My Aorta Will Go On

It seems odd to me that the heart would be the nearly world-wide symbol for love, when this is what a heart looks like.

I wonder how different the world would be if we had chosen a different symbol for love: say, the lung, or the appendix.  Come on; wouldn't 'I spleen you!' look great on a Valentine's Day card?


Why do you suppose we chose the heart, anyway?  I think you'd be pretty hard-pressed to prove that love is founded from that particular organ.  Sure, if your heart literally 'breaks', love will die . . . but so will the rest of you.  And the same result would be reached if your brain breaks or your stomach breaks.

Still, I was thinking back to those first, fresh feelings of love that I felt when I realized Bee was The One.  Those same feelings I get now when I watch him with his children or when he says just the right thing to me.  There is a swelling-feeling, and it does seem to originate from my chest, right under the rib-cage.

If I were more interested, I would research the origination of the heart-as-a-symbol-for-love thing.  I would probably find that Victorian scientists, who were famous for ascribing medicinal properties to things based on what they resembled, as opposed to what they actually did, were the culprits.  So, I suppose it makes sense that they felt their chests swelling, so deduced it was the nearest organ -- the heart -- that was responsible.  By that reasoning, I guess I should be happy they chose the heart, and not that other swelling organ.  If you catch my drift.

Happy Valentine's Day!