Thoughts on Valentines Day!

Romantic love is perhaps the greatest reward of human evolution. It is one of the finer survival mechanisms we have developed as a species. Scientific research into how our mind transforms when we are “in love” has helped luminate the chemical complexity behind it all. Love is made possible by a romantic coordination of the visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and neurochemical processes. Contrary to the insufferable saying “Love is blind” love it seems has a wonderful eyesight and is far from being deaf or crazy or mute.

Whatever your presumed reason for falling in love maybe, it derives its motivation by the human instincts to procreate. The true tragedy of human love is that even though we have an insatiable desire to mate, we want to mate with only those partners we think will give us genetically strong offspring. Therefore begins the process of sniffing, tasting, and eyeing our partners out. You are not with your partner for no reason; there is a fascinating evolutionary story that’s took millions of year to perfect that has led you two to hook up.

Since the early Homo sapiens love has been part of our societal interactions. We have relied of the same chemicals to produce the same emotion to fulfill some of the same tasks regardless of the time and space of our existence. Love over millenniums has not altered, however the ways in which we express it have.

Human have always relied on symbols. Symbols help us express the intangible. Look around, you are surrounded by symbols: symbols of God, of bravery, of good old times. We do the same with love. The way people symbolize love has differentiated along cultural and chronological lines but all ages and all races have done so. When Shah Jahan had the Taj Mahal built he was symbolizing love. Writing extravagant poetry for your partner is an expression of love. Buying diamonds- that last forever- is also a symbol of love.

The symbols and the ways of expressing love are dynamic. In the past lovers had to be creative in conveying their feelings. They could not rely on mass produced goods to come to their aid. The select few who could write wrote poems, letters, and songs for the sake of amour. And the many that couldn’t, used subtle ways of expressing it. Over the years the symbolisms altered- alas for the worse. In our economic age love became commodified. The symbols were hijacked. The urge to be creative stifled by mass production. The subtle art of expressing love tattered by the constant bombardment of images that told us we must do something or give something when in love.

The mundane nature of modern life finds relief in the magic of mass communication. Movies and advertisements that provide an escape also tell us how to feel and what to do with those feelings. People in love are forced to undergo what sociologist Arlie Hochschild termed “emotional labor”: a form of emotional regulation wherein people are expected to display certain emotions in certain circumstances. The necessity to act a certain way when in love had gripped our thinking. But how do we act this love out?

We know we have to express love but we find ourselves caught between the unexciting expressions our economic age and the clichéd expressions of a past era. So most of us raise our hands in surrender to corporation and ask them to convey our most private yearnings through mass produced symbols. We give cards, and gifts and go out for drives and dates because that is what lover do. And if you don’t, well then there must be something wrong with you.

Isn’t that sad? Does that not make you angry? A thousand years from now when people look back at our time and ask how we expressed love, they’ll find that all of us gave teddy bears to each other and went to eat in a fancy restaurant on the February 14 every year. How boring is that!

I am no love guru to give advice on how to go about your intimate life but as a matter of common sense I can say this: Even though love is grand its best expressed with humility. You don’t need to be a poet to tell your partner how much they are appreciated. Neither do you need Valentine’s Day nor songs or chocolates or hearts or stuffed animals or cards or dates or movies or even words. If your chemicals are working then love can be expressed through the most basic of human actions on the most ordinary of days.

So don’t let a chubby Roman God flying half naked with a bow and arrow dictate your reaction to this fundamental human emotion. If you don’t get a gift this Valentine’s don’t despair, maybe your partner is trying express it in a more subtle ways. After all, humans have expressed love without commercializing it for millenniums and I am certain we are capable of doing the same this Valentines.

Written for Wave Magazine's February, 2012 issue.