Love appears volitional for a bystander, although it is frequently seen playing into intertwining muddles of human emotions, it is read and written almost invariably as a “clerical” error to be rich in interplay, and is conceived universally as a positive mental attribute.
Love is in fact a mental condition. The patient shows nervousness and agitation, is “jumpy” and is not satiated with common terms of reciprocation. Patient in love exacts attention and is not satisfied even with a conspicuous display of attention, implores for “sensual” and “affectionate” display of emotional outpour from the object of love. Patient takes refuge in another complimentary mental attribute “jealousy”, together the pair of mental attributes combine to form a wealth of insidious capacity that gorges on his other hitherto” superbly functioning mental attribute “rationale”, subsequently dethrone it and take its place.
The “ego” that is primed by this deadly combination of mental attributes offers little hope of recovery. Patient ceases to apply “reason” in his daily routine, he then slowly but gradually slips over to the other side, the oscillating “ego” helps nurture his transfer of conscience, and this abysmal condition reveals itself in an evident character display of “hostility” and “irrationality” by the patient in the event of inability to meet the ends fostered by his “object of love”. Watch out for the above mentioned symptoms.
Seeking a psychiatrist or a psycho-analyst might result in dubious suppositions, namely, the overshoot or underplay of “conscious-unconscious” interplay of mind, dysfunctional relativity between body and mind, etc. Prime mover of this condition is shredded with an intelligent array of syndromes identified prior to the case and subject almost immediately offers resistance with the commonplace obscurity such as “love is not symptomatic of a deranged state”, although he consciously forgets that love is the deranged state in itself, anything that has hitherto been referred to as “deranged state” is far more inferior to “love”.
To cure this condition, a “lay-man” begins his endeavors by pushing the boundaries back a little further into the past, so to envision the origins of the condition, his journey into the past would naturally turn out to be laborious and would demand patience and perseverance from both the treatment advocate and the patient. But, the threads never seem to be the intertwined, at times they are loosely slipping over each other; at times the “lay-man” would assert that he found the origin, only to be “dumbfounded” with the threads of allegiance parting their ways after a brief interval of communion “into the past”.
Subconscious theatrics of cure techniques might provide enough subsistence to the patient's “damaged psyche”, but soon as the flavors of theatrics subside, the infectious disease takes charge, and this time it is empowered by the “maladroit psyche”, which has very recently been alleged of a condition that for the patient currently appears “untenable”. patient's psyche seizes this opportunity to build upon it, the “unconscious mind” expends its energy in creating patterns of dreams, in which the patient would emerge victorious, would incessantly decry for affection with his platonic plays of “valiance” that would frequently transpire into his “vanities”.
My contention is that the “morbid” and “unbridled” activity on the “unconscious” level of psyche leaves little room to squeeze energy that would suffice to prime a “rational” activity on the “conscious” level. This contention like many others cannot be proved, but that does not take away the importance from it. Very few psycho-analysts have shown inclination towards this interplay of conscious-unconscious psyche in a case like this one.
To seek “origins” of this condition through the available tools of psycho-analysis is not a profitable mode of expending energy, this field of study encompasses the cerebral understanding of neuro-science and the methodical application of understanding through psychiatry, but it fails to reveal the “origins”, although it succeeds in pushing the boundaries towards the past. Psycho-analysis is an impressive tool in “curing” the patient, but to seek the “origins” of the problem, we have to divert our attention elsewhere.
Life on this planet is 3 byrs old, for the first 1.5 byrs, green life bloomed on different levels, and then the first micro organisms (green bacterium) ventured into the “poisonous” playgrounds of evolution. They inhaled the poisonous gas “oxygen” for their subsistence, in doing so they pushed the horizons of victory into another level. Green bacteria multiplied exponentially with virtually no species to compete with (rest of the species were feeding on co2 at that time). The single celled micro organisms in their gallant effort to “find themselves in the next generation” evolved into multi cellular organisms. Asexual organisms then evolved into bisexual organisms.
Let us explore a bit deeper into the “rationale” behind this seemingly untenable idea of bisexual inclination in the realms of evolution. A male organism evolved into producing illimitable number of sperms in a life time, therefore for the genes in his body, the chances of “finding themselves in the next generation” are virtually unlimited. A female on the other side can only produce limited number of eggs in one life time, added to this incapacity is her expenditure of energy and time in bringing up the young during the periods of lactation. Her “investments” should therefore be very strict, she cannot afford to be “gratuitous”, because for the genes in her body there are but limited number of attempts in “finding themselves in the next generation”.
Since the dawn of time, genes in the bisexual organisms have evolved into “stimulating” their “vehicles” (or the bodies they are a part of) with a “rush of energy” levels in an event of familiar and potential discourse between the two sexes. Any platonic discourse is thus primed almost incessantly by the “primogenitors-the selfish genes”, so the “vehicles” would do what they have been so laboriously (over a period of 2 byrs) built to do.
All the feelings -love, fear, anger, hatred and other derivatives when eviscerated, reveal an awful truth - they are but a surge of electrical impulses in brain, carried by the right neurons to the right locations would result in the right “feeling”. The object of my detour from psycho-analysis to evolution is to delineate the point “the electrical impulses (feelings) have evolved over a period of 2 byrs” and any attempt to “reduce” them into hasty generalizations or hollow judgmental contentions such as “love is eternal”, “Love is transcendental” seem absurd and farcical.
To understand electrical forces let us make another brief detour into cosmos. Ice at 0 degrees melts into water; water at 100 degrees boils into vapor. Imagine that we have never seen this phenomenon before, and then would not it be very inconvenient for us to derive the relationship between ice, water and steam.
There are five forces in the universe, weak and strong nuclear forces, electrical force, magnetic force, gravitational force. Steven Weinberg and his colleagues received a Nobel prize in the 70s for proving that the weak nuclear, electrical and magnetic forces were once (almost 1 billionth of a second after big bang) a “monolithic” force, these forces are virtually unrelated to each other today just as ice, water and steam because each of the forces now exist at a different level and to show that they were once a “monolithic” force would require conditions analogous to 0, 100 degrees for water.
Scientists since then have been trying to prove that the other forces (strong nuclear force, gravitational force) were also part of the “monolithic”, only another step closer to the heart of big bang. It is generally understood that as one gets closer to the heart of big bang, all the forces unite into the “monolithic” force, each of the current forces broke away from the “giant whole” at different conditions of temperature and pressure, and have since then existed separately.
Gravity unlike the other forces still remains a mystery, although Einstein proved that gravity travels through the space-time continuum at the speed of light, neither he nor the scientists after him were unable to find out the constituents of the gravitational force. Scientists now think that the cosmos are full of mysterious particles (other than electrical, magnetic, and nuclear) that form the constituents of gravitational force. they call this particle, a “higgs particle”, and the large hadron collider at CERN, Geneva is designed to bombard electrons at speeds that could simulate the big-bang conditions, and are hoping that these collisions would result in the startling revelations-”higgs particle”, understand that higgs particle is still a theory (a strong and almost unanimous though), but once LHC at CERN proves its presence, it would open the doors for a revolutionary theory to play out in the cosmic realms.
Now the detour ends, could it be that, there is a “higgs particle” for the mental condition “love”. Answer is a resounding “yes”, Sigmund Freud, one of the four men (others being Einstein, Darwin and Marx) that defined the “modern times” in his essay “infantile sexuality” explained how the primitive and inherent sexual instinct when repressed results in the “origins” of the condition.
Mind constitutes of an “I” and “ego”. “I” corresponds to all the emotional and intellectual faculties that are inherent in a human being, it is fixed and cannot be changed. “Ego” corresponds to the external conscience; it oscillates between the “I” on the inside to the external environment on the outside. The “stand” that “ego” takes is slippery, it is obedient to the “I” and bridges the “I” to the external environment, but is also constantly changing with the external environment being in a continuous flux. “Ego” posits itself in a state of flux and oscillates between the outside world's flux and the intensity of understanding it has to communicate to “I”.
At times, “ego” sticks its neck a little longer towards the outside world, gets carried away with the changing flux of the outside world, consequently its abilities to communicate obediently to the “I” get impaired. As “ego” moves further and further away, the “bridge between I and ego” deteriorates even further and there comes a point, when it becomes almost irreparable. At this point “I” makes a deceptive attempt to regain its stand by “eliminating ego” as its bridge to the outside world, and tries to communicate directly with the outside world. When it does come into contact, it is up for a shock, the “fixed and unchanging I” blenched by fear upon contact with “constantly changing flux of the outside world” slips into a “state of trauma”.
Freud asserted that although all the mental conditions of today are virtually unrelated to each other, deeper in the conscience, somewhere in the past, all these conditions had but one origin “the state of trauma”(analogous to the higgs particle).
Why then does this mental condition (love) originated from the “state of trauma” does occur in the first place. Why doesn’t this happen in the case of even our nearest cousins (chimps). Answer is- any animal that is “mentally ill” must have encountered an occasion in his past when his “I” was driven into a “state of trauma” by the malfunction of “ego”.
Documented studies of chimps in New Guinea reveal evidence of adult chimps getting “mentally ill”. Their past histories were of entrapment in their childhood, they have witnessed bloodshed and violence. In one such case, humans killed the chimp’s parents and the whole of his family, he was later transferred under extremely inhospitable conditions (no food and water for weeks together, chimp was still bleeding from the recent human violence) When the chimp was left at the wild life sanctuary, he grew up into “mentally ill” and very hostile creature. point to note here is - the chimp's “ego” was severely in flux with the violent conditions outside, and oscillated a great distance away from “I”, here, left vulnerable without the veritable trust of “I”, “ego” changed in an attempt to simulate the changing flux of violence outside, and the bridge of communication broke down between “I” and “ego”. The “state of trauma” in this case is almost immediate and also easy to identify.
The mental condition (love) though is found very rarely in our cousins, trouble with humans is, very few know that “love” is a “mental condition” and still fewer than that admit it. Question now is what leads to this condition? Freud explained this phenomenon in his essays “Oedipus complex”, attributed the condition to sexual reprehension, the censure of primitive and infantile sexual instinct.
In this case though, unlike the documented chimp's case, “state of trauma” is delayed (Freud identified this as a “latent” state) and is very difficult to identify the “origins”.
While the “I” is primed by the “selfish genes”, “ego” is lost somewhere, getting carried away by the changing flux in outside world (themes of popular cultural product - love). This rift if negotiated promptly, the mental condition (love) can be avoided. Our cousins on the other hand wont be having this trouble, remember only humans have evolved into “farmers” from “hunter gatherers”, over the years, humans have built a strict regime of culture around them, and the cultural themes seemingly innocuous have time and again been proved to be dubious. The recurring and the most popular theme (love) has been proved to be more than dubious
Freud cured many patients in his life time, his development of psycho-analysis spawned many other fields of studies in the realms of conscious-unconscious mind. I for myself assert that the “state of trauma” can be avoided if the vehicles (bodies) of “selfish genes” act more sensibly, and not fight the primitive instincts or worse delude oneself that he is “devoid of the inherent instincts” .The premise of life – genes have to find themselves in the next generation, when this premise is negotiated by the vehicle (body) in a manner that would limit the genes’ chances, they would be very apoplectic.
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