The Perfect Kiss
A perfect kiss is simple.
Catching it is difficult.
The moment slips away like water trickling through your hands.
Their is no perfect spot or time.
Just a perfect moment when the stars twinkle just right,
and the world shifts to silence for there is only you and another in the universe.
That moment is for you to treasure.
It may not be glorious or as sparkling as you wished.
The moment is yours and his.
To catch the moment you have to look close.
It may be that time in the fountain.
When you had your first kiss.
An unknown burning lighting slowly inside of you.
Perhaps the perfect kiss does not lie with a lover.
Maybe the perfect kiss is from a parent.
That sweet moment when you lay down to sleep.
Your mind still aware of your surroundings
but slowly drifting off to slay the dragons.
They smile sweetly knowing you are theirs.
A symbol of all they love and hold dear.
Before the lights are out a sweet soft peck on the cheek sends you away.
Buzzing is the impression left by them,
like a child's whisper in your ear.
It is soft innocent and tickles a little.
The perfect kiss comes once a life time.
The moment is swift and everlasting.
Leaving you incapable of finding another moment as blissful as it.
The perfect kiss defies all odds.
It drives hopeless romantics wild.
But if you are searching for it you will miss that moment.
You will not capture that kiss in your mind.
It will be lost forever.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Life changing epiphany
Yesterday was about one of the worst days I have had on top of all my other worst days. I have been having a lot of those days as of late. The evening was amazing though. I didn't do anything out of the norm too much. I spent the evening up at the dorms on campus a bit with friends listened to a nerd war occurring on the computers. Not very entertaining but better then just me sitting by myself in a self loathing state. Pathetic I know but we are all entitled to our moments of weakness mine was just an explosion of weakness. The only other thing i did was go bowling and had some McDonald's.
During bowling I was trying not to focus on problems so naturally people watching became my focus. Their was a few groups surrounding us. The couple or date next to us intrigued me the most. The guy was acting like a total tool trying to impress the girl with his bowling skills. The girl on the other hand was acting like a nerd. The thing i noticed though was though they were acting out of the norm both of them had huge smiles slapped across their faces.This was the moment that I realized my way of thinking was hindering in my journey for happiness.
Life is always going to take you down a path that is unfavorable. You still have control of where you end up in life by the choices you make but what you don't have control over is the situations you are presented with to get there. I hope that makes sense to you. The ultimate epiphany i had though is that yes i need to have goals in life and i do have them many of them. Instead of only looking to those goals i need to start living in the present to make them occur. For my entire life i have had dreams beyond dreams of what i want out of life. I have always just lived in my dreams never really experiencing what is going on around me just always looking forward. I as well as some of you out there need to live in today, moment by moment. Keep your goals and dreams in mind but do not let them block out the view that is standing right in front of you. From where i'm standing my view is slightly spectacular with a nice sunrise cresting the tops of the mountains ahead.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
The laws of attraction: what causes you to seek out your Adonis?
Relationships require several key components. As with many relationships attraction begins the spark of what later is confused as love. Let us take an alternate view as to what creates attraction. Is that heart stopping smile an unexplained stop to all other smiles you see or is just a cascade of physiological events occurring in your brain and heart.
For biology's sake we have an innate drive to seek out prime partners and mate. We are built to pass our genes on. This is the point of life in the animal world. To better ensure that our genes are passed on the best possible way we seek out the perfect partner. For example I prefer a male with dark hair, dark eyes, tall, lean, humorous, sane and fit. I get signals from these characteristics that this fellow would be a good mate. It has been suggested by Helen Fisher that " when pursuing a specific mate your sensory, cognitive and memory neural systems are activated. The main system activated is the courtship attraction system."(1) The behaviors that occur with the courtship activation system have been highly associated with "raised levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain".(1)Oddly enough the two hormones are related. Each are biogenic amines derived from the precursor products tyrosine or tryptophan. The hormones act within the central and peripheral nervous system. Dopamine's core functions consist of "reward, pleasure, regulating emotional responses, movement and goal seeking behaviors"(2). Norepinephrine has control over the stress response system. We have all experienced this while giving a speech or standing in front of that special some one. Your heart races, palms sweat, and all function is focused on your respiratory system which means digestion ceases. It is not hard to see why these two specific hormones increase when the courtship system is activating. The dopamine drives your desire for the traits the beloved possesses while the norepinephrine increases based on the amount of precursor being made your body must maintain homeostasis. The pitter patter of your heart flaring up when he/she walks by is your bodies reaction to the norepinephrine.
To further support this idea of a courtship attraction system an experiment was executed. Using fMRI Helen Fisher studied a group of individuals "in love". Her experiment consisted of showing the individual a thirty second view of their significant other's photo and then exposing them to a distraction task for forty seconds. They were then rewarded again by a viewing of the significant other's photo and told to think of a nonsexual experience of the other. After another distraction task was executed for twenty seconds. (1)
From the experiment conducted it was concluded that upon exposure to the photo the reward pathways of the brain were activated. To further prove that the reward system another experiment as conducted. Couples who had been in love for a longer period of time and had lost the shine of puppy dog love were subjected to the experiment. They as well as the previous group were observed through an fMRI machine. In this experiment the individual studied three photographs at the same time. One was of the significant other and the others were of friends with similar traits and the same sex. The conclusion was the same. The dopamine reward system was yet again activated.(1)
All in all love may be a cruel trick of of the brain. Possibly love is created by your brain to drive you to thrive and continue on. Not only pass your genes on but possibly to shape and mold a better human being. I know from experience love tends to make you into a completely different person may be better or it may not. What ever we have love for though whether it be just a way for your mind to encourage you to mate or to become something better.
Resources
1.http://www.helenfisher.com/downloads/articles/Article_final_JRS_06.pdf, Helen Fisher Arthur Aron and Lucy L. Brown, November 13, 2006 Philisophical transactions of the Royal Society, Romantic Love: A mammalian brain system for mate choice, pgs 2173-2176 accessed : 12/13/2011
2.http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/dopamine sussex publishers, psychology today, psych basics: dopamine accessed:12/13/2011
For biology's sake we have an innate drive to seek out prime partners and mate. We are built to pass our genes on. This is the point of life in the animal world. To better ensure that our genes are passed on the best possible way we seek out the perfect partner. For example I prefer a male with dark hair, dark eyes, tall, lean, humorous, sane and fit. I get signals from these characteristics that this fellow would be a good mate. It has been suggested by Helen Fisher that " when pursuing a specific mate your sensory, cognitive and memory neural systems are activated. The main system activated is the courtship attraction system."(1) The behaviors that occur with the courtship activation system have been highly associated with "raised levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain".(1)Oddly enough the two hormones are related. Each are biogenic amines derived from the precursor products tyrosine or tryptophan. The hormones act within the central and peripheral nervous system. Dopamine's core functions consist of "reward, pleasure, regulating emotional responses, movement and goal seeking behaviors"(2). Norepinephrine has control over the stress response system. We have all experienced this while giving a speech or standing in front of that special some one. Your heart races, palms sweat, and all function is focused on your respiratory system which means digestion ceases. It is not hard to see why these two specific hormones increase when the courtship system is activating. The dopamine drives your desire for the traits the beloved possesses while the norepinephrine increases based on the amount of precursor being made your body must maintain homeostasis. The pitter patter of your heart flaring up when he/she walks by is your bodies reaction to the norepinephrine.
To further support this idea of a courtship attraction system an experiment was executed. Using fMRI Helen Fisher studied a group of individuals "in love". Her experiment consisted of showing the individual a thirty second view of their significant other's photo and then exposing them to a distraction task for forty seconds. They were then rewarded again by a viewing of the significant other's photo and told to think of a nonsexual experience of the other. After another distraction task was executed for twenty seconds. (1)
From the experiment conducted it was concluded that upon exposure to the photo the reward pathways of the brain were activated. To further prove that the reward system another experiment as conducted. Couples who had been in love for a longer period of time and had lost the shine of puppy dog love were subjected to the experiment. They as well as the previous group were observed through an fMRI machine. In this experiment the individual studied three photographs at the same time. One was of the significant other and the others were of friends with similar traits and the same sex. The conclusion was the same. The dopamine reward system was yet again activated.(1)
All in all love may be a cruel trick of of the brain. Possibly love is created by your brain to drive you to thrive and continue on. Not only pass your genes on but possibly to shape and mold a better human being. I know from experience love tends to make you into a completely different person may be better or it may not. What ever we have love for though whether it be just a way for your mind to encourage you to mate or to become something better.
Resources
1.http://www.helenfisher.com/downloads/articles/Article_final_JRS_06.pdf, Helen Fisher Arthur Aron and Lucy L. Brown, November 13, 2006 Philisophical transactions of the Royal Society, Romantic Love: A mammalian brain system for mate choice, pgs 2173-2176 accessed : 12/13/2011
2.http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/dopamine sussex publishers, psychology today, psych basics: dopamine accessed:12/13/2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Singin' in the Rain
Life sucks.Life seems to maintain a funny pattern. You are born. Enjoy a blissfully happy childhood. You get old and disaster knocks at your door to politely say "I am here to fuck you up". This is where Singin' in the Rain comes in handy. You all have heard of the movie or heard the song at least once. In the movie it features a man in love singing the song in a monstrous Hollywood rainstorm. Every bit of him is soaked and cold. He didn't even get an invite into his dates place. Though i know times were different and getting a kiss was probably the equivalent of today's dinner and bed. The point of this song is metaphorical. Whether you are immersed in rain or if the world just seems to be raining on you a smile will always make it better. You have to keep tromping on through the rain with a demeanor of happiness. No matter what happens you control how miserable it is through how you deal with it.
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