Re: LOVE: a feel-good social construction.

You're right - too broad of a term, covers too much ground. Lots of different types of love.

So, what is it? How can you see that love is the answer when on a battlefield full of death and dying? Certainly no romance to it, or beauty, nor any of the things normally associated with love. But there is no doubt about it; you sense love, it's thick amounst you and your buddies. You can even smell it, especially when the death surounds you. The only glandular or hormonal thing that's going on is sheer adrenalin which would seem to be the opposite of the normally percieved organs, glands and hormones of love. For sure there are no thoughts of sex or romantic evenings with that special someone.

Yet it's the exact same love the NDE person senses. He's helpless to define it also. But it changes you permenently. It can't be hormonal or anything physical. It is indeed a spiritual thing.

I can love my brother, or sister, parents, classmates, friends, kids, even the cat but that is quite a bit different than "in love". I can love the studies I do, the work I do, and the places I frequent but that ain't the same as "in love".

"In love" is on a par with the NDE love and the battlefield experience love. It is a spiritual thing. Not explanable in the physical universe. Not explanable by hormonal or glandular measurements. It also changes you from the moment it happens to you, from the moment you see them. Before you even get a chance to get your hormones and glands invovled.

Contrary to what you have been taught you are NOT a brain. Your brain is not the thing that is controling your life. Nor are you a body dependant on the brain to tell you how to respond to any given circumstance. For sure brain activity is measurable as body funtioning is measurable but you ain't either one of those and if you think you are you're in bigger trouble than you can perceive.

Nor are genetics stable at determining your future physical makeup as you've been taught. Genetics are quite easily changable.

So, if you don't buy the spiritual love or the "in love" deal I truly feel sorry for you and only hope you discover for yourself what they are. Then you'll have the same frustrations that those of us that know what it is have in trying to explain it to people like you or anyone who hasn't experienced it yet.

Doc