Love is a mental state

"Love is a mental state" that was what I learned from a teenager mentee I have, one time I had a chance having lunch with them. It is a mental state because we configure everything in our mind of whom to love, how to love, why to love, when and where to love. That great feeling when one is in love is also predisposition to the immediate situation.

There is a philosophical basis to believe that love is a mental state. The phenomenology of love is experienced in varied ways by individuals. The meaning of love is unique to every person. People interpret and give value to the situation, in their experience of another person, actions, words and the feelings attached to those. The good feeling of being in relationship with another is construed, logically to the abstractions of love.

Scientifically, love is a mental state. It draws material bases on the human emotions that are perceived selectively and then interpreted and given value by the mind, as a response to a stimuli. It is associated to the psychological need of sense of belongingness, security and self-actualization. As a need, it is configured in our heads as something desirable. Hence, finding the desirable in someone results to admiration, wanting and so loving.

Sociologically, our sense of self is negotiated in relation to others. We find meaning to our self in relationships with others. As we socially interact, we learn of others' satisfying experiences of loving someone, so we dare explore the situations to find a partner to share love with. Basically, we learn this from our parents, from whom we model our relational behavior with others. Hence, the way we will handle relationships reflects of how our parents demonstrated love to us.

Theologically, love is presented in its most ideal sense of being unconditional, infinite and ever flowing. Love as St. Paul teaches is patient, kind, forgiving, never envious, rejoices in the truth, humble and self-giving. Divine love serves as model for the moral foundations of human love in relation to other people. Here, the self is shared to someone and to everyone, in several concrete ways more than that of its affective values.

In all those construals of love, it remains a phenomenon in the lived experiences of people. What it means lies in the cognitive and metacognitive constructs of the individual who interprets the experiences and the emotions that go with the experiences. As a mental state, it remains abstract, mysterious and evolving to make people go crazy about it.