Yesterday I saw the movie “Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy” In it they asked what the ultimate question was and it got me thinking. What is the ultimate question to me? What has been the biggest question I have asked myself these past months? With all that has been going on in my life I have been wondering, What is love? What is it really to me, not an easy question to even think of, even harder to answer. But I want to try anyway.
The problem with love is that most of us feel like we have to earn it, most people feel like they have to somehow be worthy of it, they are convinced that they have to be deserving of it. And so their happiness is tied to that, their satisfaction is bound to their ability to earn love. You can’t earn love, I tried it and if you are like me you know that is a long broken road.
Maybe I cant describe it, love but I know it’s not earned its given. It’s not stored in a box somewhere waiting to be discovered. It’s not a puzzle we have to put together. It doesn’t feel like a fight it just flows. We make it hard, we turn it into something else.
Yes it can hurt, but we turn it into pain, yes it can feel like forever but we turn that into possession, it can feel distant but we turn that into suffering. Maybe dad didn’t know how to say it, but it was always there. Maybe mom was screaming it but you couldn’t hear it because her demons were too loud, but that love was always there.
You want know what I think love is, what it looks like, how it feels?
Look around you the seasons has changed and we are at it again. We are in metal planes and trains, and we are driving home again to something that feels good. Look around you, people all over the world are waiting for something, are waiting for those few days. Those sweet moments to be with friends again, to be with family again. For warm embraces, the laughs and the cries, for good stories and for simple words that don’t cost anything but mean everything. I miss you, I love you, these stay a little longer’s.
What we all want is love. It’s the reason being alone doesn’t always feel too good. It’s the reason there really is no place like home, its love. It’s the reason saying goodbye hurts a little more than it used to and coming back feels even better, it’s love. Love doesn’t cost anything, you don’t have to earn it, you don’t have to be deserving of it.
You want to know what love is? How do you describe what air means to fire? how do you describe what it feels like to hear that cry for the first time, to feel 5 tiny fingers gripping yours, to look down and see those big brown eyes staring back. How do you describe the feeling of forever when you see it in her smile. How do you describe the sense of I will do anything for you, when you feel it in her arms, holding you.
But I know how you feel, is how you feel. And if you can’t feel love, you can’t feel anything. If you can’t feel love then what you have is a hole you can’t satisfy. Something you can touch but can never feel, something you can hear but can never see, and yet there is something else in you, something asking you, who was I before life started happening? Who was I before this illusion?
Because I remember feeling, it wasn’t hard it just came naturally like a kid jumping in the bed, laying in the rain or the warm rays of the sun on your skin. I remember a feeling and it was effortless, I remember a feeling and it was me.
Maybe love isn’t about discovering anything else or anyone else, maybe it’s about discovering you. And that can be a strange trip, because at the end of it if you spend enough time digging. You find out you are not who you think you are. You thought you were whoever was staring back at you in the mirror. Then you find out you are something else.
You find out when you say “I”, what you really mean is in separation, what you really mean is “other”. You find out that “I” is the same as “other”, and that’s authenticity in its purest form. And when you know that, you can give it away. You can give the very thing you need, you can give it away. The very thing you want, you can give it away. The very thing you are craving you can give it away because you have it already, and it will come back to you.
Love is an act of faith and an act of gamble at the same time. In fact all of life is an act of faith and an act of gamble .The moment you take a step, you do so on an act of faith because you don't really know that the floor's not going to give under your feet. The moment you take a journey, what an act of faith. The moment that you enter into any kind of human undertaking in relationship, what an act of faith.
You've given yourself up. But this is the most powerful thing that can be done, surrender. And love is an act of surrounding what you have to another person. And when you do this with all your heart, that love comes straight back to you. And you feel complete.
It’s an act of faith I took, and I’m happy I did. It has learned me so many things I did not know yet and has made me feel like a more complete person in the end. 