Arthur Brooks

That's the reason that the greatest poetry is about romantic love, because it's not described scientifically, it's described artistically, because it's a right hemispheric experience.

So you want to turn on the meaning in your life,

Go get your heart broken.

I mean, go take a risk.

I mean, that's when you find the meaning of your life, right?

I mean, when you've had your heart broken, that's horrible and that's hard, but that's meaning rich.

That's when you ask all those big questions.

You'll be definitely alive.

You'll learn a lot about yourself.

You'll learn a lot about yourself, right?

Unless you stay drunk.

What's the ladder of love?

So Diotima of Mantinea was this prophetess that Socrates sought out.

So Socrates sought out Diotima of Mantinea, and she described to him that the way to find the meaning of life starts with this ladder.

And each rung of the ladder gets you closer to the meaning of life.

And the first rung of the ladder is falling in love.

The first rung of the ladder is actually attraction toward the beautiful other.

romantic attraction not just like you know chris is awesome he's so smart he's got such a great show it's such a great conversation such a good friend thank you thank you but it's it's like that spark that you can't quite understand no actually we do understand neurochemically what's happening when you're falling in love we know how the sex hormones start and then we get the the catecholamines actually involved along the way and then we get

a really dramatic drop in serotonin, and then we get the neuropeptides in the sequence.

We know when the sequence is off between two people is why they don't actually succeed in a relationship.