A Natural History of Love (13-17)

Summary
So far we have talked about Cleopatra and love poems in Egypt. Now it breaks love into 6 key themes. The first theme is "Love's alchemy, or the power to transform". This theme is all about how we have problems with who we are and by loving our partners, or our significant half, we learn to love ourselves. The second theme is "Idealizing the beloved in images drawn from nature". This theme talks about why we refer to someone as a gem, or a flower, or the moon, but we don't say skyscraper. It's about using nature to express our love for each other. The 3rd theme is " Love is enslavement". It's about how when were inlove we give part of our freedom away, and how were more willing to give it someone we love, then the government or a dictator. The 4th theme is "Being Disabled", meaning how we can't keep our mind of the person and how we never seem to be focusing on anything but them. It talks about how love becomes a sickness that we all want. The 5th theme is " A secret kept from one's parents" this theme is all about us not being able to express love to the person or people we love but were willing to express it to strangers. We keep it a secret from the person we really love. The 6th theme is "Redoubling of the senses", and this is all about a lover's touch. These are the 6 themes of love. Then it starts talking about incest marriage and how some thought it to be normal, while other thought it to be wrong and condoned in the bible. We long for the desire to love, and to be loved.

Quote
"...every now and then, people go haywire, lose their ability to think clearly, have stomachaches, can't sleep properly, and spend hours daydreaming. Such a state has all the earmarks of disease and, as the Egyptian love poems remind us, people have always described love as sickness" (Ackerman 13).

Reaction
I agree with alot of what the 6 themes of love is. When people are in love they do feel like they can't do nothing, and everytime they try it's like their minds walks and we start thinking about the one we love. I also agree with the fact that were more willing to give away all our freedom to the one we love, rather than the government. The quote above, once again, states how when your in love your always daydreaming. It also describes love as being a sickness.