The "I See You" Thread

[Mjappie]

of course I apreciate it! so very very much- this version... its so much more!

 

and to be honest- Im falling would be my least heard demo- i kept skipping it when it came on shuffle, and never bothered to choose it for Mika playlists- and still it is so stuck in my head...

 

 

 

but they changed!!! you can very much hear it in the snipet we got...

 

I haven't listened to the new Loverboy yet. And.. I don't even have the guts.

[chickadee]

This just resurrects for me again what an incompetent language English can be at times.

The fact that we have one word, LOVE, which covers a whole multitude of conditions and situations. Yes, I know we have some other similar words that could be used to describe how we feel, but LOVE has become this giant catch all that doesn't differentiate between types of love.

 

And we generally assume that people are going to get the difference in what we mean...

Whether we say we love chocolate or we love our mother or we love Mika or we love our husband. But they don't always get the distinctions that might be so clear in our minds.

 

Hmmmm, maybe that's not the incompetence of English, but the laziness of English users? Instead of finding the right word for what we mean, we just stick LOVE in there.

[silver]

Can I just say that in this last line, I think he's

singing "I'm waiting, I'm hating everyone..."?

 

I don't see this corrected anywhere, but I'm pretty sure...

it makes a lot more sense, too.

 

I agree it's "waiting".

[kath]

I agree it's "waiting".

 

Me too...............and everyone knows that Oldlings have brilliant hearing

[silver]

This just resurrects for me again what an incompetent language English can be at times.

The fact that we have one word, LOVE, which covers a whole multitude of conditions and situations. Yes, I know we have some other similar words that could be used to describe how we feel, but LOVE has become this giant catch all that doesn't differentiate between types of love.

 

And we generally assume that people are going to get the difference in what we mean...

Whether we say we love chocolate or we love our mother or we love Mika or we love our husband. But they don't always get the distinctions that might be so clear in our minds.

 

Hmmmm, maybe that's not the incompetence of English, but the laziness of English users? Instead of finding the right word for what we mean, we just stick LOVE in there.

 

But that's what I like about "love" - that it does encompass this range and depth of emotion. There are different types of love but they are all love.

[riverstwilight]

I feel like a kindred spirit.

 

This just resurrects for me again what an incompetent language English can be at times.

The fact that we have one word, LOVE, which covers a whole multitude of conditions and situations.

 

My thoughts exactly.

[riverstwilight]

But that's what I like about "love" - that it does encompass this range and depth of emotion. There are different types of love but they are all love.

 

I agree with this too. However, it can be very frustrating when you use the word to mean one thing and people think you meant something else. Worse yet when they tell you that it isn't even the right word for what you are feeling when you know it is.

 

The love I have for the people I interact with here is not the same as the love I have for the friends I know intimately, but it's still love even if I never get to hang out with you in person and never get to find out who you really are.

 

Even if love comes mixed with other emotions such as attraction or lust, it's still love.

 

Scientifically speaking, love is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain that is triggered by anything and everything from familiar patterns of body language to familiar scents to knowing a person intimately.

 

That chemical reaction has meaning because we give it meaning. Sometimes, we give it more meaning than it deserves. Sometimes we entirely undervalue it. It's all a matter of context and perspective.

 

Love is just a word. It derives it's meaning from context. I love my favorite food. I love my family. Most people would in no way misunderstand my meaning of either usage because most people understand the context of each.

 

You aren't going to marry every person you love. You're going to marry the one you get to know intimately, who also gets to know you intimately and agrees that your lives fit. That's one kind of love in a world where we use the word to mean many things.

 

For the record, I love Mika.

 

I'll leave it to your imagination to guess which meaning of the word I'm using.

(Then again, in this crowd, it would probably be better if I didn't )

Edited August 31, 2009 by riverstwilight
clarity

[Gatagordinha]

I agree with this too. However, it can be very frustrating when you use the word to mean one thing and people think you meant something else. Worse yet when they tell you that it isn't even the right word for what you are feeling when you know it is.

 

The love I have for the people I interact with here is not the same as the love I have for the friends I know intimately, but it's still love even if I never get to hang out with you in person and never get to find out who you really are.

 

Even if love comes mixed with other emotions such as attraction or lust, it's still love.

 

Scientifically speaking, love is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain that is triggered by anything and everything from familiar patterns of body language to familiar scents to knowing a person intimately.

 

That chemical reaction has meaning because we give it meaning. Sometimes, we give it more meaning than it deserves. Sometimes we entirely undervalue it. It's all a matter of context and perspective.

 

Love is just a word. It derives it's meaning from context. I love my favorite food. I love my family. Most people would in no way misunderstand my meaning of either usage because most people understand the context of each.

 

You aren't going to marry every person you love. You're going to marry the one you get to know intimately, who also gets to know you intimately and agrees that your lives fit. That's one kind of love in a world where we use the word to mean many things.

 

For the record, I love Mika.

 

I'll leave it to your imagination to guess which meaning of the word I'm using.

(Then again, in this crowd, it would probably be better if I didn't )

 

I love Mika too

 

And, I liked your post.

[Neiobi]

I really like your post and writing, Rivers, you're so right.

In a way, we can say love and put it in any context that we want, but there will always be someone that will interpret that in a different way than we do, and say it's wrong.

To me, it depends what type of love is it that you're talking about and in what situation:bleh:

I say "love" a lot, but that doesn't mean that it's the only thing I feel for that person/thing, because to me, love is more than romantic love or friendship or attraction.

I also say it a lot because yeah, in english, my other choices aren't so fitting most times.

[Christine]

I love Mika as well. But I'm Falling mentions falling in romantic love with someone. It's not like loving chocolate and it shouldn't be like loving a pop star (IMO! )

 

I still contend that this is just a teenager's perception of lust and is not what adults generally consider being in love is all about. Unless, as someone mentioned earlier, that "you don't know me at all" is not to be taken literally and he actually does know this person fairly well but feels some barrier because he hasn't admitted his feelings to them.

 

Even so when I was a teenager I had this experience with two people (a couple of years apart). I knew them both quite well and after many many months of mooning over each of them something happened in both cases. But even then I found I wasn't really in love. It would have been nice if one of those relationships turned into real love but I think it is no more likely that a previously unrequited relationship is going to go beyond lust and friendship than any first date with someone you're attracted to is going to.

 

If you're going to argue that being in love is simply a chemical reaction then there is no point in distinguishing it from lust anyway because that's what lust is.

 

Not listening to I'm Falling over and over, helps me appreciate what Mika has done with it now.

 

Yes I really haven't listened to them in about 2 years.

[CazGirl]

Christine, how and where did you learn to be so good with words? Honestly. You should write for a living. Unless you do already

[purplegrape]

Ok, Mika changed my mind about "I See You"

 

I didn't like it at first, when I had just heard the snippet, but after hearing the whole song I simply adore it

[CazGirl]

Ok, Mika changed my mind about "I See You"

 

I didn't like it at first, when I had just heard the snippet, but after hearing the whole song I simply adore it

 

Wheeeeeyy

[riverstwilight]

Even so when I was a teenager I had this experience with two people (a couple of years apart). I knew them both quite well and after many many months of mooning over each of them something happened in both cases. But even then I found I wasn't really in love. It would have been nice if one of those relationships turned into real love but I think it is no more likely that a previously unrequited relationship is going to go beyond lust and friendship than any first date with someone you're attracted to is going to.

 

So, because the love didn't last you assumed it was lust?

and/or

You later learned the difference between love and lust and determined that the previous experiences had been lust rather than love?

 

Even as a teenager I knew the difference between love and lust and could tell when the two were mixing into a powerful cocktail of desire, which always sucked for me. So, my experience of this kind of thing is different than yours.

 

I still love the people I loved as a teen. Only now it is more accurate to say that I love the memories I have of them as they were. Still, I am proud of the boy, who lived across the street, that I used to buy fireworks and cherries from because he has a band and has recorded an album that seems to be building some small scale national recognition. He plays small gigs regularly. There was lust mixed in with that love, but even though the lust is long gone, the love remains.

 

I am happy for the first person who ever showed a glimmer of romantic interest in me. Circumstances prevented that from becoming a relationship, but I'm still happy for how his life is playing out. He married a girl who looks like me, so I'm confident that our near romance isn't just in my head even though we never had a chance to tell each other directly how we felt. I didn't get to spend enough time with him to lust for him.

 

But this may be where our connections are crossing. Where other people seem to lust easily and only love with time, I love more easily and only begin to lust when I feel safe. On very rare occasions, I feel safe quickly, but usually, it takes a long time.

 

Could that be because most people are more afraid of feeling love than they are of feeling lust because lust doesn't make them feel as vulnerable?

 

Lust makes me feel more vulnerable, so I have it under lock and key. Love doesn't make me feel as vulnerable, so I feel and express it quite easily. People seem to have a very difficult time understanding that about me, so it causes a lot of problems.

 

It seems like most people start romances with sexual interest cues in their body language, even if they do wait until they get married before actually doing it.

 

oh.

 

Well.

That explains a lot.

 

Y'all keep talking. I'll be over here feeling stupid that I never figured that out sooner.

 

If you're going to argue that being in love is simply a chemical reaction then there is no point in distinguishing it from lust anyway because that's what lust is.

 

That's a very reductionist view of brain chemistry.

They are two different reactions with similar, but distinct results.

 

Understanding the way something works only removes the meaning if you choose to remove the meaning, precisely because things only have meaning when we give them meaning and only lose it when we take that meaning away.

 

Personally, I give the chemical reaction we call "love" a great deal of meaning. Just, obviously, not the same meaning other people give it.

 

So, yeah. I'll just be over here.

[purplegrape]

Listened to it again It hurts because I know what he's talking about. And that "imaginary relationship" thing he mentioned in an interview once *sniff*

He knows just how to tap into and express extreme emotions.

[Christine]

But this may be where our connections are crossing. Where other people seem to lust easily and only love with time, I love more easily and only begin to lust when I feel safe. On very rare occasions, I feel safe quickly, but usually, it takes a long time.

 

Could that be because most people are more afraid of feeling love than they are of feeling lust because lust doesn't make them feel as vulnerable?

 

It has nothing to do with fear. It is normal and natural to feel lust first and love later.

 

Love comes from a bond. Even bonds that only exist in your imagination can't be formed with someone you never even knew existed until 2 minutes ago. People feel lust from looking at photographs. Most people would not seriously describe what they feel from looking at the photograph of someone they don't know as love and I can't imagine it has anything to do with vulnerability issues.

[riverstwilight]

It has nothing to do with fear. It is normal and natural to feel lust first and love later.

 

Love comes from a bond. Even bonds that only exist in your imagination can't be formed with someone you never even knew existed until 2 minutes ago. People feel lust from looking at photographs. Most people would not seriously describe what they feel from looking at the photograph of someone they don't know as love and I can't imagine it has anything to do with vulnerability issues.

 

Love cannot come from a photograph.

 

However, love comes before pair bonding. Love is the chemical reaction that facilitates pair bonding. It's often triggered by body language and the way people use language. The brain recognizes familiar patterns and says, "Yes! This person is part of my tribe and is safe to bond with."

 

Love doesn't come from a bond. It helps form a bond that grows into a deeper love and that deeper love is what our culture idealizes as the ultimate goal of pair bonding.

 

You can't love a total stranger. You can love someone whose body language and use of spoken language makes your brain go ONE OF US! ONE OF US! That's why part of the body language of the initial flirting stage is mirroring.

 

Also, lust does not always come before love and it doesn't always come attached to love. It most certainly can and frequently does, but frequently is not the same as always.

 

(My inability to apply the concepts in a way that results in a pair bond does not mean I do not understand how things work...which is no way related to the preceding except for the fact that I've realized where the communication is breaking down and I know I can't fix the part that I wish I could.)

Edited September 1, 2009 by riverstwilight
incorrect word

[riverstwilight]

Ok, I can clarify this way...maybe:

 

Love is a spectrum of emotions and experiences.

 

The song is over at the beginning of the spectrum here:

X

 

The love you are describing is more along the middle and later ends of the spectrum thus:

X-------X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

 

So, while you would say that love starts here:

--------X

 

Science and I would say that love starts with the intial chemical reaction that the brain registers as love here:

X--------

 

Then, lust gets added to the discussion and there are two spectrums overlapping, which muddies the discussion. So, rather than worry about dealing with two spectrums, most people cut out the overlapping part and say that everything at the beginning of the spectrum is lust and everything closer to the middle and end is real love.

 

It's an oversimplification that makes discussions easier to handle, but it completely invalidates the feelings of the people who get the love reaction long before they get the lust reaction (because everybody's brains work differently and we all get these chemicals floating around in different measures at different times for different reasons.)

 

So, I'm not saying you are wrong or that I disagree with you. I'm saying that I'm using different parameters to talk about something we basically agree on, but are seeing from completely different perspectives of experience.

 

I've just described the parameters I'm using and one possible set of parameters that I think you MIGHT be using.

 

Did I ever mention that I'm a romantic in the classical sense with a firm grounding in realism? I <3 science and poetry.

[chickadee]

Now this is all starting to go way over my head.

 

I find it interesting that after all these years of history, we still debate love. Nobody has managed to pin it down and give it an exact definition that suits all comers and maybe that is how this thread is going to go. No one is "absolutely right". No one is "absolutely wrong". And there will forever be differences of opinion, of interpretation, of experience, even if some things do overlap and seem to be common to the majority.

 

I really wonder whether the makers of dictionaries throw up their hands in despair when they get to the word love.

[Blue Sky]

I agree it's "waiting".

I stand my my earlier post last week of the lyrics. I have listened about 100 times so far I didn't realise Caz had altered the words again in the first post.

 

I'm standing across from you

I'm dreaming of the things I'd do

I don't speak, you don't know me at all

 

For fear of what you might do

I say nothing but stare at you

And I'm dreaming I'm tripping over you

 

Truth be told, my problem's old

You mean the world to me but you'll never know

You could be cruel to me

Why go risking the way that I see you

That I see you, that I see you, that I see you, that I see you, that I see

 

Conversation's not me at all

I'm hesitating only to fall

and I'm waiting, I'm hating everyone

Could it be you feel for me

In any possible similarity

If it's so how would I know

You never know me at all but I see you, but I see you, but I see you, but I see you, but I see you

 

I'm standing across from you

I've dreamt alone now the dreams won't do

I'm standing across from you

I've dreamt alone now the dreams won't do

 

Truth be told, my problem's old

You mean the world to me but you'll never know

You could be cruel to me

Why go risking the way that I see you

That I see you, but I see you, but I see you, but I see you, but I see you

 

I'm standing across from you

I've dreamt alone now the dreams won't do

 

But I see you

But I see you

 

And my contribution to the LOVE vs LUST discussion is HORMONES.

 

Lots of hormones.

 

Just read a very interesting article (bit technical for a fan forum) about the brain in love and lust.

....this doctor... divides love into three categories involving different brain systems: 1) Lust (the craving for sexual gratification), driven by androgens and estrogens; 2) Attraction (or romantic or passionate love, characterized by euphoria when things are going well, terrible mood swings when they’re not, focused attention, obsessive thinking, and intense craving for the individual), driven by high dopamine and norepinephrine levels and low serotonin; and 3) Attachment (the sense of calm, peace, and stability one feels with a long-term partner) driven by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.

 

No wonder we can't control ourselves, eh.

[chickadee]

I stand my my earlier post last week of the lyrics. I have listened about 100 times so far I didn't realise Caz had altered the words again in the first post.

 

 

 

And my contribution to the LOVE vs LUST discussion is HORMONES.

 

Lots of hormones.

 

Just read a very interesting article (bit technical for a fan forum) about the brain in love and lust.

....this doctor... divides love into three categories involving different brain systems: 1) Lust (the craving for sexual gratification), driven by androgens and estrogens; 2) Attraction (or romantic or passionate love, characterized by euphoria when things are going well, terrible mood swings when they’re not, focused attention, obsessive thinking, and intense craving for the individual), driven by high dopamine and norepinephrine levels and low serotonin; and 3) Attachment (the sense of calm, peace, and stability one feels with a long-term partner) driven by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.

 

No wonder we can't control ourselves, eh.

 

Fascinating! I thought oxytocin was the thing that got my labour going though. That made me feel anything but calm and peaceful.

[Christine]

2) Attraction (or romantic or passionate love, characterized by euphoria when things are going well, terrible mood swings when they’re not, focused attention, obsessive thinking, and intense craving for the individual), driven by high dopamine and norepinephrine levels and low serotonin;

 

Should we rename this the Mika Attachment Club then?

 

I'm pretty sure no one has reached the stability phase yet.

[Blue Sky]

Fascinating! I thought oxytocin was the thing that got my labour going though. That made me feel anything but calm and peaceful.

 

Oxytocin is like the wonder hormone for women. Don't get me started on oxytocin!! I spend my life finding ways to increases oxytocin in women, for a living!

 

Oxytocin can make you feel both ends of the spectrum. Weird huh?

[Blue Sky]

Should we rename this the Mika Attachment Club then?

 

I'm pretty sure no one has reached the stability phase yet.

 

No, Mika Attraction club, attachment comes third. We all have low seratonin, one of the hormones we release when we sleep...so which came first the obsessing or the lack of sleep ???

[Christine]

No, Mika Attraction club, attachment comes third. We all have low seratonin, one of the hormones we release when we sleep...so which came first the obsessing or the lack of sleep ???

 

Ah yes, that's what I meant, you're right.

 

It's an endless cycle innit!! I was seriously getting delirious by Friday afternoon with all the presale and gig hype last week.