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.

Enjoy!