Temporary Madness

love \'ləv\ n 1 a (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties ‹maternal ~ for a child› (2): attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3): affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests ‹~ for his old schoolmates› b : an assurance of love ‹give her my ~› 2 : warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion ‹~ of the sea› 3 a : the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration ‹baseball was his first ~› b (1): a beloved person : often used as a term of endearment (2)Brit— used as an informal term of address 4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1): the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2): brotherly concern for others b : a person's adoration of God 5 : a god or personification of love 6 : an amorous episode : love affair 7 : the sexual embrace : copulation 8 : a score of zero (as in tennis) 9 Christian Science: God — at love : holding one's opponent scoreless in tennis — in love : inspired by affection

All of the above definitions embody love as prescribed by a dictionary.

As much I 'love' the word 'love', there are ceratin aspects of the word I find perplexing. One, it is a very personal matter, even whimsical and capricious at times. Two, it is highly subjective, moodily introspective, and somewhat illusory. Three, it is probably the English language's most misused, abused, debased, and misunderstood word - ever.

One of love's integrants is lust. Lust is probably the simplest and most primitive of its components. Or probably the most hormone-based <wink wink>.

There's another thing called romance or romantic love. Or in layman's term, madness. I was watching an episode on love on the Discovery Channel last week, and they believe that love and madness are very similar in nature. Apparently, the similarity is in one of the brain's neurotransmitters, Serotonin. In the central nervous system, serotonin is believed to play an important role in the regulation of anger, aggression, body temperature, mood, sleep, vomiting, sexuality, even appetite. Increased levels of this neurotransmitter have a calming and healing effect on people. Decreased levels, anxiety and depression.

Subsequently, our body's reaction to love subsides and different areas of the brain are then activated. Thus, attachment or commitment is in order. Among the three, this is probably the most complex. After all, how do you sutain love? If your serotonin levels continue to dwindle, can you stay 'in love' with a person? In short, can we actually keep the love alive?

Just how exactly do you 'account' for love?

Take for example my love for bags. I love bags, my heart skips two beats whenever I see even just a picture of an Hermes Birkin 35 cm in black or a Chanel reissue 2.55 white 226. But that has nothing to do with romance (okay, maybe just a little), more so with attachment or commitment. Why? Just like my former love affair with monogram, I know there will come a day when I will outgrow that lust. Or move on to yet another 'lustworthy' addiction lol.....

Or even wakeboarding. I sooooo love wakeboarding. I have been an addict for nearly 4 years and yet every single time I'm about 50 to 100 meters away from Lago, I start vomiting (another confession). Yes, it's been an inexplicable predicament since day 1. That, to me, is lust plus a little romance and a pinch of attachment.

Let's move on to something a little less worldly. Take my parents and siblings for example, I love them dearly yet I do not feel my anything romantic <eeew> towards them. I do not feel any lust <double eeew> for any one of them. But I do feel a highly strong and very deep cosmic attachment for every single one of them.

I can probably say the same for my children, this time amplify that attachment and affection to a gazillion times. I'm very protective of them (probably to a fault), and I'd kill (literally!) anybody who'd do them harm. Motherhood, to me, is presumably the paradigm of human and altruistic love.

It's much different with my husband though. After nearly 9 years of marriage and almost 10 years as lovers, I still feel 'that' certain desire. I still feel 'in love'. All that plus a deep, cosmic bond. He's pretty much my soulmate, don't you think? But that's another topic.

So here's to love. Transitory dementia. Evanescent lunacy. Temporal derangement. Momentary senselessness. Fugacious idiocy. Temporary madness. Or whatever it is you wish to call it.