Hearts

♥ The other day I was reviewing some journals; performing valuable sociological research for the betterment of society. So you can imagine my surprise when, just a few pages into the Victoria Secret Swimsuit Edition, I realized that I had no idea where we got the heart-symbol from.

It's probably one of the first symbols learned by an American child, right after the Golden Arches. It's the life meter in video games, the defining mark of a Valentine and the seal of romantic missives. The heart is so predominate and learned at such an early age that it's never really questioned or examined. It bears no resemblance to its anatomical namesake... it's a seemingly arbitrary design.

A quick google search offers up some flimsy explanations. Depending on whether you look for the origins before or after Christianity swiped all the pagan symbols, it's either the shape of a leaf with medicinal properties (over-harvested into extinction) or a shape revealed to someone by god. Er, God. He's also the guy responsible for light and the Rams winning the superbowl.

The leaf explanation not withstanding, it still seems an arbitrary shape to attach connotations of life, love and romance... or to associate with that thing that goes thudda-thump thudda-thump. At least it seemed arbitrary until I saw this picture. Could it be that the heart's pictographical origin is really anatomical? Even if it's not the shape of the organ, could it be a distilled representation of a lovely lady? That would explain the life-giving, the love, the thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa. Take out the appendages and the abdomen and you're looking at a very concise, stylized, full-frontal representation.

It raises the question: if our stone-carving ancestors were more interested in the gams and cans, would we be decorating our Valentines with spades? ♠


Originally written c 2005