It’s a nebulous construct, poorly defined at best. “Love” is a word used to describe an emotion, a commitment, a gut feeling. It is also a common excuse for bad behavior ranging from wall-punching to mass murder.

And love is by far the most powerful human motivator.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Love can be described as an internal process, the behavioral product of dopamine and oxytocin fluctuations in the ventral tegmental area and caudate nucleus. But this sterile clinical assessment is a post-hoc reductionist attempt to explain the power of the old gods in terms of dendrites and neurotransmitters.

Kind of like describing an F-5 tornado as a “rotating column of air.” Scientific definitions fall far short of the experience of one who is caught in the storm.

The more common point of view is that love is an external force that is thrust upon us, usually unexpectedly and sometimes violently.

We are “love-struck,” “love sick,” “smitten,” “head over heels,” “crazy” about someone. We “fall” in love. We describe our irrational love-induced behavior as “crimes of passion,” not “crimes of serotonin absorption in the amygdala.”

Cupid doesn’t pat you on the head, he impales you with an arrow.

The truth is, we really have no idea from whence love comes, or why. But we are all familiar with what love can do to a person, a society, a culture.

The Power of Love

Einstein purportedly wrote this to his daughter, Lieserl:

"When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world. There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is love.”

Helen of Troy’s elopement with Paris, “launched a thousand ships,” and sparked the Trojan War. Cleopatra’s romance with Marc Antony toppled dynasties and altered the course of the Roman Empire.

Love causes us to stay up too late and eat too little. We drive for hours, fly across continents and oceans, ignore the cost and damn the torpedoes. We would “take a bullet” for someone we love, emotionally, financially, literally.

Our highest purpose and most noble acts are forged in and sustained by love. It brings out the best in us and makes us want to be better - better friends, lovers, confidants. We gladly spend lifetimes and fortunes in support of our loved ones.

And love inspires us to be profoundly productive.

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

Love has given rise to the Taj Mahal, and to castles, temples and monuments across the world and throughout time.

Would Shakespeare’s sonnets be the same without love? Imagine Dante without his “Divine Comedy,” written out of his love for Beatrice.

“Love songs” is its own genre of music, and has initiated millions of downloads and albums, launched thousands of careers.

Nothing obliterates “writers’ block” like being in love. Words and music begin to effortlessly flow, even after months or years of stagnation. Enraptured, we write and sculpt and design and paint and build.

Everybody deserves to be in love and experience love in return. But I think it is even more fundamentally important to artists. For an artist, love creates depth and color, a richness of human connection that cannot otherwise be replicated.

Somebody to Love

Love might be the reason we are “here” in the first place. It is both the impetus of our lives and the reason we continue to live. If that is the case, then it is essential that we pursue and sustain a love relationship.

You have to make room for love, however. As powerful as it is, love still needs fertile soil in which to take root. Fear and worry and hate can consume all of our energy and leave no room for love to take hold, even when it is staring us in the face.

It can take a great deal of conscious, concerted effort to clear and maintain a space in which love can grow, especially if you have been hurt before. In many cases all you can do is pay attention to your instinct and trust that what feels good may actually be good.

Be cautious, but know that the risk and sacrifice you endure to develop and protect a space for love will be worth it.

All You Need is Love

Take the time to actively look for love, and when you find someone worthy, spare no effort to honor and protect that relationship.

Your work - and your life - will benefit.



I am a creator (musician, writer, live-streamer and podcaster), entrepreneur, educator and counselor.



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- JWW