Love.
Have you ever been in love? Have you ever felt love? Have you ever been unloved?
Love.
It is the most sung, written, carved genre in art. It dominates religion. And it is pushed through as something we must have in order to live a life fully. We chase it, desire it, crave it and, if we don't get it, we may even begin to hate it.
Our need for it is what keeps us from it. Even that makes no sense so let's go a bit further. Love can't be a possession, nor a location. I would go as far as it not even being an experience. True love, whatever it is, must be by definition boundless. For truth is consistent across all axes.
What people call love is generally no more than desire. Desire to be connected, or desire not to be alone and it is from this desire that the problem of experiencing love inevitably starts. When we want something, we do what we can to get it, take hold and possess it and then a new desire forms, we desire not to lose it.
So, we do what we can to keep it, we manipulate and pander to it, we trick it and force it, we guilt trip it and lie to it in order to keep it there by our side, in our grasp, in our cage.
When we want something badly, we fear not getting it. When we have what we desire, we fear losing it. If there is fear, how can there be love?
Fear is the antithesis of love as it is it puts conditions on it. Love can't be conditioned, or demanding, nor dependent or requiring anything in return. Love has nothing to lose, and this is why it is fearless.
People may argue, will argue for this is not how people associate love. Love is two people connected, who trust each other and respect each other. Then, how do so many fall from love when conditions shift? Romantic love may be no more than a situation and situations change, feelings change, people change.
'Yes dear, I love you the way you are'. But, what if I change? What if you don't like the new me? Do you expect me to stay this way forever, unchanging, even though time will ravage my body and experience will rip at my mind, how can I live up to that expectation?
'No, no, I will love you always, even if you change'. Really? Even if my body grows out of control, even if I become bitter of heart, even if I commit the most heinous of crimes?
Romantic love is conditional. Love is not.
Perhaps the closest we get to true love is between caring parent and child for even when that child disappoints, makes life difficult, fails in the most drastic of measures or acts in the most horrible of ways, a parent will still feel love. Still stand by that child and wish only the best for them, no matter the shortfall in their behaviour.
People say if you love something, set it free. But love is not possessive, it is not ownership of a mind, body or idea so if the view was ownership, setting someone free is not a test of their love, it is a test of yours.
Can you still wish them the best even if they never return, if they say bad things about you, treat you poorly? For love will endure such treatment and love does not need an object to love. Again, it is without condition.
When we need someone to make us happy it becomes a drug and like any addict, we will manipulate to get our fix and have withdrawal and anxiety when they are not present. We will worry that they are doing something they shouldn't or stress they may not return to us.
If one's happiness requires someone to be there, it is bound to fail for it becomes clingy, demanding and jealous. It begins to say you must, and you didn't. It starts to want changes made in order to fit an ideal, become something more, or return to what once was.
'But, I thought you loved me for me?'
Love may be the simplest thing in the world for it is without condition but, the hardest to attain for the human mind is a rule based system. Our emotions make us feel and think certain things but they too are guided by circumstance and swing wildly.
So what is love then? I don't know, you tell me, I am only saying what I think it isn't.
Taraz
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