Strange Love 🫀

 Strange Love!

    What is love, anyways? Just a chemical reaction in your brain after it’s been rewired into feeling something it once forgot? Or is it more- something that transcends our own understanding? 

    In the movie Interstellar, Dr. Brand is obsessed with the idea that Love is a force which can transcend between space, time and reality. She stands by the thought that perhaps love is the ultimate force, which is what will pull them to safety and keep them from perishing in the deep, cold emptiness of outer space. In the end, I suppose she was right.

    Love is such a weird thing anyways. Is it purely an emotion you experience? How do you know when you are in love? Have you ever been in the first place? Or have you simply accepted certain emotions as Love and live a life of lies? The question itself begs multiple answers, no doubt about it. I don’t have any of them.

    If emotions are simply triggers, then what is so powerful about this one? Like a friend once told me- falling in love is easy. You can fall in love with a lamp, a couch, a television show. But is that love the same as you experience with others? Is that the same emotion which triggers a rush of blood coursing thru your body as loving a person does? Or is love simply an action? A repeated effort to provide and protect for someone which you hold dear? Truthfully, I do not know. For once, I have no answers which satisfy the idea.

    Charles Bukowski claims that being unable to love is the definition of hell. At least, something along those lines (please forgive me). I could agree with that statement. Without love, without emotion, without human touch- an individual can find themselves in the depths of hell. They can become isolated and alone, lost in a world filled with confusion. To be loved is one of the most basic and important human emotions we can experience. It is what has driven great men to accomplish incredible things, throughout history. Love of wife, love of children, love of family. L-O-V-E.

    Perhaps love is something which allowed us humans to advance this far into the future. Perhaps it is one of the most important emotional triggers which has pushed up to become the creatures we are today. But is it a necessary one? Does love become important, once we become nothing more than machines and computers? Does a computer long for a partner? Or does it simply dance by itself in the rain, completely and utterly unaware of the lack of connection it holds? Does it even understand how to compute its own loneliness?

    Computers and humans are not that far off, in my opinion. Each is basically a unique system, with the ability to complete tasks which the other cannot. Cannot, at least for the moment. There is always room for improvement, on both human and machine. When we break it down, each system has its own memory storage. Its own hard drive, its own software. Much like in the Matrix, we are constantly downloading new information from our surroundings and experiences. What if we also learn to download love? Where would we find that, anyways?

    Most psychologist would agree that love is something which is downloaded from a mother & father relationship. Our first standard of love tends to be derived from your mom and dad. Their actions, their words, their commitment etc. Take a child who has grown up in a broken home, and odds are their version of love will be a broken one. Take one who grew up in a loving family, and odds are they will reciprocate it. However, there are always exceptions to the rules. Some computers simply cannot download and comprehend the information they are being presented. They simply do not compute nor understand the actions or data points in which they are being presented. Their memory and hard drive reject the information, completely tossing it to the side.

    Humans are nothing more than computer systems. Extremely advanced, extremely intelligent. However, we still falter with basic tasks. One of the biggest things which separates us from the machine, is our ability to experience emotions. As far as we know, a computer is unable to experience such things. I say that because perhaps one day, it will. Then, the task will fall upon us to explain what an emotion even is. Is it simply a chemical reaction, triggered by images or sound waves? Is it something which truly transcends space and time? If so- can a computer not develop into experiencing the same thing?

    In my opinion, love has been something which has kept humans moving forward throughout the millenniums. It has provided us with the necessary survival instincts to push further, harder than ever thought possible. And here we are. Further and harder in time than ever thought possible. Now that we have reached the age of machine, is love no longer a necessary emotion? Is it simply an outdated software patch- one which we will no longer need moving forward? I suppose only time will tell, as usual. 

    Love is an emotion which cannot be quantified. It cannot be computed. It cannot be measured or explained. It simply exists. And if it exists- it can also be destroyed. It can also become obsolete. It can slowly fade away, as the need to be loved becomes extracted from our brains. As we accelerate forward in a society, where emotions are suppressed and configured towards other goals. Where we no longer hold the need to find an individual or group of people to share our values and belief amongst. As we slowly drift towards an isolated world.

A dark, cold, deadly world.

        Glory Be,

                    Amen.