(image from www.nlm.nih.gov medical encyclopedia)Have you ever wondered why we can 'feel' with our hearts?
In a medical sense, surely our hearts are just organs, lumps of muscle that pump the blood, laden with waste carbon dioxide from the rest of the body, to our lungs, where the carbon dioxide is exchanged for life-giving oxygen and sent back to the heart, which pumps it back out to the other organs. It is a machine, an amazing feat of evolutional engineering, but with a clear and essential function.
Yet if this is all that a heart is, then why can we feel pain in our chests when we are sad, lightness there when we are glad?
Again, there is probably a medical explanation, the effects of chemicals synthesized in response to hormonal and neuronal signals in the brain, linking our emotional responses with physical symptoms. So this is how. But why? Fear, attraction, disgust, these are emotions that seem useful in terms of governing how we should react to situations, telling us what is safe and what is not. But why do we feel intense emotional pain, intense joy, intense love? And why in our hearts?
Or perhaps there is a psychological explanation. We are aware of the phrases 'heart-felt', 'heart-pain', 'heart-ease'. Maybe unconsciously we make a link between emotions and a physical presence for them in the cavity where the heart sits, and so our bodies and sensory centre respond accordingly? But the concept of the heart as a centre for emotion and feeling has appeared and reappeared in many different, separate, cultures over the course of millenia. Independently, different cultures have believed that the heart, not the brain, is the seat of our intelligence, and come to the conclusion that this is where our souls reside. The Aztecs cut out the hearts of human (and animal) sacrificial victims as offerings to the gods. Egyptians believed that our hearts would be the organ sitting in the balance at the judgement of the dead, and our sins would show up in the weight of our hearts. Different languages have different phrases that involve the heart.
And even before we were truly aware of the existing symbolism surrounding the heart, as children, did your heart really never 'sink into your boots' when you were disappointed, or have a 'heavy heart' when you were sad? I never truly believed before that you could really feel your heart break, or understood just how much pain you could feel in your heart.
Do you know why people who have kind and unsuspecting, giving, hearts seem to attract people? In this world of ours it seems almost easy to become cynical, to lose that ability to trust in someone else or something else. Barriers can be built around hearts, to protect them from attack and from injury. But hearts can atrophy, you can lose the ability to use them as more than just a mechanical pump. The shackles you build to protect your heart can feel heavy, and dull, as if they were truly weighing your heart down.
But having closed your heart, how do you learn to open it up again? Perhaps, if you have the answer, you could share it with me?
In a medical sense, surely our hearts are just organs, lumps of muscle that pump the blood, laden with waste carbon dioxide from the rest of the body, to our lungs, where the carbon dioxide is exchanged for life-giving oxygen and sent back to the heart, which pumps it back out to the other organs. It is a machine, an amazing feat of evolutional engineering, but with a clear and essential function.
Yet if this is all that a heart is, then why can we feel pain in our chests when we are sad, lightness there when we are glad?
Again, there is probably a medical explanation, the effects of chemicals synthesized in response to hormonal and neuronal signals in the brain, linking our emotional responses with physical symptoms. So this is how. But why? Fear, attraction, disgust, these are emotions that seem useful in terms of governing how we should react to situations, telling us what is safe and what is not. But why do we feel intense emotional pain, intense joy, intense love? And why in our hearts?
Or perhaps there is a psychological explanation. We are aware of the phrases 'heart-felt', 'heart-pain', 'heart-ease'. Maybe unconsciously we make a link between emotions and a physical presence for them in the cavity where the heart sits, and so our bodies and sensory centre respond accordingly? But the concept of the heart as a centre for emotion and feeling has appeared and reappeared in many different, separate, cultures over the course of millenia. Independently, different cultures have believed that the heart, not the brain, is the seat of our intelligence, and come to the conclusion that this is where our souls reside. The Aztecs cut out the hearts of human (and animal) sacrificial victims as offerings to the gods. Egyptians believed that our hearts would be the organ sitting in the balance at the judgement of the dead, and our sins would show up in the weight of our hearts. Different languages have different phrases that involve the heart.
And even before we were truly aware of the existing symbolism surrounding the heart, as children, did your heart really never 'sink into your boots' when you were disappointed, or have a 'heavy heart' when you were sad? I never truly believed before that you could really feel your heart break, or understood just how much pain you could feel in your heart.
Do you know why people who have kind and unsuspecting, giving, hearts seem to attract people? In this world of ours it seems almost easy to become cynical, to lose that ability to trust in someone else or something else. Barriers can be built around hearts, to protect them from attack and from injury. But hearts can atrophy, you can lose the ability to use them as more than just a mechanical pump. The shackles you build to protect your heart can feel heavy, and dull, as if they were truly weighing your heart down.
But having closed your heart, how do you learn to open it up again? Perhaps, if you have the answer, you could share it with me?
7 則留言:
yes.. sometimes it hurts so bad you cannot even breathe..
anyway, from experience, the answer to your last question is.. do you want to? if you want to, you will.. if you don't want to, you won't.. that's it..
by balancing between doubts and dimples.
anyway, opened heart is over-rated, as opposed to closed. unless you are talking about elsa peretti.
oh, and i heard that you just got a car? congrats!
But there is a difference between your conscious mind deciding to open up and your unconscious mind deciding otherwise. I wished they made painkillers for heart pain, as opposed to heart burn. But then, I'm not sure I would take them.
I've suddenly realised who 'elanor' might be though! I was confused, but you've given yourself away in that last comment :P
haha why did i never think of looking at your profile, elanor? I would have worked it out much much earlier then.
And yes, I have got a car, or rather, my parents' car, until they come back in July/August.... thanks
elsa peretti gave me away??
my.
sam has a car?!
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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