A few days ago I stumbled across a video with an interesting title ‘The Brain in Love’, clicking on it, I was then completely drawn into a lecture, given by biological anthropologist Helen Fisher. I felt as though I was sat there in amongst the audience, silent and transfixed in the dimly lit theatre. The topic was love, which is intriguing enough in itself but that steadily grew into sixteen minutes of fascination, time that I would gladly spare all over again. She took advantage of a popular subject laced with deep emotion by partnering fact with feeling. She chose to piece the lecture together with examples of literature that enriched it all. Nearly every quote and tale of romance left you hanging on her every word, sending you into a state of calm contemplation. With her Canadian lilt, the audience were led whimsically into the inner workings of love, humanely dissected, without stripping away too much of its magic.

Whether we like to admit it or not, love is a need or at best a want, like a thirst that needs to be quenched we are all driven to seek it out. It’s what we live for. Without it we are spared heartache but experience loneliness, with it we are engulfed in the most intense highs and locked into the deepest lows. One of Fisher’s opening sentences really stood out for me, not just because it’s so poetic but because it is such a truism,

“All around the world people love, they sing for love, they dance for love, they compose poems and stories about love, they tell myths and legends about love, they pine for love, they live for love, they kill for love and they die for love.”

This lists the ways that romantic love can impact and shatter lives, from the production of pure happiness and creativity to extreme sacrifice and suffering – it can possess, inspire and alter our state of mind, our entire world. It is obvious Fisher is engrossed by the subject, at first she looks nervous but is then propped up by a confidence in her audience’s ability to relate to her subject so completely, as they warm to her. She believes everyone’s desire for love is inbuilt from birth, as she presents it as a complex contradiction, both a universal affliction and a remedy.

She picks her quotes well to round off a chosen story or poem. The partnership between the written word and love has always been symbiotic, as it allows us to express the depth and breadth of our feelings, comparing it to the deepest oceans and the widest of skies. Her lecture is supported by phrases and rhymes that speak honestly about real, rather than imagined experiences.

Some great quotes include:

“You can’t stop thinking about another human being, somebody is camping in your head’’

– Fisher says this, describing how someone lives in your head, staying with you even when they’re not with you, pitching there permanently or until you move on and essentially force them out from your thoughts; a simple analogy that strikes a chord straight away.

“The past is not dead, it’s not even the past” – (Faulkner)

– This describes how time can seem to stand still when you’re in love and the past is just as much a part of the present. It shapes the present in so much as it deepens love, the past makes present feelings possible.

“The less is my hope, the hotter my love” – (Roman Poet, Terence)

– This refers to one of the cruel elements of love, where the experience of rejection or unrequited love fuels the flames of passion, as our wants or not met, spurring us on hopelessly which only inflicts further pain. This idea is where the phrase “treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen” originates.

 “The God of love lives in a state of need” – (Plato)

– an insatiable appetite is key for ongoing passion and for love to thrive, keeping us driven and wanting more.

“Parting is all we need to know of hell” – (Emily Dickinson)

– A quote that Fisher used well to bookend a sad poem stood out as a simple yet powerful statement, full of wisdom. This is all it takes to activate the onset of despair as we are thrown from our own corner of earthly heaven with the one we love, straight into a hell without them. Because love deals in extremes, when we are happy in love we experience an abundance of blissful contentment, so when it is taken away, all that is left is a barren wasteland we have to endure alone. Usually we don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone.

Romantic stories remind you why love is so sought after. The Mayan story told by Fisher works as a perfect introductory tale that seems to confirm the existence of everlasting love, something that human nature wants but can’t always deliver, another challenge love presents. The story carves out the shape of an ideal love, transcending the physical realm, where a Sun king and queen still want to return each other’s affections, a fairytale that demonstrates love’s reach, which is seen and interpreted by others today, helping to keep faith in true love alive.

A poem that is obviously close to Fisher’s heart is read out. She introduces it as the most powerful love poem on earth. If you’re not convinced by reading it or even hearing it, try reading it aloud, it seems to take on a new dimension, especially when the final line is spoken:

Fire runs through my body with the pain of loving you,

Pain runs through my body with the fires of my love for you,

Pain like a boil about to burst with my love for you

Consumed by fire with my love for you

I remember what you said to me,

I am thinking of your love for me,

I am torn by your love for me,

Pain and more pain –

Where are you going with my love?

I am told you will go from here,

I am told you will leave me here

My body is numb with grief

Remember what I said my love,

Goodbye my love, Goodbye.

The poem focuses on the pain and suffering that comes with love. It’s certainly not a wine and roses account. The poet’s pain is then replaced with emptiness, and the intensity vanishes along with the loved one, which brings a new level of hurt. It almost documents a case of ‘Cant live with you, can’t live without you.’ Fisher’s voice wavers at the end of this poem and she is visibly moved as the poem is so sad, filled with panic, desperation, fear and dependency, all the things we put aside when in hot pursuit of love, but then it is suddenly replaced by a crippling loneliness, making you wonder which is best. A shameless vulnerability is exposed, as love claims another victim indiscriminately. It highlights just how easily love can come and go.

The character of love seems unchanged over time. It continues to both hurt and heal us; it builds us up and knocks us down. People give up everything and go to great lengths all in the name of love. It can prove to be our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. Love can save the day or ruin it. It can make perfect sense and at the same time, no sense at all. It’s hard not to sound too clichéd when talking about love, enough to say, that it can push us to the extremes of our emotional capabilities, test us mercilessly and make us do things that we would never normally consider. It can change us for the better or the worst, but without it wouldn’t we miss out on our earthly right to try and live life to its very fullest?

See Helen Fisher deliver her inspiring lecture, making the faces of her audience smile and nod in agreement. Here’s ‘The Brain in Love’: