I think the need for love is an outgrowth of the need for acceptance, coupled with an “addiction” to the hormones and pheromones that make us “feel good.” It’s not a nature or nurture thing; it’s a bit of both.
From the earliest age, we are trained to seek acceptance from those around us. As children, we seek the acceptance of our parents and siblings. We gain a sense of physical well being from their approval, our brains producing chemicals to increase our feelings of pleasure when those around us give us the approval we crave. By the time we reach school age, most of us are already indoctrinated into the cult of conformity via the chemical approval mechanism in our brains. In school, we are drawn to people who accept us and seek further to win others to our side through various activities.
I know I make it sound a bit sinister, but it’s just the way we are hard wired to be. We want everyone to love us. We’re physically dependent upon the approval of others and psychologically trained to seek it from infancy. Love and its chemical byproduct is the first “drug” we’re introduced to via our mother’s milk. It’s more than nourishment and antibodies that were receive from our mothers. We also receive from her the chemical equivalent of everything she is feeling.
We may not be consciously aware of it, but when we become adults, we are still looking for that approval. We’ve all been sold on the idea that there is someone out there for everyone, or maybe experience has soured us on the idea of a “soul mate,” but deep down we’re still looking for that person that makes us feel like we did as children… safe and loved, protected and cherished. It’s an addiction to a feeling, a physical and psychological need to belong to someone. To a greater or lesser degree everyone has this need.
Those who are denied love seek other things to fill the need. It’s the same thing. Everyone is looking for somewhere to belong. Some manage to give that to themselves through self dedication. Some will dedicate themselves to an idea or activity; some will give themselves over to a group, religion, or political ideal. They make themselves feel needed, purposeful, by focusing on something that they love that in turn gives them the physical high they would otherwise look for in another being. Some unfortunately turn to drugs for that euphoric feeling love would otherwise bring.
Physical or psychological, inborn or trained, we all seek love. We all want to belong somewhere or to someone. Each of us wants to be someone else’s world or bask in someone else’s dedication to our wants and needs. Love really does make the world go round. Through love we form attachments, groups, societies, cultures…
Does it really matter where love comes from so long as it is expressed? I’m not talking about sexual love which is mainly about physical gratification, but the pure expression of emotion and the sense of belonging that comes with it. We want to know that there’s somewhere that we are safe and wanted. We all want to know that there is a place, a person, where we never have to hide our true face and where we will always be welcomed.
March 18th
Born in 1877, Edgar Cayce’s birthday was today.
The Irish goddess Sheilah na Gig, a fertility goddess, is honored today as a patroness of thresholds and women’s mysteries. She is identified variously as St. Patrick’s wife or mother. In Iceland, this is known as Sheelah’s Day.
Comments (13)
Some people are more obsessed with finding love and acceptance than others….
I don’t really feel qualified to say much about this topic, since I’ve never been in love. Sad, no? But I definitely agree that everyone wants to be loved and accepted by their parents, no matter how nonsensical or self-destructive it is.
Great post.
I think the traps arrive when we seek to possess love, which goes for anything, really. And then there are always definitions and mythologies that go with the conditioning.
I think we perceive the concept of love before we even leave the womb. I think we perceive emotions to the good or the ill even from that veil of temporary sanctuary. After that, perhaps a seeking of companionship in the innate loneliness experienced, sometimes, in the process of simply be-ing.
Blessings~
I think as long as we find a way to express love in a healthy way, it doesn’t really matter why. People are strange creatures, and we do need that sense of belonging, I don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s just hard and sad when we can’t find that for ourselves in this big world. It seems to me like everyone should be more loving and accepting, given that that’s what we all really want. . . there’s always that pesky ego to deal with though.
@heidenkind - What do I know about love? I’m an asexual. I’ve never been in love either. lol
But, the love you feel for someone you want to spend the rest of your life with and love for a friend or love for a relative is all still love. Everyone is qualified to expound on the subject of love because everyone has been loved at some point in their life, even if they were too young to recognize it or if they have never been loved since. I think you’re just mistaking sacrifice everything Love for love for your fellow man. You may never have been “in love,” but I doubt you’re completely ignorant about love. So long as you’re not taking those romance novels you read as instruction manuals, I’m sure you’ll be just fine when you finally find it.
@Bijouli - Thanks
I agree. We start to experience emotions in womb. It may even be in the womb that we learn our sense of one-ness and seek to recreate that in the relationships we form in life.
@Jemstone05 - People definitely need to learn to give and receive love without putting conditions of ownership on it. It’s so easy just to smile at someone or compliment them on some small thing and love them as another living being. Most people are utterly befuddled by the expression of warmth from a complete stranger. It makes their day, and then they go on to be kind to others.
@harmony0stars - Hahaha. What??? Are you trying to tell me those books aren’t realistic?
@harmony0stars -
It’s true! Love is a wonderful thing to be able to pass on.
Everyone wants to feel love. To give it and have it given back. Sometimes it works for people and other times it doesn’t. I’ve known people who think their life is a failure since they don’t have it. The first person you need to love is yourself. Once you do others will see your worth.
~D~
i’m a lover you’re a lover we are lovers loving lovers living in this world today
i love to be
i love what you say about love and conditions
love has no conditions (relationships on the other hand, well that’s a whole other post)
i love to love
and i accept love the way it shines its light with me…
do you have any pets?
oh, you may have allergies, I imagine.
hm…what about a plant?
houseplants have been the loves of my life at times
@AnamcharaConcepts - True and so many people don’t know how to give it. They just know they want it. If they can learn to give it to themselves, they’ll be better equipped to give it to others.
@bodhitree - Yeah… unfortunately, I’m allergic to anything with fur or feathers.
Lizards aren’t overly affectionate critters and fish are awfully hard to pet. I do have a small jungle of houseplants though. 
Too many in fact, but it’s so hard to give them away. It’s as hard to give a houseplant to a new home as it is to give away a pet. Who knows if the new family will love and care for them as well as I did.
When love is lacking around them especially from parents, they search not within but externally and everywhere else.
Great post, your take on love is very interesting. So would you say that we are hard wired to be hedonists? What of altruism?
@Altered_Sight - First and foremost I think we are animals, no matter what our higher aspirations might be, we are material beings mired in a material world and so yes, hedonism is something we have to guard against. Like any animal, we are physically driven to satiate ourselves. When our basic needs are met, we automatically default to our wants or preferences. It’s instinctual which makes it all the harder to control.
As for altruism, I don’t believe it exists outside of split second decisions. For instance, you see a child in harm’s way and you leap to its rescue without thinking. At any other time, if you have time to consider your options, the decision is no longer altruistic because you will have time to uncover how an “altruistic” act will benefit you in the long run. Even such acts that seem to have no physical rewards provide a psychological bonus or sociological accolades from your peers. I’ve actually written about altruism before. I think deep down, everyone is selfish in one way or another. Even a parent who sacrifices for his child is attempting to ensure the survival of his genes in the next generation. True acts of altruism are rare and dependent more on circumstance than human nature. Human nature often makes altruism impossible.