Sandcastle of Glass

[FacetiousPersona]

How did this happen? Will anyone be cruel and smash my sandcastle down? What was the effet of this glass castle? Is it fulgurite instead of glass? Did you heat up my sandcastle until it was beautiful? Is it contained within the glass or surrounded with a wall of it? Where is the gate?


You drive me down the road at 120 MPH for us to feel the adrenaline. "Is this life?", I ask, while you laugh. You finally respond as we pass the police that the rush is reminiscent of love, and we realize the chase is now on. We are rushing down the road while our inevitable doom in the car drives beside the probability. The happiness as we are far ahead is from chemicals - as are the chemicals from the love we feel. Before the end, my question is: "All of this for chemicals?"

 

[Melkor]

Yes Face.

Just about everything humanity does is for chemcials...or because of them...get used to it.

 

[loveofreason]

oxytocin, adrenaline, noradrenaline...

 

[FacetiousPersona]

Yes Face.

Just about everything humanity does is for chemcials...or because of them...get used to it.

We objectively murder you! Kidding.

 

[cheese]

Apologies; I haven't argued this very well.

It is meaningless to make value judgements about value-less things.

To judge the value of love, we must look at it on the level at which 'value' is meaningful. It is like seeing a person instead of mere anthropomorphically-arranged atoms. In living life, in anything we do, we think and communicate in symbols, in words and concepts that have much more information embedded in them than their brevity suggests. A 'triangle' is a shape with three sides and interior angles that add up to 180 degrees. A 'blue' object is one with blue-reflecting qualities. 'Love' is the reaction caused by certain combinations of chemicals. Naming things makes them easier to identify. Its purpose is not to hide or elevate their nature. Names are signifiers.

Questions such as yours suggest that there is something beyond these chemicals, that they are somehow inferior. How can this be so, unless we see evidence for greater value in other areas? We resent the fact that our feelings seem to be purely physical, material reactions, thus somehow cheapening love - but we should understand all life is like this. To reject love because of its chemical nature is unfair unless you also reject everything else in life that is purely physical in nature. Our thoughts, our reasoning and our deepest feelings are all so. Why not them too? Einstein's physical nature enabled him to observe, to think, and to work out complex theories. These were all physical processes involving a material brain.
We need to understand that there are different levels of understanding and perceiving. Judging one on the basis of another should not happen, when both are valid.

What are we actually looking for when dissatisfied with the physical nature of love? Perhaps we believe it is less valuable than previously thought because it is malleable. Changing the chemicals would change the feelings, thus removing love's status as an all-powerful force. This could also potentially remove the beloved's worth, as it is no longer enough to maintain the feelings. However, perhaps the beloved would always inspire the feelings/chemicals, even if they could be continually quelled. One does not fall in love with everyone. There are qualities that are responded to, compatibility factors that cannot be ignored. The beloved is still a major player in the game! Love is not a total 'sham', even on the level of value. Yes, things can be tweaked, but left in a natural state, love has power, and direction of its own. People draw and repel.

They are merely chemicals, and we merely atoms. We have accepted the latter - why not the former? It should not lessen its worth. It is simply a perspective that makes sense only on the level we live at. We are simply looking from a greater height, seeing the human instead of the atoms, the picture instead of the pixels.

 

[Weliddryn]

How did this happen? Will anyone be cruel and smash my sandcastle down? What was the effet of this glass castle? Is it fulgurite instead of glass? Did you heat up my sandcastle until it was beautiful? Is it contained within the glass or surrounded with a wall of it? Where is the gate?


You drive me down the road at 120 MPH for us to feel the adrenaline. "Is this life?", I ask, while you laugh. You finally respond as we pass the police that the rush is reminiscent of love, and we realize the chase is now on. We are rushing down the road while our inevitable doom in the car drives beside the probability. The happiness as we are far ahead is from chemicals - as are the chemicals from the love we feel. Before the end, my question is: "All of this for chemicals?"

When one explains a thing, and comes to understand the way it works, it often times seems to have less value. Humans seem to crave trying to understand their environment, and when ever they solve a mystery they rejoice in their discovery and mourn the loss of the mystery that drove their passion. Understanding is double edged sword, both enjoyable for the sake that it is understood and also a death of a mystery. When one does not know something, they can imagine, and in their fantasies create a world rich and powerful to their appeals, regardless of whether it could ever exist in the reality outside their own minds. The unknown can lead to expectations, and if these expectations are met with a simple, physical reality, it can often times seem that the reality outside our own minds is pale, weak. But this need not be so and the process of mourning the loss of a fantasy proves the complex mind behind the fantasy.

The complex mind will over think the most simple things, striving, in vain, to find meaning. But we are a race oriented on the process, not the goal. The goal is important, true, but after it is reached what more is there to do, but to move onto the next goal? It is the process that is most important.

Love is an emotion. It is caused by chemical reactions, etc, and these reactions are caused by an outside source (the person of interest). Humans are naturally inclined to become attached to certain other humans, they do not often fall in love with anyone that they meet. This can be explained due to circumstance, mere genetics and chemistry, etc. Taken on a complex level, this seems to imply that it is not so meaningful. But, simply because you understand a thing, does not lessen its value- the fantasy is more appealing in many ways, but it cannot subsitute real love.

It is a matter of growth, perhaps, leaving a fantasy to embrace a reality. The fantasy must be greived, but the reality is no less valuable.

 

[FacetiousPersona]

When one explains a thing, and comes to understand the way it works, it often times seems to have less value. Humans seem to crave trying to understand their environment, and when ever they solve a mystery they rejoice in their discovery and mourn the loss of the mystery that drove their passion. Understanding is double edged sword, both enjoyable for the sake that it is understood and also a death of a mystery. When one does not know something, they can imagine, and in their fantasies create a world rich and powerful to their appeals, regardless of whether it could ever exist in the reality outside their own minds. The unknown can lead to expectations, and if these expectations are met with a simple, physical reality, it can often times seem that the reality outside our own minds is pale, weak. But this need not be so and the process of mourning the loss of a fantasy proves the complex mind behind the fantasy.

The complex mind will over think the most simple things, striving, in vain, to find meaning. But we are a race oriented on the process, not the goal. The goal is important, true, but after it is reached what more is there to do, but to move onto the next goal? It is the process that is most important.

Love is an emotion. It is caused by chemical reactions, etc, and these reactions are caused by an outside source (the person of interest). Humans are naturally inclined to become attached to certain other humans, they do not often fall in love with anyone that they meet. This can be explained due to circumstance, mere genetics and chemistry, etc. Taken on a complex level, this seems to imply that it is not so meaningful. But, simply because you understand a thing, does not lessen its value- the fantasy is more appealing in many ways, but it cannot subsitute real love.

It is a matter of growth, perhaps, leaving a fantasy to embrace a reality. The fantasy must be greived, but the reality is no less valuable.

Very nicely worded.