THE VIEW FROM RIZAL

We are writing about “romantic love” one week ahead of Valentine’s Day. 

Wednesday of next week, the 14th of February – the traditional “Day of Hearts” – will mark this year’s celebration of “Ash Wednesday” in the calendar of the Catholic Church. We thought it would be appropriate to talk about a different kind of love next week.

So, let us tackle the topic of “romantic love” today. We are sharing with our readers excerpts from a column we wrote on the subject matter several years ago.
Once, we were asked this question by a friend: “What should people do to stay in love?”

That is a question most, if not all of us, have to face and deal with. We value our intimate relationships. They are our sources of comfort and affirmation. It is hard to imagine life without love. We will do anything and everything to find it and keep it. Many times, we find it slipping away from our hands. We chase it and discover that the more we run after it, the farther it distances itself from us.

We first discovered love as a sensation. It was our mothers who taught us that. We learned that when we were babies. Their gentle touch and caress; warm, light kisses; affectionate gaze – all these gave us that sensation we later on referred to as love.

Our understanding of love later graduated into that of emotion. It’s something we “feel.” We believe that feeling resides in our hearts although doctors and psychologists have always told us that feeling comes from that part of the human brain called the hypothalamus. 

That must have led to the “medical joke” that the right way to express one’s feeling of love would be to say, “I love you from the center of my hypothalamus.”

That romantic feeling, doctors and scientists would explain, is the result of the production of a certain hormone. It’s called “dopamine.” When dopamine is released in the brain, we experience the feeling of pleasure. Somehow, we become addicted to that feeling of pleasure. This must have been the reason why substances that cause serious addiction are called “dope” – short, perhaps, for “dopamine.”

That must also be the reason why the feeling of romantic love gives people a “high.” 

This also leads us to wonder if it is the “high” of the romance we are after. Could it be that the “high” triggered by the release of dopamine in the brain is what we refer to as being “in love”?

There lies the challenge to us which our friend’s question points out: could it be that we have been relying on hormonal secretions in certain parts of the brain to stay “in love”?
We are not sure if we have full control of all our brain functions, much less the frequency, intensity, and direction of the secretion of hormones. Should we then base our loving relationships on what is never certain?

What if we wake up one morning with no dopamine going to the hypothalamus? What if without the brain’s dopamine shot, we see the object of our love and discover that he or she has imperfections on the skin, rasp in the voice, odor in the breath, and unwanted fats in the various parts of the body? 

Some would say, “I would still love that person despite faults and imperfections.”

When one says that, one would have chosen to love rather than just to be “in love.”

Love then becomes a decision and not just an emotion. The loving relationship would no longer be dependent on dopamine in the hypothalamus. It would now be based on the functions of a higher level of the human brain – the cerebral cortex. It is the part of our brain where we think logically and make rational choices and decisions.

“Lasting love” is a decision made in the cerebral cortex of the human brain.

That must have been the “love” for the country shown by Dr. Jose Rizal. Alone in his cell on the eve of his execution, he must have reflected on his pain and suffering and the unfairness of the entire situation, Perhaps, he got no dopamine shot in the hypothalamus that evening. He wrote the immortal “Mi Ultimo Adios” based on will.

It took the power of the cerebral cortex to make him take that plume, bring out a sheet of paper, and by the light of the gas lamp, compose a poetic masterpiece.
Being “in love” is an emotion. Loving is a decision.

Our wish for all of you is that every day would give your hypothalamus extra shots of dopamine.

We also pray that beyond Valentine’s Day, you would all let the cerebral cortex help you to stay “in love” by rationally deciding to do so.

(For feedback, please email it to [email protected] or send it to Block 6 Lot 10 Sta. Barbara 1 cor. Bradley St., Mission Hills Subd., Brgy. San Roque, Antipolo City, Rizal.)