funny, funny. I love numbers on human behavior

http://www.iht.com/search/ihtsearch.php?id=528925&owner=(NYT)&date=20040713151534

I also love science on human behavior -- there's been much chatter recently on the relationship between the neurochemical oxytocin and falling in love. Scientists have known for some time that when mothers give birth their brains are flooded with the stuff -- causing the sudden extreme attachment that we associate with maternity.  Apparently this chemical is released in slightly smaller doses when we engage in amorous rites (that means sex) or when we, apart from amorous rites, find ourselves falling in love. In fact, the brain of a mother breast feeding her infant and the brain of a teenager gazing into their young beloved's eyes look remarkably similar. 

I'd kind of like a picture of that brain. I'd put it on my wall and say, that's what love looks like inside you.  I wonder if it bears any resemblance to what love looks like in the world.

(two good articles about this can be found in Brown's Alumni Magazine (I know, weird!), and this week's nytimes magazine.)

sorry for the ages of absence. no excuse, just a busy happy summer.

thought I'd throw this out there: Utne had a short but curious article about this "quarterlife crisis" phenomenon -- the thing, they say, that is replacing the midlife crisis in American Culture. we know it. we live it. it's the decade after college that leaves us unstable, insecure, and very very lonely. not ready for a (I mean, "the") career yet, too old to imitate Britney Spears in word or deed and/or get trashed every night. we most likely live about 300 miles from home and at least that far away from every childhood to college friend we know. our relationships are electronic and telephonic, and acquaintances far outnumber friends (do we even have a real friend in the city we live in?).

if you wanna hear a bunch of people complain about the situation, go to http://www.quarterlifecrisis.com. it wasn't very exciting reading (they could call it www.lonelyanddepressed.com), but the idea of a quarterlife crisis smacks of verity. no one I know in their twenties feels settled or if they are settled are entirely comfortable with it. almost no one I know lives near home or even feels like they are living somewhere they want to plant roots. and they're all pretty much freaked out about the whole thing.

then again, it may just be that every new personal decade brings a certain amount of strife, a thing we can call crisis if we'd like. it may just so happen that the voice of the twenties is a little louder than the voice of the more settled, employed, and possibly even parental thirties. maybe we don't have anything better to do than bitch.

what do you think? is it something else to be in your twenties now than it was 20 years ago? and is that enough for us to coin our own crisis? or should we just buckle down keep our nose to the ground and get on with the damn thing?