Love's Devious Role

Love is a powerful emotion but a questionable one. It seems it can come out of nowhere; take us out of our sphere of day-to-day life, lift us to heights we never knew, flutters around like a bird, brings joy, sorrow, fear, bliss and hollowness, all in the scope of an hour, a month, a lifetime or for no longer than the lifespan of a tsetse fly.

And then mysteriously, love just flies, flies, flies away. The vapor of bird flight is the sum total of what we might have thought of as love.

I consider myself an expert on love. I have conducted more experiments with it than the average person. I consider love a-yet -to-be successful science project. But I think I am getting close. Not because of me. Because of her; one who needs her sanity checked. Like most human experiences, there are chemical activities going on in the brain associated with the feeling of love.

Interestingly, chemicals such as oxytocin have been used in the study of the human experience and behaviour associated with love. So reports Wikipedia. Other chemicals present during the experience of the chemical cocktail we call love are testosterone (no surprise there) and estrogen, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and vasopressin. Where’s a skilled pharmacist when you need one? “Hi. I’m looking for love, do you have anything?” “Do you have a doctor’s prescription?” "Damn skippy I do." This learning, too, from Wikipedia: “Dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin are more commonly found during the attraction phase of a relationship. Oxytocin and vasopressin seemed to be more closely linked to long term bonding and relationships characterized by strong attachments.”

Surely some inventive chemists have tried to concoct a love pill but most of these, (to this writer’s knowledge) are illegal. Ecstasy. Aptly named. Love? Timothy Leary was in his last days of studying the effects of drugs was a proponent of Ecstasy. I met him once for lunch and heard it from him. I also met Al Haig a couple of times too but to my knowledge he was not a proponent of any love drug. Or any drug for that matter. Except maybe the war drug. Generals can be prone to those. Not sure anyone has concocted hate drugs.

Love remains a mystery. It’s purpose (at least in early life) is obvious. It’s there to give the sex drive some kind of purpose other than simply getting laid and procreating the species. Cows get laid. But do cows fall in love? Do the birds of love flutter around cows or are they just there to feed off the flies cows attract? It seems love is simply a vapour. It can strike hard, fast and furious and just as quickly, a bad wind will carry it away, as a wind carries birds and guides their flight, soaring in the vapours of love and landing wherever it seems convenient. Or timely. If you become addicted to flight, you will not be able to resist watching anything that flies, be they pigeons, hawks, nightingales, hummingbirds or B-52s.

Every bird has its own flight characteristics, as does love. Most of us love doves. But the ones to be wary of are the fleeting ones. And of all, the hummingbird is the bitch. You can’t see it coming and it’s gone as quickly as it came. The paradox of the hummingbird is the energy it needs to burn just to get to a morsel of feeding and the energy it burns to flee the scene. Then there is the nightingale. A beautiful songbird, not found in the Americas. Seems to be not just a beautiful bird but an intelligent one, too. One only has to experience the northern European winters to recognize the wisdom of the nightingale. Like love, she flies for warmer weather.