Greetings and salutations all. I figured that I haven't been on here to write anything in approximately a week and today sometihng struck me so I said to myself, "self, I think that we ought to write today" and then self said to I, "I, you know what? I think you're right!" So together self and I go to write a lovely little entry that hopefully will be able to bring smiles to the faces of all those present. So I'm sitting there in the jurors box, kind of wandering off into my own little world on account of the fact that I've already made up my mind when I started to think of a few things; the past, the future, love, logic. And so based mostly upon that I shall write my journal concerning all of thos topics, save the latter, as it is so distant and'll take more time than I have to explain. At any rate, I was sitting there thinking about it and needless to say that I acme to some very personal conclusions, which I shall allude to, but never reveal and some general thoghts on the matter, as it can sometimes be quite general. At any rate, I'm thinking how love brings out everything in everyone. I mean, it brings out the soft yet protective side of a person, when they're with their significant other. But what about that nasty side that it drags out of people? Oh no no no, I hope you just didn't think that this was a good thing. No no my friend it has it's bad sides too. Ying and Yang, Cheech and Chung. Yea, anyway, I was merely noticing how it is the way it is (from my personal experiences of course) when it dawned upon me that it is more than a feeling. I know that people say that all the time "more than a feeling" but seriously think about it. It's more than a feeling, more than a state of being and more than en emotion. Happiness is a feeling; you can feel happy. you can have a happy state-of-mind, and you can be going through a happy moment. With love, you can do all of that but you can also be IN love. You cannot be IN happy. just doesn't make sense. MAybe some illiterate / improper grammer fellow coined the phrase, but the fact is that it's here to stay. But the quesiton is what does it truly mean to be IN love? Certainly more than just loving a person. Hel, most people would say that they love their dog, or their pet gold fish, but they would never say that they're in love with their goldfish. Just isn't happenin' folks. So what is this difference? What makes this so special and so different than love. Well, hopefully by the time I'll be able to answer that quesiton for everyone, myself included. If any of you are actually in love or think you may be, feel free to eave or stay to deny/ attest to what I am saying. IT's not totally fool proof so you're comments are more than welcomed. So, we've got this thing called love. You can be in it, you can feel it, you can have it, you can give it, you can think it you can do it you can spell it, you can spill it and you break it you can damage it; hell, you can do just about anything with it because it's more than just an emotion unlike our good friend happy (see previous example.) But what' makes it so special, afterall, biologically love is no different than eating mass amounts of chocolate... so why the big fuss? and why have we devoted so much of our time and energy into it? One theory says that it's a logical means to a biological instinct. Our instinct to procreate, feel safe and start a family makes us fabricate a pleasent side called "love" and allows us to make the best out of something which is, when striped down to the wires, quite primitive. Now this does hold truth, as the old saying goes "Men fake love for sex, women fake sex for love." But even at that, it assumes that the genders take on different acts to obtain different things. Love is always in the equation, and as much as some of us hate to admit it, we not only want it but we find outselves needing and preoccupied by it; particularly when we don't have it. You want it, I want it - hell, you're next door neighbour who hasn't come out since that time you kicked a ball through his window wants it. It's something more than just a chemical reaction/ balance that tells us to seek it out. There's a drive - something that tells us we it and I mean more than just the physical aspect. I'm talking emotional and mental here ladies and gents. So what is it? Suggestions? I'm thinking it has to do with our inner need for companionship. Not to say that the bible is in any way true, but as it says "...and he created woman for man, not to exceed him, but to compliment him and all that he does..." or something like that anyway. Point is, beside the fact that the bible is discriminatory against homosexuals, that we were designed for coupling. It's like how if you take all of the contenients and push 'em bac together you'll notice how they all fit back together. What the hell do they call that.. Pa? Pandr... Pangia... or something to that effect. Any Geo. students correct me on that one, thanks. It's something like that whereby we fit toghether (not literally... though that type definately feels good) I'm talking about everything else. Don't you find it odd that out of how many species of animals/ reptiles etc, etc. there are only two genders of mammals that can communicate and interact w/ each other? That's gotta say soemtihng there. Now this is all outside of this whole godly realm so if you're going to discuss that you ought to head over to a religion forum or came back another time sir/madam. What I'm saying here is that with some people (for the purposes of simplicity, I shall use man and woman - no offence) with whom we grow extremely fond of. And things build and we draw closer and closer still, until we start to get butterflied, tongue-tied superfluously intertwined in the life and day-to-day needs of each other. oh and it happens. You get so wrapped up in each other and nothing else seems to be of importance. It happens, and what do we say instead? we say this "oh, when I'm with you it's like all my troubles go away..." some of us venture out to even say this "it's like nothing matters or could go wrong when I'm with you." And it's soo true. We see nothing else but hte person in front of us because that's all that matters. We become a love beast because we haven't been this wound (past-tense of wind... and that wind as in to crank, not a force of air) since our last infactuation/ love. And miss it like a lost arm becuaes w/o it we can't go on. So even more, this furthers an inate need for it. Or does it? Some would argue that the only reason we actually find the need for it is that media and the socieital norms tell us so. That we only feel we need it because we're told so and it's nothing more than that. These are the self-proclaimed non-conformist-extremist who believe that this reality is super-imposed upon the real one for our benefit. Sounds to me like a bad remake of The Matrix. Nex they'll be telling me that they see the light and that they can heal me w/ one touch. And that's where I say "sorry bub, you touch me and that light you see will surely be my fist moving towards yur nose." And it's not as if opposing this "imposed" reality will get you anywhere because what it biols down to is that in order to live in this so called reality that you're living in (thus making your life a non-reality as it is based on the fake reality itself) you need something called money and food both of which, now trust me here, is really really not made up. Well, it is made up but it's not an imposed reality - it's an imposed system which has become our reality and purpose of existance. But anyway, getting back to love. These people who blame everything on the fake reality have forgotten one key element to their logic. The beginning. Before the craze, it had to start somewhere and if we move back to our primal ways (which, by default, is our earliest form) there was a sense of needing and wanting of companionship so this is more than just a societal craze. In fact, in retrospect, what I just said almost supports the fact that we're taking something so primitive and merely fancying it up and making more rules. So we love because we need to, or because we want to? That's the million dollar question and the answer is simpler than you might think. The answer is that it's both and that it depends on the person. Because we can choose not to love just because we don't feel like it, we can choose to love (either subconsciously or consciously) just because we just feel like it. It could be because we need to and thus we make the conscious decision to go out and find it, which again, support the fact that it's biologically in us. And even if it's that we know we need it but we don't realize it fully - thus any action is partially unintentional, but instead a safety mechanism to keep us sane. But here's the glitch (oh and you're going to love this) IF this is such a necessary thing like I've been saying - if we need this so badily and it's such a big part of our life - how on earth can we choose not to love, not to be in love, not to fall in love. Its like eating. you can say that you never want to eat again, but eventually you'll come back to it because you're body needs it. But there does come an extreme point whereby you can be so disgusted with food and anything associated with it that you just stop. Naturally you could only last so long until after your body starts to shut down - but the point is that you can do it. Now,is that the case with love? Does our body/self need a good lovin' on a regular basis in order to feel whole? And if we totally stop ourselves from reaching out (which is sometimes done without us realizing it) will we shut down? I believe that we would, and what's more than that is that I summize that we it is impossible for us to NEVER experience a degree of love. Doesn't mean that you've fallen for somebody and that you're going to marry them right away, but even just a friend can be categorized as interaction which could lead to a friendship-love, thus making it's value, at minimum, 0.628 on the love scale. if we didn't have it, we'd surely go crazy and believe me after that you're never the same again. Biologically we're built to be more than one- just the way it goes. If not we'd either: A. Have less of us around B. Be killed out by something superior on all levels C. Taste like chicken And although I jest, I'm much more serious than you'd ever imagine because although some people may look at what I've just done (which is horribly organized, may I add) and scoff at it - calling it an over-analyzation og something great, I find it necessary at times to step bak and realize just how Non-complicated our life really is. The simplicity of it all if you just slant your view a little. Thigns are really different from up here, just like their different from wayyyy down there. One of our greatest qualities as humans is to slant our views and convince at least one person (oftentimes ourselves) that things are better/ worse than they really are. Maybe that's what I'm doing there... or perhaps I'm breaking through a super-imposed reality and just seeing things for what they truly are. You decide. Signed, -Captain B. Biological