Love ... The Lost Feelings

Again away from politics, problems and the ugliness of this world. Let’s talk about love, the most overrated, abused, and in the same time ignored feelings. What is love and how it became the feeling we acknowledge as love today and why it became so painfully unsuccessful, weird and empty!

Actually the term love may refer to different types of feelings; vary from affection and compassion to preference and enjoyment to attraction and emotions but let’s see what sciences (biology, neurology and psychology) say about love:

A new psychological study led by Fredrickson, a leading researcher of positive emotions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, presents scientific evidence to argue that love is not what we think it is. It is not a long-lasting, continually present emotion that sustains a relationship; it is not the yearning and passion that characterizes young love; and it is not the blood-tie of kinship. Rather, it is what she calls a “micro-moment of positivity resonance.” She means that love is a connection characterized by a flood of positive emotions, which you share with another person—any other person—whom you happen to connect with in the course of your day. You can experience these micro-moments with your romantic partner, child, or close friend. But you can also fall in love, however momentarily, with less likely candidates, like a stranger on the street, a colleague at work, or an attendant at a grocery store.

From the neurological and biological point of view, Larry Young, professor of Neuroscience at Emory University, attempts to define love in chemical terms. Young contends that love is a result of chemical reactions within the brain. Asserting that human emotion and behaviors have evolved from those found in the animal kingdom, Young argues that maternal love among a woman and her child is not that different from that of a monkey or chimpanzee. In which case, he rationalizes that maternal love can be understood as a result of the mammalian hormone oxytocin being released into the brain. Approaching love from a biological perspective, cultural anthropologist Helen Fisher, PhD. asserts that hormones, often differing form one’s own, are key, as individuals are often attracted to those whose chemical makeup differ from their own. Dopamine, a neurochemical made in the brain that is involved in many brain activities, including movement and emotion, is “a brain chemical important for controlling emotion response and the ability to feel pleasure and pain.”  In examining the biological aspect of love Fisher identifies love as it occurs in and involves three different brain circuits in addition to the chemical mix that Young mentioned.

If we looked deeply to those scientific bases or definitions of love we can notice that all scientists in different fields just focused on one or two types of love (kinship love and romantic love) ignoring not only different other types but I would go further and say more important types of love. One might think that with scientific and technological development we grow closer to understand the human nature but a quick research in not so complicated issues like, dreams, desires and behaviors may reveal for us that the more advance we go the more complications we add to our lives, and might discover that ancient civilizations might answered some of our questions in a very simple way, but since we think we are smarter now than we used to be in let’s say 2000 years ago we decided to ignore that and build up new theories based on our complicated “development”. 

If we look to what the Greeks' ideology of love we would  find they were more accurate in their views to love; Greeks for example define different types of love with different types of terminology, while in English Love is used to describe different set of feeling we find the Greeks had different terms to describe different types of love which differentiate between physical attraction, ideal love, love of the soul and the love of the body, they go further than that by defining to love someone and to be in love with someone; we find Plato refined his own definition by saying; "although Eros (is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing) is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth by Eros. Some translations list it as love of the body." Another type of love is Philia (dispassionate virtuous love), was a concept addressed and developed by Aristotle, It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. Philia is motivated by practical reasons; one or both of the parties benefit from the relationship. It can also mean love of the mind. Another types of love are Storge (is natural affection) , like that felt by parents for children, and Xenia ( hospitality and gratitude), was an extremely important practice in Ancient Greece, It was an almost ritualized friendship formed between a host and his guest, who could previously have been strangers. The host fed and provided quarters for the guest, who was expected to repay only with gratitude.

From these examples we can find that the modern view for love though it made it more complicated but ignored important parts of the emotions and feelings that can be categorized as love; it simply ignored the simplicity of love and put a huge burden on us to feel loved or to give love to others. In today’s life it became so hard to say I love to a friend, a lover, parent, child or even a person you just enjoy their company, because we limited our love feeling with two types of love (kinship and romantic love) so if you say I love you for example to a not so close friend from the opposite sex it become so weird because immediately they will think either you are in love with them or you are naïve and stupid because that’s usually the only love feeling we acknowledge in our daily life and human interactions, this created a huge emotional burden and built up a tremendous emotional barriers between us as humans, it made us more emotionally and psychologically isolated which complicated the whole system of partnership and romantic relationships because of this emotional isolation we started to put so much requirements on the romantic love or kinship love; we required our lovers, parents, siblings .. etc. to fulfill more than they can do because we deprived ourselves from other types of love which we expect two types of love should make it up to us and compensate the lack of feelings that we deprived ourselves by the misconception the modern life created which eventually led to the failure of most of the relationships we experience today; not only romantically but in all aspects of human interactions. We put so much pressure on the other and we doomed to failure because we wanted to compensate one feeling by totally different set of feelings; we can’t ask our lover to love us the same way our parents did, we can’t ask our child to love us the same way we love them, and we can’t ask  our spouses to love us the same way a lover will do, every stage of our life will bring new type of love, every person we will meet will make us feel different type of love, all we have to do is to open our hearts, eliminate expectations and lower our requirements to be able to feel these types of love from different people. Only then we will not put so much pressure on the closest people to us because we acknowledge that they are not responsible to compensate what we deprived ourselves by being emotionally isolated, that is exactly love unconditionally because we accepted life and people as it is and as they are, we didn’t put them in a test to succeed, eventually we are not a prize we are just another humans no matter how good, amazing and incredible we are, there are A LOT of other people like us out there.

Let’s live, love and enjoy simply without feeling so much pressure to do so, allow others to share their feelings with us even if they are not that close, share their lives and experiences that will enrich our lives in very incredible way, we would feel more connected, more alive and most importantly more loved not only by couple of people but by the whole universe, where peace will shadow our destiny and we might finally be about to live in harmony.

On Happiness and other silly stuff

Again the most asked question is been asked again, I have been asked this zillion times.

The person: what are you so happy about?

Me: excuse me!

The person: Just you are smiling and you look so happy, I am curious to know the reason.

Me: Okaaaaay! What makes you think I am happy, maybe I am not, I am just smiling

The person: no you look happy

Me: it is called gratitude.

The person: continue …..

Me: your bus will come soon or mine and this is broad concept … but let’s say I am happy because I am alive this morning, have health and all I need to survive… so why I won’t be happy!

The person: that’s it, you have this wide smile in this freezing cold weather because you are alive!

Me: YES! You tell me why you are so gloomy and sad?

The person: because I live in the real world and face problems like everybody else.

Me: like everybody else! So I might have problems too why I am smiling and you are not? I will tell you why… because I chose to, I have a problem right I ask myself can I solve it; if my answer is yes then why I should worry (here I noticed they wanna say something but I kept going) if my answer is no (their eyes brightened as if they are saying YES explain it smart pants) then I just ignore it because I have nothing to do about it so what’s the point of killing myself over something I can’t change.

Here I noticed that they were disappointed with my answer.

Me: Look it is the matter of choice, you can be happy and direct your energy and your unconscious mind to solve the problem which will be solved eventually or preoccupy your mind and emotions with sadness and get it distracted from solving the real problem. It is easier said than done but when we practice to get control over your feelings and mind life gets easier and all the keys of happiness will be in your hand, there is no magic or secret spell for happiness …. There is only hard way that will accompany us through our whole life and we all will fall down and cry, it is your choice to get up and dry your tears and continue your road or you can stop where you fell and stay there crying your whole life. Trust me in both cases you will suffer but if you chose the harder road of happiness you will be more satisfied because you know that happiness is a road not a destination and you been up and down but you never gave up, you will be happy because you had the choice, because you owned your life … you didn’t blame anyone on what happened to you, you feel that you are invincible because you controlled the one thing that most of people can’t control; Your mind (conscious and unconscious) because mind is a dangerous master but a beautiful servant.

We chose long time ago to blame the world, the people and the whole universe about what happens to us, we called it luck, we called it fate and we called it reality, we didn’t doubt the system for one second and questioned why what happens, happens only to certain people .. Why some people are so happy and lucky their whole life and others are miserable and suffering for their whole life! We never questioned why some people are hanging between the two worlds. Did we ask ourselves why good things tend to happen when we are happy and bad things happens when we are down? We never ask the questions that worth to be asked because we fear the answer, we fear to be accountable for our Fate, Luck and Reality; we preoccupy our minds with foolish things to distract it from what really matters …. Our happiness, success and fulfillment …. It is way easier to say all of this out of your hand and you have no control over it because then you won’t be accountable for what crosses your bath because then you will only be a puppet in the hand of invisible power that decided your whole life, because by this you will be the victim not the aggressor. By doing this you give away the only superpower you have as human being, you give away the treasure that God gave us, which is hidden nowhere but inside of us and only few people are able to see it.

I will leave you with one question, why don’t you try to take the road of happiness? What you will lose? At least you know you have tried, and there is nothing you will lose; in both cases you will be the same miserable you are today but with the happiness road you only take the chance of being happy and find your luck and meet your fate!

The person: …………………………………………………..!

Me: Have faith, not in any thing supernatural, just have faith in yourself and say “Abracadabra” and you will create what you say.

The End ;)

Originality

And she asked about originality.

I answered her: my dear being original doesn’t mean the detestation of the world or looking down to people it is something profound and deep … it is the rejection of the world in its current structure and the consistent attempts to change it through our action and our being, it is the unending battle to defeat our negativity by the strength of our positivity presence … originality doesn’t allow you to judge other people or despite people because of their behaviors, it is more about showing none acceptance for such ignorance and arrogance and accordingly raise above it. Originality, is the ability to be you, only you as clear and honest as you could be; take the water as example: it is original because it never changes its form according to what its environment, water is always water in a glass of gold or glass of mud … it saves our lives in any way we drink it because water is just water always simple yet very important for the existence of all creatures and always will be. So we should just be ourselves and serve our purpose of existence without attempts to make our presence in this planet more glorious or important than it really is, we should be ourselves with all transparency we can … originality speaks up its mind, expresses its feeling and enjoys its moment, most important originality works with life not against it because it knows that those who go against life will always lose; only then we will be important enough because we served and fulfilled our duty in this life.

The deadly bigotry of Islam

WARNING: as I begin I just want to mention that I don’t intend to insult anyone or offend anyone’s feelings… my main goal of writing my blog is to speak up my mind and express my thoughts; if you will be offended of serious criticism of Islam then it is the time to navigate from this page to another Islam friendly page because I am about to get really hard on my religion and my people and yes I am Muslim and still Muslim despite whatever you might think …. So, shall we start?!

Chaos is spreading through the Middle East and the Islamic world, proxy wars are invading all taboos and smashing against the wall all the values we brag and preach people about;  killing spread to include even Muslims from the same sects and the classic excuses and fatwas became really lame, from the east to west from north to south Muslims have committed the most brutal and hideous crimes with the name of Islam and unfortunately the only thing the majority of Muslims have said or done is the usual classic “that’s not part of the real Islam” .. so brothers and sisters what is the real Islam, and who the hell is representing this type of Islam. For a thousand times I said if the followers of a certain religion are not the representatives of this religion then what’s the point of this religion in the first place!!

During the last decade or so, a lot of what we call the spirit of Islam has been compromised not once or twice but over and over again and the majority of Muslims all over the world done nothing serious to stop this madness, in fact, people became even more radical than before! I am not suggesting to do a revolution against anyone but at least we should start to question and investigate what we are following as Islam and maybe try to find this “Real Islam” between the ruins that the current version of Islam left behind. Let’s do a quick check for what we claim is the spirit of Islam we have violated during the last decade:

Islam is a peaceful religion; I am sorry but I can stop laughing while writing this, peace hmmm; I think either we check our definition for peace or easier to admit that the Islam today has nothing in common with peace at all.... if you chose the first one then we can go in debate for pages about how the Islam practiced today had nothing  to do with peace, I don’t care how many versus people will present from the Quran but if you are not practicing these things then please just open any news channel and watch to know how peaceful Islam is.

Islam doesn’t contradict with common sense and logic, this one is funny too but it doesn’t make me laugh as much because I find it hard to believe how people with a brain can believe what those radicals believe, 70 virgin wives in heaven for killing people ….. Really! Or should I mention Jihad marriage, even better if I mention the adults’ breastfeeding …right?! I think these three examples are enough to make my point but if you are interested in knowing more just check the Wahhabi Fatwas and the interpretation of the Quran for Ibn Katheer or just browse Sahih Muslim or Bukhari and I assure you will be amused.

Islam spread through tolerance and acceptance of others … okay, maybe but can I know why  Muslims then kill apostates, gay or non-Muslims? Another one, why the only thing we read about Islam spread throughout the world is through invasions? Is that what tolerance stands for in our dictionary and is killing is the synonym of acceptance of others???

Muslims are the example of morals and values and any Muslims will talk to you about this will use prophet  Muhammed’s saying “I was sent to complete the good morals” but a quick visit to the street of a Muslim country may leave you speechless, men are harassing women constantly, though they are fully covered, people are so dirty and they have the worst morals and habits; they curse, make fun of others and they are the worst racists in the world through every behavior I mentioned here was mentioned in the Quran or hadith and Muslims were ordered to avoid these behaviors … of course I am not talking about all Muslims but I am talking about the majority of them or the social groups they live in.

I honestly can keep going on and on and on through this list but I only need to give examples to make my point, I am not criticizing Islam just to make fun of it, I just want my brothers and sisters in Islam to start thinking about Islam, reject the classic ideology and fix what needs to be fixed, we start from ourselves, our families, and small societies … we should stop following scholars blindly; and why we need them in the first place, most people are educated and can read through the Quran themselves and can find their own interpretation, why we all should follow the same thing when we are so different .. as well, we should reject violence in general under any excuse, against any human being because according to our Quran we were sent to build-up this planet not to destroy it, we should value human life and human being because we all brothers and sisters, and the most important this is to stop using Islam as an identity because this is the major problem and the way government used to serve their own interest since Moawia took the power and created the first The Islamic state, Islam is more of a lifestyle; changeable lifestyle, you can create your own Islam according to your life depending on your data, why we would allow some people living in their own castles in Macca, Tehran or wherever to tell us how to live our lives and how to practice Islam, isn’t the whole idea of Islam as the third and last Abrahamic religion is fixed what was missing in Judaism and Christianity?

Finally, despite all madness and craziness going on, I am hopeful that this dark period is just the beginning of new Islamic renaissance, where people start to take over their lives and beliefs and look to Islam with logic and with investigator’s eyes, not just follow blindly, because that’s not the way God created us and I am pretty sure is not the way he chose for us, he blessed us with the amazing brain with fascinating abilities to think and investigate, to research and invent. He gave as the gift of foresight to have a belief that guide our senses to a better life, where we make this planet a better place for us and others … or what is the point of religion if it will only lead us to more ugliness and brutality.. Think about that as I leave you with these ideas.

Schizophrenia

Sometimes I wonder, and start to question myself… sometimes I get confused of who am I? not because I don’t know the answer but because I am in constant  monitoring of myself; for me I might sacrifice any part of my personality but I would die trying to keep three parts, my soul, my humanity and my moral sense.

Recently, I have been receiving a tremendous negative feed backs of the stand I am taking in this life, people I know very well being unsatisfied by my behaviors, funny enough people I don’t know or never met also sending me advises and criticizing the aspects of my life and the most importantly, people I love are finding difficult time to accept me as a person and human being away from all our intellectual/ behavioral differences; which I find might be very harmful in many aspects but lucky for me I was born with strong personality that these types of criticism don’t affect me; raised by an amazing father who supported me while I was growing up really shaped my character and made me more open to receive criticism without letting it affect me psychologically because I know and accept that difference is crucial part of this life and no matter what I do it will always make someone unhappy.  though I usually start with my own experience but usually it is not the main point, I try through my writings to highlight the obstacles women, and young people face in the Arab world, try to relate to these problems from my own experiences with enormous certainty that most of young generation had to face similar situations.

Coming from the Arab world set some rules for your life, whether you accept them or not; in most cases you have to live by them because breaking these rules may cause unrepairable damage but as well living by them make you live a double life; secret life “your own personal life that you chose for yourself” and the life that you will show to the family, friends and the society you come from, and living this way is not healthy choice … after a while you start to feel a little be schizophrenic and you get confused of who you really are; even in the best cases when you overcome this feeling then you have to be in regular monitoring for your life  because the hidden feel of guilt will always be there, sometimes it will be blurry for you to see clearly and other times you will be just cautious of being caught living your life. Of course I wouldn’t describe myself as schizophrenic but living under these rules for so long made my life schizophrenic somehow, which make me really think of how other young Arab people are living this life, as I said before I am pretty strong which make me able to face a lot and I am actually living my life the way I want; not hiding anything unless it may hurt people I really care about but this make me really question how these young people survive this hectic life, how they survive in day to day basis and how much they could enjoy the life under such prohibitions and pressure …. I spent hours trying to find a way to help those young girls and boys including my own self but I always reached the same result, that it is personal and every person should assess the damage that he/she can or want to manage and start from there because every person is  unique character and have different priorities. Sadly enough it is not something I can do an initiative for, or start a campaign to fight it, it is social structure need to be changed slowly to be more lenient to accept difference and giving the personal freedom to people so they can live their life healthier without any psychological damage and without hypocrisy, without having to think twice about who we are in public and who we are in private because it is emotionally and psychologically draining to be forced to be someone but the real you.

I know most of the times what I write is dark and negative but I really believe we have to admit the problems so we can fix them, we have to assess the damage to be able to measure the effort and know the tools we need to fix these problems, I certainly believe that admitting the problem is usually 30% of the solution because it allows your mind to take a neutral stand from the case and make your mind able to assess everything clearly. I might sometimes get so hard on the Arab society, and that’s because I do care about people more than anything else and I hate to see my friends, colleges and other people suffer because of social traditions and norms … I wish for my daughter, friends,  myself and other people a better society where we are accepted for who we really are, not what we chose to do or how we chose to live our lives, a society where we can feel safe enough to express our own beliefs and ideas without the fear of being expelled or treated differently just because we have different mentality or life style. To sum up, I really hope that every young Arab person stand for his/her life and live by their own rules, assess the situation and make the sacrifice they need to make, if they have to … to live their lives the fullest they can, we only live once so we should take the initiative to change the life to be more tolerant for our hopes and dreams, more liberal to our different choices and lifestyles because the society we create is the world we will live in.