Beauty

Beauty

Have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills

Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain:

I have seen the lady April bringing in the daffodils,

Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.

I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea,

And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships;

But the loveliest things of beauty God ever has showed to me

Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.

John Masefield

Idea

If your partner has to work late, take a lunch box and fill it with some of her favorite things such as chocolates, herbal tea, cookies, a small teddy bear.
Next, get a piece of paper and write
"Rachana's Late Night Survival Pack"
Draw a big red cross below this and stick the paper to the top of the box. Tell your partner to open the box when things get really tough.

TheRomantic.com

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What is it men in women do require

What is it men in women do require?

The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

What is it women do in men require?

The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

Idea

Get a piece of paper and some crayons. Draw a bright childlike picture with a smiley sun and two stick figures holding hands. Add labels with your two names pointing to the stick figures. Write "I Love You" inside a heart.
Next get a large formal envelope. Place your drawing inside and type up a formal address label of your partner's work such as:
For the immediate and urgent attention of:
Rachana Goswami
Level 2
Living Beyond Limits Coaching
Pune, India
Mail it to your partner so she receives it in the middle of a busy day.


TheRomantic.com

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Hellas

Hellas

To drift with every passion till my soul

Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,

Is it for this that I have given away

Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?

Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll

Scrawled over on some boyish holiday

With idle songs for pipe and virelay,

Which do but mar the secret of the whole.

Surely there was a time I might have trod

The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance

Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God.

Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod

I did but touch the honey of romance

And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

Oscar Wilde


Idea

Take a book that your partner is reading and using a pencil, underline letters in a section of the book she has yet to read to spell out a love letter. For example in the following exert from a novel, the underlined letters come together to spell out the secret message "I love you"

'The palace was a labyrinth, their passage through it tortuous and interminable. Initially they passed from building to building under the sodden sky. Steve's feet ached; he might have laughed at himself, the tireless traveler, grown too soft from his months in the city to walk any proper distance. Abruptly the guards halted.

The underlined letters will make your partner curious and with a bit of luck she will write them down. Spend time to encode a proper message such as "Dear Rachana, I love you honey"
TheRomantic.com

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The Rose

Some say love..
it is a river that drowns the tender reed
Some say love...
it is razor that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love...
It is hunger , an endless aching need
I say love..
it is a flower and you its only seed
It is a heart afraid of breaking
It is a dream afraid of waking
And the soul afraid of dying .
When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long
and you think love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember
In the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the Rose..

- Amanda McBloom

Idea

While walking with your partner on a weekend getaway, pick up a smooth stone and say that you're going to keep it as a special memento of your trip. Later, have a message on thew stone engraved into the stone by a jeweler.
"I Love Rachana" would be a nice touch.

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Bride Song

Bride Song

Too late for love, too late for joy,

Too late, too late!

You loitered on the road too long,

You trifled at the gate:

The enchanted dove upon her branch

Died without a mate;

The enchanted princess in her tower

Slept, died, behind the grate;

Her heart was starving all this while

You made it wait.

Ten years ago, five years ago,

One year ago,

Even then you had arrived in time,

Though somewhat slow;

Then you had known her living face

Which now you cannot know:

The frozen fountain would have leaped,

The buds gone on to blow,

The warm south wind would have awaked

To melt the snow.

Is she fair now as she lies?

Once she was fair;

Meet queen for any kingly king,

With gold-dust on her hair,

Now these are poppies in her locks,

White poppies she must wear;

Must wear a veil to shroud her face

And the want graven there:

Or is the hunger fed at length,

Cast off the care?

We never saw her with a smile

Or with a frown;

Her bed seemed never soft to her,

Though tossed of down;

She little heeded what she wore,

Kirtle, or wreath, or gown;

We think her white brows often ached

Beneath her crown,

Till silvery hairs showed in her locks

That used to be so brown.

We never heard her speak in haste;

Her tones were sweet,

And modulated just so much

As it was meet:

Her heart sat silent through the noise

And concourse of the street.

There was no hurry in her hands,

No hurry in her feet;

There was no bliss drew nigh to her,

That she might run to greet.

You should have wept her yesterday,

Wasting upon her bed:

But wherefore should you weep today

That she is dead?

Lo we who love weep not today,

But crown her royal head.

Let be these poppies that we strew,

Your roses are too red:

Let be these poppies, not for you

Cut down and spread.

Christina Rossetti


Idea

Buy a packet of glow in the dark stars and stick the stars on the roof above your bed to spell out the message "I Love You"
When the lights go down, your message will be revealed!

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It doesn't just last an hour

Love is sadly misunderstood.
It doesn't just last an hour
or return only at the spectre of a beloved
It's always there,
crouching, deep inside,
Camouflaged unsatisfied at the back
of life’s shallow distractions
And the hunger is endless.
never departing,
growling its presence
So you never forget
teasing you, reminding you
Unsatisfied aching, always curious
Wanting more,
Life is never quite good enough
Alone without her
You are whole and you are half
without your souls completion
that dainty assurance that
you too are loved as you love
as perfect to her as is she.
An obsessive, delicious,
never-satisfied renewal
ambrosian moment
content, united spirits that
know only rainbows
glowing lively hope
that only lovers
share.

-opus125

Idea

Have flowers delivered to your partner's workplace. She will not only enjoy the flowers but will also receive comments and attention from her office mates which will add to her enjoyment.

Beautiful Dreamer

Beautiful Dreamer

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,

Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;

Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,

Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away!

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,

List while I woo thee with soft melody;

Gone are the cares of life's busy throng.

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,

Mermaids are chaunting the wild lorelie;

Over the streamlet vapors are borne,

Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.

Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,

E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;

Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Stephen Foster

Romantic Idea For The Day

Buy a stylish hand mirror and give it to your partner as a gift.
Include a card in the box saying
“In this mirror you will see the image of
the most beautiful woman in the world.”

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Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her

If questioning would make us wise

No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;

If all our tale were told in speech

No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh

And love not bound in hearts of flesh

No aching breasts would yearn to meet

And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows

The secret powers by which he grows?

Were knowledge all, what were our need

To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?.

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"

I love you now until I die.

For I must love because I live

And life in me is what you give

Christopher Brennan

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A Nocturnal Reverie

A Nocturnal Reverie

In such a night, when every louder wind

Is to its distant cavern safe confined;

And only gentle Zephyr fans his wings,

And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings;

Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight,

She, hollowing clear, directs the wand'rer right:

In such a night, when passing clouds give place,

Or thinly veil the heav'ns' mysterious face;

When in some river, overhung with green,

The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;

When freshened grass now bears itself upright,

And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,

Whence springs the woodbind, and the bramble-rose,

And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;

Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,

Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes

When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine,

Shew trivial beauties watch their hour to shine;

Whilst Salisb'ry stands the test of every light,

In perfect charms, and perfect virtue bright:

When odors, which declined repelling day,

Through temp'rate air uninterrupted stray;

When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,

And falling waters we distinctly hear;

When through the gloom more venerable shows

Some ancient fabric, awful in repose,

While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,

And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale:

When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,

Comes slowly grazing through th' adjoining meads,

Whose stealing pace, and lengthened shade we fear,

Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear:

When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,

And unmolested kine rechew the cud;

When curlews cry beneath the village walls,

And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;

Their shortlived jubilee the creatures keep,

Which but endures, whilst tyrant man does sleep;

When a sedate content the spirit feels,

And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;

But silent musings urge the mind to seek

Something, too high for syllables to speak;

Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,

Finding the elements of rage disarmed,

O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,

Joys in th' inferior world, and thinks it like her own:

In such a night let me abroad remain,

Till morning breaks, and all's confused again;

Our cares, our toils, our clamors are renewed,

Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued.

Anne Finch

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Annabel Lee

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love-

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsman came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me-

Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we-

Of many far wiser than we-

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Edgar Allan Poe

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A Reflection of Beauty

A REFLECTION OF BEAUTY

Full with new life
this natural woman
all woman
in black hose
snug on smooth firm thighs
her belly rounded

Brazen
this sensual woman
all woman
offering a view
of swollen breasts
filling in anticipation

Seductive
this knowing woman
all woman
confident in her power
the promise of motherhood
a reflection of beauty

Robert W Birch

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Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,

Which I gaze on so fondly today,

Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,

Like fairy-gifts fading away,

Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,

Let thy loveliness fade as it will,

And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart

Would entwine itself verdantly still.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,

And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear

That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,

To which time will but make thee more dear;

No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,

But as truly loves on to the close,

As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,

The same look which she turned when he rose.

Thomas Moore

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Love, Lust, Cheating and the Female Workforce

Helen Fisher: The science of love, and the future of women

I'd like to talk today about the two biggest social trends in the coming century, and perhaps in the next 10,000 years. But I want to start with my work on romantic love, because that's my most recent work. What I and my colleagues did was to put 32 people, who were madly in love, into a functional MRI brain scanner. 17 who were madly in love and their love was accepted; and 15 who were madly in love and they had just been dumped. And so I want to tell you about that first, and then go on into where I think love is going.

"What 'tis to love?" Shakespeare said. I think our ancestors -- I think human beings have been wondering about this question since they sat around their campfires or lay and watched the stars a million years ago. I started out by trying to figure out what romantic love was by looking at the last 45 years of research on -- just the psychological research, and as it turns out, there's a very specific group of things that happen when you fall in love. The first thing that happens is what I call -- a person begins to take on what I call, "special meaning." As a truck driver once said to me, he said, "The world had a new center, and that center was Mary Anne."

George Bernard Shaw said it a little differently. He said, "Love consists of overestimating the differences between one woman and another." And indeed, that's what we do. (Laughter) And then you just focus on this person. You can list what you don't like about them, but then you sweep that aside and focus on what you do. As Chaucer said, "Love is blind."

In trying to understand romantic love, I decided I would read poetry from all over the world, and I just want to give you one very short poem from eighth-century China, because it's an almost perfect example of a man who is focused totally on a particular woman. It's a little bit like when you are madly in love with somebody and you walk into a parking lot. Their car is different from every other car in the parking lot. Their wine glass at dinner is different from every other wine glass at the dinner party. And in this case, a man got hooked on a bamboo sleeping mat.

And it goes like this. It's by a guy called Yuan Chen: "I cannot bear to put away the bamboo sleeping mat. The night I brought you home, I watched you roll it out." He became hooked on a sleeping mat, probably because of elevated activity of dopamine in his brain, just like with you and me.

But anyway, not only does this person take on special meaning, you focus your attention on them. You aggrandize them. But you have intense energy. As one Polynesian said, he said, "I felt like jumping in the sky." You're up all night. You're walking till dawn. You feel intense elation when things are going well, mood swings into horrible despair when things are going poorly. Real dependence on this person. As one businessman in New York said to me, he said, "Anything she liked, I liked." Simple. Romantic love is very simple.

You become extremely sexually possessive. You know, if you're just sleeping with somebody casually, you don't really care if they're sleeping with somebody else. But the moment you fall in love, you become extremely sexually possessive of them. I think that that is a Darwinian -- there's a Darwinian purpose to this. The whole point of this is to pull two people together strongly enough to begin to rear babies as a team.

But the main characteristics of romantic love are craving: an intense craving to be with a particular person, not just sexually, but emotionally. You'd much rather -- it would be nice to go to bed with them, but you want them to call you on the telephone, to invite you out, et cetera. To tell you that they love you. The other main characteristic is motivation. The motor in your brain begins to crank, and you want this person.

And last but not least, it is an obsession. When I put these people in the machine, before I put them in the MRI machine, I would ask them all kinds of questions. But my most important question was always the same. It was: "What percentage of the day and night do you think about this person?" And indeed, they would say, "All day. All night. I can never stop thinking about him or her."

And then, the very last question I would ask them -- I would always have to work myself up to this question, because I am not a psychologist. I don't work with people in any kind of traumatic situation. And my final question was always the same. I would say, "Would you die for him or her?" And, indeed, these people would say "Yes!," as if I had asked them to pass the salt. I was just staggered by it.

So we scanned their brains, looking at a photograph of their sweetheart and looking at a neutral photograph, with a distraction task in between. So we could find -- look at the same brain when it was in that heightened state and when it was in a resting state. And we found activity in a lot of brain regions. In fact, one of the most important was a brain region that becomes active when you feel the rush of cocaine. And indeed, that's exactly what happens.

I began to realize that romantic love is not an emotion. In fact, I had always thought it was a series of emotions, from very high to very low. But actually, it's a drive. It comes from the motor of the mind, the wanting part of the mind, the craving part of the mind. The kind of mind -- part of the mind -- when you're reaching for that piece of chocolate, when you want to win that promotion at work. The motor of the brain. It's a drive.

And in fact, I think it's more powerful than the sex drive. You know, if you ask somebody to go to bed with you, and they say, "No thank you," you certainly don't kill yourself or slip into a clinical depression. But certainly, around the world, people who are rejected in love will kill for it. People live for love. They kill for love. They die for love. They have songs, poems, novels, sculptures, paintings, myths, legends. In over 175 societies, people have left their evidence of this powerful brain system. I have come to think it's one of the most powerful brain systems on earth for both great joy and great sorrow.

And I've also come to think that it's one of three, basically different brain systems that evolved from mating and reproduction. One is the sex drive: the craving for sexual gratification. W.H. Auden called it an "intolerable neural itch," and indeed, that's what it is. It keeps bothering you a little bit, like being hungry. The second of these three brain systems is romantic love: that elation, obsession of early love. And the third brain system is attachment: that sense of calm and security you can feel for a long-term partner.

And I think that the sex drive evolved to get you out there, looking for a whole range of partners. You know, you can feel it when you're just driving along in your car. It can be focused on nobody. I think romantic love evolved to enable you to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time, thereby conserving mating time and energy. And I think that attachment, the third brain system, evolved to enable you to tolerate this human being -- (Laughter) -- at least long enough to raise a child together as a team.

So with that preamble, I want to go into discussing the two most profound social trends. One of the last 10,000 years and the other -- certainly of the last 25 years -- that are going to have an impact on these three different brain systems: lust, romantic love and deep attachment to a partner.

The first is women working, moving into the workforce. I've looked at 150 -- 130 societies through the demographic yearbooks of the United Nations. And everywhere in the world, 129 out of 130 of them, women are not only moving into the job market -- sometimes very, very slowly, but they are moving into the job market -- and they are very slowly closing that gap between men and women in terms of economic power, health and education. It's very slow.

For every trend in -- on this planet, there's a counter-trend. We all know of them, but nevertheless -- the old Arab saying. The Arabs say, "The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on." And, indeed, that caravan is moving on. Women are moving back into the job market. And I say back into the job market, because this is not new. For millions of years, on the grasslands of Africa, women commuted to work to gather their vegetables. They came home with 60 to 80 percent of the evening meal. The double income family was the standard. And women were regarded as just as economically, socially and sexually powerful as men. In short, we're really moving forward to the past.

Then, women's worst invention was the plow. With the beginning of plow agriculture, men's roles became extremely powerful. Women lost their ancient jobs as collectors, but then with the industrial revolution and the post-industrial revolution they're moving back into the job market. In short, they are acquiring the status that they had a million years ago, 10,000 years ago, 100,000 years ago. We are seeing now one of the most remarkable traditions in the history of the human animal. And it's going to have an impact.

I generally give a whole lecture on the impact of women on the business community. I'll only just say a couple of things, and then go on to sex and love. There's a lot of gender differences; anybody who thinks men and women are alike simply never had a boy and a girl child. I don't know why it is that they want to think that men and women are alike. There's much we have in common, but there's a whole lot that we are not -- do not have in common.

We are -- in the words of Ted Hughes, "I think that we were built to be -- we're like two feet. We need each other to get ahead." But we did not evolve to have the same brain. And we're finding more and more and more gender differences in the brain. I'll only just use a couple and then move on to sex and love. One of them is women's verbal ability. Women can talk.

Women's ability to find the right word rapidly, basic articulation goes up in the middle of the menstrual cycle, when estrogen levels peak. But even at menstruation, they're better than the average man. Women can talk. They've been doing it for a million years; words were women's tools. They held that baby in front of their face, cajoling it, reprimanding it, educating it with words. And, indeed, they're becoming a very powerful force.

Even in places like India and Japan, where women are not moving rapidly into the regular job market, they're moving into journalism. And I think that the television is like the global campfire. We sit around it and it shapes our minds. Almost always, when I'm on TV, the producers who call me, who negotiate what we're going to say, is a woman. In fact, Solzhenitsyn once said, "To have a great writer is to have another government."

Today 54 percent of people who are writers in America are women. It's one of many, many characteristics that women have that they will bring into the job market. They've got incredible people skills, negotiating skills. They're highly imaginative. We now know the brain circuitry of imagination, of long-term planning. They tend to be web thinkers. Because the female parts of the brain are better connected, they tend to collect more pieces of data when they think, put them into more complex patterns, see more options and outcomes. They tend to be contextual, holistic thinkers, what I call web thinkers.

Men tend to -- and these are averages -- tend to get rid of what they regard as extraneous, focus on what they do, and move in a more step-by-step thinking pattern. They're both perfectly good ways of thinking. We need both of them to get ahead. In fact, there's many more male geniuses in the world. When the -- and there's also many more male idiots in the world. (Laughter) When the male brain works well, it works extremely well. And I -- what I really think that we're doing is, we're moving towards a collaborative society, a society in which the talents of both men and women are becoming understood and valued and employed.

But in fact, women moving into the job market is having a huge impact on sex and romance and family life. Foremost, women are starting to express their sexuality. I'm always astonished when people come to me and say, "Why is it that men are so adulterous?" And I say, "Why do you think more men are adulterous than women?" "Oh, well -- men are more adulterous!" And I say, "Who do you think these men are sleeping with?" And -- basic math! (Laughter)

Anyway. In the Western world, little girls start -- women start sooner at sex, have more partners, express less remorse for the partners that they do, marry later, have fewer children, leave bad marriages in order to get good ones. We are seeing the rise of female sexual expression. And, indeed, once again we're moving forward to the kind of sexual expression that we probably saw on the grasslands of Africa a million years ago, because this is the kind of sexual expression that we see in hunting and gathering societies today.

We're also returning to an ancient form of marriage equality. They're now saying that the 21st century is going to be the century of what they call the "symmetrical marriage," or the "pure marriage," or the "companionate marriage." This is a marriage between equals, moving forward to a pattern that is highly compatible with the ancient human spirit.

We're also seeing a rise of romantic love. 91 percent of American women and 86 percent of American men would not marry somebody who had every single quality they were looking for in a partner, if they were not in love with that person. People around the world, in a study of 37 societies, want to be in love with the person that they marry. Indeed, arranged marriages are on their way off this braid of human life.

I even think that marriages might even become more stable because of the second great world trend. The first one being women moving into the job market, the second one being the aging world population. They're now saying that in America, that middle age should be regarded as up to age 85. Because in that highest age category of 76 to 85, only -- as much as 40 percent of people have nothing really wrong with them. So we're seeing there's a real extension of middle age.

And I looked -- for one of my books, I looked at divorce data in 58 societies. And as it turns out, the older you get, the less likely you are to divorce. So the divorce rate right now is stable in America, and it's actually beginning to decline. It may decline some more. I would even say that with Viagra, estrogen replacement, hip replacements and the incredibly interesting women -- women have never been as interesting as they are now. Not at any time on this planet have women been so educated, so interesting, so capable. And so I honestly think that if there really was ever a time in human evolution when we have the opportunity to make good marriages, that time is now.

However, there's always kinds of complications in this. In these three brain systems: lust, romantic love and attachment -- don't always go together. They can go together, by the way. That's why casual sex isn't so casual. With orgasm you get a spike of dopamine. Dopamine's associated with romantic love, and you can just fall in love with somebody who you're just having casual sex with. With orgasm, then you get a real rush of oxytocin and vasopressin -- those are associated with attachment. This is why you can feel such a sense of cosmic union with somebody after you've made love to them.

But these three brain systems: lust, romantic love and attachment, aren't always connected to each other. You can feel deep attachment to a long-term partner while you feel intense romantic love for somebody else, while you feel the sex drive for people unrelated to these other partners. In short, we're capable of loving more than one person at a time. In fact, you can lie in bed at night and swing from deep feelings of attachment for one person to deep feelings of romantic love for somebody else. It's as if there's a committee meeting going on in your head as you are trying to decide what to do. So I don't think, honestly, we're an animal that was built to be happy; we are an animal that was built to reproduce. I think the happiness we find, we make. And I think, however, we can make good relationships with each other.

So I want to conclude with two things. I want to conclude with a worry. I have a worry -- and with a wonderful story. The worry is about antidepressants. Over 100 million prescriptions of antidepressants are written every year in the United States. And these drugs are going generic. They are seeping around the world. I know one girl who's been on these antidepressants, serotonin-enhancing -- SSRI, serotonin-enhancing antidepressants -- since she was 13. She's 23. She's been on them ever since she was 13.

I've got nothing against people who take them short term, when they're going through something perfectly horrible. They want to commit suicide or kill somebody else. I would recommend it. But more and more people in the United States are taking them long term. And indeed, what these drugs do is raise levels of serotonin. And by raising levels of serotonin, you suppress the dopamine circuit. Everybody knows that. Dopamine is associated with romantic love. Not only do they suppress the dopamine circuit, but they kill the sex drive. And when you kill the sex drive, you kill orgasm. And when you kill orgasm, you kill that flood of drugs associated with attachment. The things are connected in the brain. And when you tamper with one brain system, you're going to tamper with another. I'm just simply saying that a world without love is a deadly place.

So now -- (Applause) -- thank you. I want to end with a story. And then, just a comment. I've been studying romantic love and sex and attachment for 30 years. I'm an identical twin; I am interested in why we're all alike. Why you and I are alike, why the Iraqis and the Japanese and the Australian Aborigines and the people of the Amazon River are all alike.

And about a year ago, an Internet dating service, Match.com, came to me and asked me if I would design a new dating site for them. I said, "I don't know anything about personality. You know? I don't know. Do you think you've got the right person?" They said, "Yes." It got me thinking about why it is that you fall in love with one person rather than another.

That's my current project; it will be my next book. There's all kinds of reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another. Timing is important. Proximity is important. Mystery is important. You fall in love with somebody who's somewhat mysterious, in part because mystery elevates dopamine in the brain, probably pushes you over that threshold to fall in love. You fall in love with somebody who fits within what I call your "love map," an unconscious list of traits that you build in childhood as you grow up. And I also think that you become -- gravitate to certain people, actually, with somewhat complementary brain systems. And that's what I'm now contributing to this.

But I want to tell you a story about -- to illustrate. I've been carrying on here about the biology of love. I wanted to show you a little bit about the culture of it, too -- the magic of it. It's a story that was told to me by somebody who had heard it just from one of the -- probably a true story. It was a graduate student at -- I'm at Rutgers and my two colleagues -- Art Aaron is at SUNY Stonybrook. That's where we put our people in the MRI machine.

And this graduate student was madly in love with another graduate student, and she was not in love with him. And they were all at a conference in Beijing. And he knew from our work that if you go and do something very novel with somebody, you can drive up the dopamine in the brain. And perhaps trigger this brain system for romantic love. (Laughter) So he decided he'd put science to work, and he invited this girl to go off on a rickshaw ride with him.

And sure enough -- I've never been in one, but apparently they go all around the buses and the trucks and it's crazy and it's noisy and it's exciting. And he figured that this would drive up the dopamine, and she would fall in love with him. So off they go and she's squealing and squeezing him and laughing and having a wonderful time. An hour later they get down off of the rickshaw, and she throws her hands up and she says, "Wasn't that wonderful?" And, "Wasn't that rickshaw driver handsome!" (Laughter) (Applause)

There's magic to love! But I will end by saying that millions of years ago, we evolved three basic drives: the sex drive, romantic love and attachment to a long-term partner. These circuits are deeply embedded in the human brain. They're going to survive as long as our species survives on what Shakespeare called "this mortal coil." Thank you. (Applause)

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How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Love Among the Ruins

Love among the Ruins

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,

Miles and miles

On the solitary pastures where our sheep

Half-asleep

Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop

As they crop--

Was the site once of a city great and gay,

(So they say)

Of our country's very capital, its prince

Ages since

Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far

Peace or war.

Now the country does not even boast a tree,

As you see,

To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills

From the hills

Intersect and give a name to, (else they run

Into one)

Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires

Up like fires

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall

Bounding all

Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest

Twelve abreast.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass

Never was!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'er-spreads

And embeds

Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,

Stock or stone--

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe

Long ago;

Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame

Struck them tame;

And that glory and that shame alike, the gold

Bought and sold.

Now--the single little turret that remains

On the plains,

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd

Overscored,

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks

Through the chinks--

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time

Sprang sublime,

And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced

As they raced,

And the monarch and his minions and his dames

Viewed the games.

And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve

Smiles to leave

To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece

In such peace,

And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey

Melt away--

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair

Waits me there

In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul

For the goal,

When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb

Till I come.

But he looked upon the city, every side,

Far and wide,

All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'

Colonnades,

All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then

All the men!

When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,

Either hand

On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace

Of my face,

Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech

Each on each.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth

South and North,

And they built their gods a brazen pillar high

As the sky

Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--

Gold, of course.

O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!

Earth's returns

For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

Shut them in,

With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!

Love is best.

- Robert Browning

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