IT'S A MAD WORLD
By Ricky Calderon
IV Leader Columnist, Feb. 21, 2008
Diseases and defections of the mind are as old as we are. Ever since our brains began to grow, they became susceptible to the wear and tear of higher thought. Perhaps, even our human-like mind itself was a result of some mental disorder, passed down and morphed into our unique consciousness through evolution. But there is one defect in particular, one of the oldest, which disturbs me the most. Not because of its affects or its symptoms, but because of its disappearance.
The implications of this disorder have been far reaching throughout history, to be sure, but only recently have we begun to treat it, consciously or otherwise. To the eyes of this young observer, the actual condition has become a rarity, replaced by gross misdiagnoses thrown at even the most ambiguous signs of its inception. It is this sort of confusion, I believe, that has played the largest part of the actual disorder’s relative dormancy.
Now, I suppose one may wonder why I would defend such a condition, why I should be concerned for its endurance. While many mental disorders can be debilitating, this one can be as well, there are a few that are essential for our being human; in fact the one I speak of is the reason we are human.
Love, real love, is a mental disorder; if you really think about it, it shows all the signs of one. Now, before some of you readers groan and accuse me of being a bitter and lonely bastard, allow me to explain myself; take my hand and I’ll walk you through it.
Love, at its basest levels, most certainly affects our minds. Our higher level mental processes like judgment, reasoning and awareness are all affected. We become a person that others, and ourselves, can hardly recognize. We see, hear and think things that are not there or are not true. The mind begins to suffer from delusions and paranoia; we become unable to function as we had before.
Physically, it causes headaches, nausea and loss of motor functions (particularly in speech—to be cliché). Love tricks our body into thinking it is under attack, pumping out adrenaline to heighten our reflexes at the expense of our more human reasoning. We begin to sweat, feel dizzy and sometimes even faint. It leads to depression, bouts of mania and feelings of suicide.
People have died because of love and have committed murder for it; people change their appearance, their way of life and their very existence for love. Those suffering from it make ridiculous decisions, based on emotions they can hardly control and feelings they don’t understand. People have thrown everything they know away because of love; make choices no sane person would ever make.
Wars have started because of love; peace can endure as a result of it. Love affects us physiologically as well as psychologically. For someone to contend that love is not a disease of the mind is in blatant denial of what it truly is, and is something they have probably never truly experienced (I count myself among them).
Now recall that I said in the beginning that this particular defect was essential to our being human. But why? What importance does it serve? How could it have evolved from any sort of necessity? On the outside love serves no physical purpose. It doesn’t aid in our reproduction at all; sex would continue in its absence (love and sex are two completely different things; I apologize for bursting any bubbles).
I suppose one could argue that a dog can show love, but nowhere near the degree or capacity that a human can. This sort of basic love is a rather mammalian evolutionary construct that probably, through the formation of family groups, encouraged the passing of more adaptation traits and even behaviors, a skill that helped to cement our inheritance of the planet from the dinosaurs. If we never had love, this sort would still remain; but would we remain human? No. Would humans even exist? Probably not.
In my eyes, human love is the great divider between us and the rest of the life we share the planet with. It is the source of our greatest achievements, and conversely our worst. Love’s evolution within our early minds (early being before modern humans) marks the beginning of our legacy as humans, whether as a defective accident or a purposeful stride. Imagination, creativity, culture and perhaps even advanced language all grew out of our ability to take advantage of love’s particular mental affects. We are beholden to such an evolutionary mechanism; we would literally not be human without it (a relationship that may bear the familiar signature of a force we don’t understand, but have tried to). Love is unique to us; it is our gift and our burden.
Love, as you can see, is what makes us human. It is not our thumbs, our brains or our strange bipedal gait that separates us from everyone else, but our capacity for love. Something so significant should not be trivialized, but it is. We say it to anyone and everyone, paying little heed to its importance or its history. We owe our very existence to this ancient mental defect; this little problem with our heads. It is our greatest evolutionary achievement, this many-splendored madness, and does not deserve the treatment it gets today.
I suppose what you should take from this is that love is a mental disorder, but not one to be feared; However, it is one that should be respected.
As I mentioned in the beginning, it is by far over-diagnosed. Everyone claims to have felt it; everyone says those dangerous three little words with little regard to what they truly mean or what they are the result of. If you haven’t felt what I have described above, a pain you want to tear out but a pleasure you can’t describe, then you are not in love. You have simply assumed that you are in love based on what we now describe love to be.
Think carefully when you say those words or consider whom you have said them to. Be careful when diagnosing love, it comes in many packages but the symptoms are the same. Recognize it; if you aren’t completely insane, you’re probably not in love.