The Love Competition

I just watched this remarkable short film, The Love Competition. The film puts seven “contestants” in an MRI and asks them to meditate on love, or on a person they love. Neuroscientists at Stanford measure activity in certain brain areas and determine which contestant loves the hardest. Take 15 minutes to watch the film, it’s remarkable. (And try to guess who’s gonna win.)

The Love Competition from Brent Hoff on Vimeo.

OK. So. I had a not-very-loving day today: money worries, feeling ill, bad knees, not enough sleep, Sunday at the office, hollering kids, barking dog, taxes. The usual. Also exciting new worries including but certainly not limited to kindergarten and car purchases. So I had like seventeen hours to meditate on not-love. But watching these contestants emerge from the MRI makes me wonder if I shouldn’t spend at least five minutes every day sitting quietly and loving someone really really hard.