I love fire. Everything about it. It fascinates me, enthralls me, baffles me, entices me, makes me think and wonder, mesmerizes me. I am a pyromaniac at heart. I have been fascinated with fire since I was a kid. We had a fireplace in our house and a loveseat in front of it. I would sit for hours, and usually fall asleep in front of our fireplace, transfixed by the flames. I can’t wrap my mind around this thing before me, these flames I can very much see and very much feel but can’t touch or hold; flames that are there one minute and gone the next – on to a new location only to appear and disappear all over again. Yet at least two of my senses point to the existence of this fire, so I know it’s there. I love fire.
My blog today is titled “Have a heart,” so why am I talking about fire? Last night I was thinking about accepting the existence of something when you can’t understand it with all of your senses. Namely, the existence of emotion.
The heart plays a central role in emotion. Rather, it seemingly plays a central role. You would never tell someone, “I love you will all my amygdalae.” Super romantic…But really that’s what it is. Compassion, love, tenderness, desire, anger, joy – feelings all attributed to the heart but actually formed in the brain. Can I merely write off human emotion as a chemical reaction or a transmission of neurons in the brain? Or is there something more exquisite, more intricate, more beautiful, and far less explainable at work here? A man may jump in front of a bullet for his wife, a mother may sacrifice her life for her child. Can something like that – a self sacrificial display of love – be categorized as merely adrenaline?
Last night I was taking a bath. I put my ears under the water and could hear my heart beat. I felt my chest – no heart beat. Felt my neck – no pulse. Felt my arm and wrist – no pulse. Yet I could hear it. Like fire, my heart was something only one of my senses was registering. I didn’t doubt it was there though, holding to what I knew to be true despite lacking the “evidence” behind it.
In a way, love follows the same guidelines. You can’t see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, or feel it – in the straightforward sense of all of these. Instead, we believe love exist because of the manifestations we see – a kind gesture, a gift, an act of service, a verbal voicing, a hug – all expressions of some kind of love but not the actual love itself. People show that they love by _______ [fill in the blank]. But you can’t see it. Because it’s not tangible. Only the expressions and results of love are tangible. So how do you know if it’s real? How do you know that the expressions of love that point to its existence aren’t merely habit, routine, something that’s been ingrained in you from a young age – similar to the idea that we should treat others kindly. What if the chemicals in my brain that produce “love” are different than the chemicals in your brain that do so and in terms of feelings, we’re on entirely different pages but because we have all learned the same expressions of love, we are seemingly on the same page?
Or what if my mindless ramble of fire, hearts, and love has gone on for too long and you’re wondering why you’re still reading? Being in South Africa, surrounded by entirely new and different people has led me to a place of wanting to understand people’s motivation behind their actions and the differences that exist between individuals and their motivations. So this is me, thinking and trying to understand and ending with more questions than I started with, but for now I suppose that’s acceptable :)
