An affair of the brain

We’ve all heard people say stuff like “I felt it in my heart,” “Oh, my heart goes out to those poor folks” or Hollywood’s favorite “You have my whole heart.”

Yes, the heart has been glorified throughout history as a producer of passion, love and integrity, but the symbol doesn’t match what it symbolizes.

This is a problem we need to recognize and rectify.

When I was 7 years old, I watched a cow give birth on television.

The calf was born with its organs on the outside of its body and flopped amidst the dust of the barn floor while the farmhands injected the mother with drugs.

A farmer grabbed the calf by what I could only imagine was its shoulder.

In my head I remember yelling, “Kill it! There’s no way it wants to live.”

But no, he flopped the pile of organs onto his knee and pointed at a wet, black strawberry in a mess of veins and said, “Thas the heart, right thur.”

Thank you, Discovery Channel.

Thank you for literally pulling a clear definition of a heart out of a cow.

Somehow that was the first real definition, up to that point in my life, that wasn’t fallacious.

A circulatory device is just a pump that has nothing to do with love.

So, how do we fix this? 

What should we put our hand on during the pledge?

What should we fill with chocolate when we want to express to someone how desperate we are to see his or her genitals?

Frontal lobes.

This is a more suitable symbol for a plethora of reasons. 

For one, the frontal lobes monitor the balance of chemicals that determine most emotional states as well as act as the center for creating reasoned arguments.

That’s right.

Emotion and reason — two dogs that have never gotten along, and your douchebag brain keeps them in the same cage. 

Yet emotion and reason are two of the most mentioned characteristics of love.
 
For example, “We have so much in common!” is a reason and “She makes me feel alive!” is an emotion.

Let’s put our hands on our heads when we show love for our country. It’s not like we can look more stupid when we’re talking to a flag before baseball games. 

And let’s use our brains for once next Valentine’s Day by filling them with chocolate.
Because it’s not like any of us really understand the tradition, and regardless of whatever thoughts you have to share with your significant other, they’ll never be as sweet as those little milk chocolates.

­— ktgragg@indiana.edu