💖What Is Love?
💞A concern\Care.
Examining the difficulties of loneliness might help you understand why love is so important, and why it might be considered near to the meaning of life. We ignore the matter of loneliness much too often: those who have no one to hold them feel shame; those who do have someone to embrace them feel guilt (to some extent). Loneliness, on the other hand, is an unavoidable and universal experience.
We shouldn't feel lonely about being lonely on top of everything. Loneliness, unintentionally, provides the most eloquent explanations for why love is so important.
Those who have no one to love are
some of the best authorities on the necessity of love. It's difficult to
understand what all the commotion is about when one hasn't spent some
unpleasant times alone.
People may try to show us kindness while we are alone; there may be invites and tender gestures, but it will be difficult to escape from a background awareness of the conditionality of the interest and care on offer.
Even the best-behaved companions are prone to recognize the boundaries of their availability and the boundaries of the expectations we can place on them.
Calling is often too late — or too early. In dark times, we would imagine that
we could vanish from the face of the world with no one noticing or caring.
We can't just share whatever's on our minds in regular company
because too much of our inner monologue is too petty or intense, random or
anxiety-ridden to be interesting. It would be bad to disabuse our acquaintances
of the reasonable expectation that their friend is normal.
We need to be courteous as well. No one likes fury, obsession,
oddity, or bitterness. We're not allowed to scream or act out in any way. We
must pay a high price for conviviality: a severe editing of our genuine selves.
We must also recognize that much of who we are will be
difficult to comprehend. Some of our most pressing worries will be met with a
blank stare, boredom, or dread. The majority of individuals are unconcerned.
Our deeper thoughts will be uninteresting to most people. In virtually
everyone's minds, we'll have to exist as nice but radically condensed
paragraphs.
Love promises to correct all of these silently soul-destroying features of single existence. The depths of worry, care, attention, and license we are afforded in the company of a lover ought to be nearly limitless.
We shall be welcomed more or less as we are; we will not be forced to prove our status. It will be possible to survive by revealing our most bizarre and extreme vulnerabilities and compulsions. It is ok to have tantrums, sing poorly, and cry.
If we aren't particularly charming or plain vile for a period
of time, we will be tolerated. We'll be able to wake them up at any hours of
the day or night to share our joys and sorrows. Our tiniest blemishes will
pique your curiosity. We will be able to debate subjects of incredible minutiae
(this hasn't happened since early infancy, when benevolent others spent
considerable energy debating whether the top button on our cardigan should be
done up or left open).
In the company of the lover, judgment will be less harsh and cynical. They will devote a lot of time to you. They will get eager and enthusiastic as we slightly refer to something. When we stutter and hesitate, they will advise, "Go on." They'll understand that painstakingly unravelling the story of how we become the persons we are takes a lot of focus.
They won't just remark, "Poor you," and walk away. They'll look for pertinent facts and assemble together an accurate image that reflects our inner selves.
Instead of looking at us as little odd in the face of our admissions,
they will respond, "Me too." With them, the most vulnerable aspects
of ourselves will be in good hands. We shall be eternally grateful to this
individual for accomplishing what we had come to believe was impossible:
knowing us intimately and still like us. We'll have escaped the oppressive
feeling that the only way to get others to like us is to keep much of who we
are hidden.
We'll begin to believe that we're real. Our identities will be protected, and we won't be the only ones who know what happened to us. When the world's disinterest freezes and erodes us, we may go back to the lover to be reassembled, reflected back to us in language that comfort and soothe us. We will finally realize that, in the embrace of one remarkable, patient, and kindly creature deserving of immeasurable thanks, we genuinely matter, despite being surrounded on all sides by smaller or larger forms of coldness.
💞Desire\Aspiration.
One of the more interesting, and at times baffling, parts of
love is that we are profoundly tempted to want to own our partners physically
as well as appreciate them. The beginning of love is usually signaled by a
bizarre behavior in which two organs that are ordinarily used for eating and
speaking are rubbed and forced against one another with increasing power,
accompanied by saliva flow. A tongue that is ordinarily used to produce vowel
sounds or push mashed potatoes or broccoli to the back of the palate suddenly
travels forward to meet its opposite, whose tip it may contact in repeated
staccato motions.
We can only begin to comprehend the function of sexuality in
love if we acknowledge that it is not always a substantially more joyful
tactile sense than a scalp massage or eating an oyster from a strictly physical
standpoint. Nonetheless, having sex with our partner might be one of the most
pleasurable experiences we ever have.
The reason for this is that sex provides a significant psychological rush. The joy we feel stems from a concept: being permitted to do something extremely personal with and to another person. The body of another person is a very safe and private place. Going up to a stranger and lightly touching their cheeks or between their legs would be quite insulting. In sex, there is a significant amount of mutual permission. Through our unclothing, we're implying to another person that they've been assigned to a small, tightly regulated group of individuals, and that we've bestowed an incredible privilege upon them.
Sexual arousal is a psychological phenomenon. What turns us on isn't so much what our bodies happen to be doing. Acceptance is at the heart of the types of experiences we generally refer to as "being turned on." It feels physical - the blood beats quicker, the metabolism switches gears, the skin heats up – but below it all is a completely other type of change: a sensation of ending our solitude.
In general, society demands that we present others with highly
edited versions of ourselves. It challenges us to be purer, cleaner, and more
courteous versions of ourselves than we might otherwise be. Internally, the
demand comes at a heavy price. Important aspects of our personalities are
relegated to the background.
The clash between our finest values and the most urgent and
thrilling needs of our sexual nature has always attracted – and disturbed –
humanity. Origen, a Christian philosopher and saint, castrated himself in the
early third century because he was frightened by the disparity between the
person he wanted to be (controlled, gentle, and patient) and the person he
believed his sexuality made him (obscene, lascivious and rampant). He is the
ludicrous extreme of a very common and pervasive anguish. We may come across
folks who unknowingly contribute to the split.
Someone who loves us sexually does something really
redemptive: they cease distinguishing between the many aspects of who we are.
They can see that we are the same person in every scenario; that our tenderness
or dignity in some contexts isn't faked by how we are in bed, and vice versa.
We have the opportunity to address one of human nature's deepest, loneliest
challenges through sexual love: how to be accepted for who we truly are.
💞Admiration\Gratitude.
We don't have to believe the narrative to see a symbolic truth: we fall in love with those who promise to help us become full in some manner. The appreciation for having discovered someone who seems to perfectly complement our traits and dispositions is at the heart of our ecstatic sensations in the early days of love. They may have a wonderful tolerance with administrative minutiae or a lively tendency of defying authority.
They might
be able to maintain a sense of proportion and avoid frenzy. It's also possible
that they have a sad and sensitive character that allows them to connect with
the deeper currents of thinking and feelings.
We don't all fall in love with the same individuals because we don't have the same needs. We appreciate what we don't have solid ownership of in ourselves, thus the characteristics we find appealing in our relationships speak to what we admire but don't have. We may be drawn to the competent individual because we are aware of how our own lives are hampered by a lack of confidence and a proclivity to panic when faced with bureaucratic issues.
Or, since we're all too aware of our own inclinations to sterile melancholy and cynicism, we may focus our affection on a partner's humorous aspects. Or we are lured to a partner's careful attention because it provides a welcome break from our overly jittery, shallow thinking.
We may respect a grin as a signal of a
much-needed acceptance of people as they are (to balance our own troublingly
punitive or caustic views), or we may be drawn in by a cheeky sardonic smile
because it implies the balance quality to our own overly
conforming perspective of the world. The direction of our
tastes is explained by our own deficiencies.
We love with the hopes of being helped and redeemed by our loves, at least in part. There is an inherent drive for learning and development. We want to grow a little in their company, becoming better versions of ourselves with their support. Just underneath the surface of love is a desire for personal redemption: a way out of certain stumbling blocks and perplexities. We shouldn't expect to be able to get there on our own.
In some
situations, we may play the role of students and they may play the role of
teachers. We frequently associate education with being forced upon us against
our will. Love has the potential to teach us in a unique way. Our growth may begin
in a far more welcome and energizing way via our lovers: with profound thrill
and desire.
We may allow ourselves certain moments of excitement and unadulterated joy if we are aware of our lovers' attributes. The thrill of love contrasts with our usual disappointments and skepticism of others; figuring out what's wrong with someone is a familiar, rapid, and brutally unrewarding game. Now that we're in love, we have the energy to create and hang on to the finest tale we can about someone. We are brought back to a state of primitive appreciation.
We become excited about seemingly insignificant things, such as the fact that they have phoned us, that they are wearing that specific pullover, or that they lay their head on their palm in a certain way, they have a small scar on their left index finger, or they have a propensity of slightly mispronouncing words... It's unusual to show such concern for another species, to notice so many small sensitive, accomplished, and tragic details in another.
This is something that parents, artists, or even God could do. We can't keep
going in this direction indefinitely, and the rapture isn't always entirely
sane, but it's one of our noblest and most redemptive pastimes – and a kind of
art unto itself – to devote ourselves to properly appreciating the true
complexity, beauty, and virtue of another human being for a period of time.
