Bohulano 1

BOHULANO, Nathaly Kate N.

English 10
November 4, 2014
Dopamine
Everyone knows that they would someday fall prey to loves vicious claws.
That someday, we would end up with someone--a single person out of the
seven billion people currently living here on Earth. Wed find a person that we
would treasure for the rest of our days, a person that we would adore no matter
what, a person that we couldnt live without. And wed call what we feel for this
person love. But what is love?
According to Paulo Coehlo, an esteemed author, Love is an untamed
force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it
enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and
confused. Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than
oneself is real (Murdoch). Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If
love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each
other forever. A feeling comes and it may go (Fromm). For many people, love
is the one thing that you need to achieve in order to find happiness. Society
promotes it, telling us about how jubilant we could be if we could just find the
kind of love described previously. We are told that love comes hand in hand

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with contentment and happiness, and because of this, it is one of the most
sought-after things in the world.
A lot of films and books center on portraying love, and the many kinds of
it. The popular noon time Filipino program, Be careful with my Heart, which has
been airing for two whole years, talks about a maid falling in love with her
employer, and after some time, her employer responds positively towards her
affections. Eventually, they get married and live like a family. The Greeks wrote
of unconditional and unfailing love. I believe that the best example for this
would be the story of Orpheus, who travelled through the underworld just to get
his wife back, and didnt even try to stop his murderers from cutting his body up,
because he was so distraught with his failure in bringing his wife back to life
again. People dream of being able to receive this kind of affectionthe kind
that never dies nor gives up. William Shakespeare wrote about two star-crossed
lovers, so deliriously in love with each other that their separation pushed them
into a scheme that ultimately led to their untimely death. It was the definition of
romantic--loving someone enough to not even consider the possibility of a
future without them. Love like that cant get any more true, right?
Humans seek love like we seek air. It has become a musta requirement
of survivalwhen, in fact, it isnt. Vassopressin, the hormone responsible for
monogamy, is only present in 3% of mammals, and we humans arent part of
that tiny number. Yes, it is part of our genetic make-upthe act of searching for

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affection (which ultimately leads us to copulation which is necessary for the
survival of our species), but Im pretty sure that we arent programmed to selfdestruct at the loss of love.
But we are like this because society influences us to be so. It gives us the
hope that we would be the recipient of the kind of love that would move
mountains for us, ignore our social standings, and die to be together with us
again. Does it really exist, though? Do people really marry other people who are
far from them in terms of socio-financial standing, just like what happened to the
maid in the Filipino noon time show? If they ever do, then it would be a rare and
uncommon thing, because the world is not as perfect as society tells us it is. You
wouldnt see employers marrying their house maids. Having affairs with them,
yes, but marrying them? Its a hope thats cultivating in a lot of people today, a
hope that would only be crushed when the reality and cold hard facts of life hits
you hard in the face. Its just another way of Society to lessen the harshness of its
current way of functioning, and the part about being absolutely monogamous?
Impossibleand this is simply because we are biologically programmed to seek
out mates, release and react to pheromones, and seek mates. Its not as bad as
society portrays it to beit only becomes so, and we only react like such
because we believe that we are expected to respond like how Orpheus or
countless other fictional characters did. For never was a story of more woe,
than this of Juliet and her Romeo. (Shakespeare) Ive always been smitten with
the romantic tragedys final line. Catchy and deep, Ive fancied that it meant

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that theirs was a story of happiness despite the suffering, because after all, in the
end, they were together in death. I thought that dying for your love was as
romantic as can be. How nave I was, to think that the death of a thirteen year
old girl and a seventeen year old boy could be justified by a bunch of chemical
reactions. This naivety is common in our current generation. We think that every
sacrifice for the sake of your lover is warranted because theyre important to us.
Well, let me tell you thislove is not worth the loss of a life.
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Tennysons take on love seems to be the predominant mind-set of our
generation. Love, sparks, the ever present kilig; we idolize love. We put it up on
a pedestal, erase its cons and exaggerate its pros. We neglect its dark side. We
tend to forget that love is only a distraction. Love leads people astray. Love is
just an idea amplified by the thousands of people who say that they feel it.
Rejection, loss of a loved one, the feeling of abandonment-- all of these things
lead to depression, which is the top cause of suicide (suicide.org). Love has
killed and will continue to kill.
Countless suicides, homicides, murder cases are reported every day, and
most of these are caused by the scorn, anger and apparent temporary
psychosis of a person distraught by the loss, betrayal, treachery, of a person that
they think they love.

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According to criminaljusticedegreesguide.com, in March 2007, Eric
McLean shot and killed an 18-year-old boy, Sean Powell, who had been having
an affair with McLeans wife. He did this in order to save his marriage. Who could
also forget the story of Susan Smith? She was the woman that killed her sons (she
locked them up in her car and rolled them into a lake), just so that she could fix
her marriage with her husband (who wasnt the father of the two kids) who
hadnt wanted a family with children that wasnt his. She had confessed to her
crime after nine days of investigation, but two innocent lives were still lost. There
was also the case of Sixto Balbuena, who was charged with second-degree
murder because he killed his teenage fiancs high school teacher because he
caught them naked together.
Many crimes have been committed in the name of love. Too many to
count, and there are still many to come. Yet society continues to further
encourage our obsession with all-things love related. It deludes us into thinking
that the absence of it would cost us our happinessthat no one could survive
without it. It tells us that its the one thing that everyone should strive for,
because we are nothing without love (Schneider).
Is love really worth a life? For what is love but the effect of heightened
mammalian neurohypophysial hormone levels (Viero et al)? Its just a chemical
reaction, set by biological evolution to help us with choosing compatible mates
and helping us with our survival. Its just a bunch of reactions to stimuli looked at

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through rose-colored glasses by society. Attraction, which is the first step of love,
is made possible through our reactions to certain pheromones that we excrete.
Then our hormones, oestrogen and testosterone act up, which causes us to lust
after the person that we are attracted to. After this, the Something about him
makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames(Roth)
feeling happens. Rothenberg describes this as,
when youre in love, the world is brighter. Sunnier. The air smells
flowerier, and your hair is silkier, and suddenly, you find yourself smiling at
babies and strangers and old couples walking down the beach holding
hands. You smile because now youre in on of lifes Greatest Secrets Ever.
Youve graduated to the Big Time, Baby. Youre officially in the Cool Kids
Club. And suddenly, now when people look at you, they cant help
noticing that somethings different.
This is actually the manifestation of our body reacting positively towards
interaction with the said person. Our hands get sweaty, we have trouble
concentrating, our pupils dilate, we feel excited and happythis is because of
the chemical compound called Phenylethylamine, which is responsible for
controlling the monoamines norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine.
Norepinephrine and serotonin causes our excitement while dopamine is
responsible for the feeling of happiness. Theyre the reason why love feels like an
addiction. The last yet the most important stage of love is the attachment

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stage, where we form bonds with our prospective mate and develop feelings of
loyalty. The hormones oxytocin, also known as the cuddle hormone, and
vasopressin(which isnt present in us but part of the process in other mammals),
work. Oxytocin causes the development of attachment, and can be achieved
through touching. The body releases a lot of it during orgasm, breast feeding
and childbirth. It is responsible for our feelings of loyalty.
From an early age, were told that love is a mysterious, magical and
magnificent thing. Were told enough good and bad things about it to be
curious of it and to seek it out. We also fall into the presumption that someday
well find love, and this is why failure in doing so usually leads to depression.
Were promised dashing princes and damsels in distress in need of our saving.
Were told to hope for love, pray for love, wish for love, dream for love (Hale
126), but is it right that we set up such high expectations? Would we still feel
romantic love if society didnt influence us to be aware of it? Would we still go
gaga over every little thing that our crushes do if we hadnt grown up watching
soaps and chic flicks about people doing just that? Would we still dream of
beach weddings and hilltop picnics if we hadnt seen it happen on basically
every other movies happy ending? Is love a social construct? Is it just a way of
society to manipulate our consciousness?
Society tells us how dire it is to live without the presence of love. Society
exaggerates how lonely it is to be without romantic love, but when in truth,

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would we feel such loneliness if it has never told us that it would feel like that in
the first place?
Society should stop idealizing love. Although it exists, I believe that it is not
powerful enough to drive a person into death, depression and distraught. Love is
not a one-time thing, as our culture today says it is. It is a milieu of chemical and
biological processes intended to help us in multiplying and adding to the
number of our species, not to diminish it. Love isnt supposed to be the reason
for violence, but rather, its supposed to guide us into the opposite of that. Love
is as real as you perceive it to be, but when things start to go dark, remember
that thats not what love is--thats societys version of love.

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" ." Love Stories from Greek Mythology.Web. 4 Nov. 2014.
"10 Worst Killings Committed in the Name of Love - Criminal Justice Degrees
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Bisset, G.w., and K.m. Fairhall. "Release of Vasopressin and Oxytocin by
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Gardham, Duncan. "Jealous Husband Killed Adulterous Wife and Tried to
Strangle Son." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 30 June 2008. Web. 4
Nov. 2014.
Havlicek, Jan. "Towards a Neuroscience of Love: Olfaction, Attention and a
Model of Neurohypophysial Hormone Action."Frontiers in Evolutionary
Neuroscience. Print.
Jard, S. "Vasopressin and Oxytocin Receptors: Agonists and
Antagonists."European Journal of Pharmacology: 87-88. Print.
"Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice - Greeka.com." Greeka. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.
Shakespeare, William, and David Garrick. "Act 5; Scene 13." Romeo and Juliet.
London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson, 1766. Print.
"The Chemistry of Love - How Love Works." HowStuffWorks. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.

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"What Chemicals Are Involved in Feeling in Love?" About. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.