lot, I didn’t want to pepper my beautiful ‘wordsmanship’ with loads of caveats and provisos and alternatives. I just want to add that I do not advocate the redundancy of chemicals in our bodies. They give us some of the most wonderful experiences on offer to us. The message I want to share is a clear one where the basic message is that love is a chemical as is fear and has evolved over eons for the best survival of our species. This is the ‘feeling’ of love we get in our bodies I’m referring to. I do believe in a connection that exists beyond our physical ‘chemical’ connections and you could call this universal love or another term that sits with you. As I always promote, to master our lives we must master our experience and the chemical compounds flowing through our system at a particular time dictate our experience to us. We can learn to ‘trigger’ the release of these chemicals through carefully choosing our thoughts and consciously choosing associations. In short, you will most likely ‘naturally’ love your wife, partner, children etc but will struggle to create the necessary connections and associations to be able to love a stranger or even more difficult an enemy. However it is possible, if you want to and choose to. This ability to ‘choose’ who we become holds the power to massively hastening the evolvement of our species and elevating it to the incredible heights I believe we are capable of.
Lastly, I’m also very aware that the order of things I promote for family bonding in the article is often not found to be the case. Many families bond in many varying ways and equally many don’t act as depicted. Whilst there’s may reasons for this, one of the most compelling for me is that this is evidence of the power of our ability to learn associations and conditioning which override evolution. All we need to do is educate, trust and choose to love in its highest most evolved global/universal state and we can create a tremendous reality in the world.
Sorry, just couldn't resist <3
