What is love? Is it an emotion? A word? Is it meaningless? How does one fall in love? Can one fall in love? How do you tell when you are in love? Does love just happen? Can you learn to love?
These are questions that tend to plague me, and I'm sure, other people as well.
But how do you answer them? Writing this, I don't know if I'll answer any, I don't even know how I'll go about attempting such a feat. This is just going to be me going on about whatever thoughts come into my mind on the topic.
So.. what is love...
Well there are a few different views on it. Some see it as an emotion, others as some kind of supernatural connection. Some people will say it's something special that you can only share with one special soul-mate, others something you can have with multiple people, either through the course of your life, or all at once. I don't really know if I would qualify it as an emotion or not.. well let me make that clearer : I don't know if I would qualify it as it's own distinct emotion, rather than as just a form of another emotion. I'm sure at some point in your life, you've heard someone say "I like them, but I don't love them", but are the two really so different? If asked, anyone would say that they liked someone they loved, but not the other way round. Does this point to love being something entirely different, or is it just the same emotion as "liking", but brought to an extreme? Just as hatred is really just a very intense dislike, is love not just a very intense liking? This puts me off the idea of any kind of metaphysical/supernatural/whatever connection (well besides the fact that that would require belief in some supernatural source of love, which is just absurd on it's own).
It's definitely been overhyped by society.. the whole magic of love thing... that just doesn't fly with me. As far as I'm concerned, love is just really liking and caring for someone, but then, how might I go about reconciling the rightness of monogamy constantly shoved down my throat by society with the fact that there are multiple people in my life that I would say I like very much and care about? Well there are a few ways to do that. I could first decide that there are two kinds of love, but then I'd be faced with a new problem, what the hell is the difference, how do I draw the line, how do I tell the difference, and what the hell are these two kinds? That seems too complicated. Love is not a rational thing, of that I'm certain, so trying to rationalize it is a waste of time.
The other way I could reconcile the two is to reject the notion that monogamy is right. This has some interesting consequences though. Society makes it essentially impossible to live anything but a monogamous life. Aside from having monogamy shoved down my throat at all times, society is built around the idea of the monogamous heterosexual relationship. It's only just now starting to accept and evolve to include homosexual monogamous relationships, but any other type of relationship isn't even considered. Any kind of official form that asks marital status has all kinds of options for just about everything - so long as it's monogamous. It doesn't consider anything else. The legal troubles aside, what are the odds that I could even find more than one person who I would consider myself as loving, and who would furthermore share my view on polyamourous relations? I'd just as likely live my life a celibate. I don't want that.
So now I've got a problem, society says I can only choose one person to love.. only one person that I can officially spend my life with and one person I can publically display any physical affection for without getting weird looks. How in the hell am I supposed to do that? I've already completely rejected the idea that there could only be one person that I could share this relationship with; hell I'm only 19 and I know already that there's no way in hell I'll only ever meet one person that I could share that with. I'm in quite the pickle which I unfortunately can't get out of. Thank you society for trying to mould me to your expecations. It would be greatly appreciated if you would kindly fuck off. Bleck.
So now I'm at the questions regarding falling in love...
How do you fall in love? Hell if I know. Your brain shoots out some chemicals that make you feel certain things and poof you're in love with someone. More often than not, that's just a quick infatuation that won't last very long. Probably more to do with your instincts telling you to reproduce with the individual in question than anything else. Just look at the divorce rate, it's somewhere around 50% in North America is it not? I wonder how many of those marriages came about after less than a year together...
Can one fall in love? Well I guess that depends on what view of love you take.. but I'd say yeah, pretty obviously. People do it all the time, but I think it's hardly eternal. I think love comes and goes. I think when you find someone that you'd want to share your life with, it's not because you're going to love them for all your life, but rather than you'll always be able to pull through the moments where you maybe don't love each other so much, and work through it, and, for lack of a better word, recover from your lapse.
In my opinion, a relationship in which you never fight argue or disagree about anything is a relationship in which you're either trying way to hard for it to be any good, or is just plain out boring. I would much rather argue and fight on occasion, then get through it. Conflict strengthens. Physical conflict strengthens your body in a literal way, while emotional conflict strengthens a relationship (as long as you can get through it). You get to know the person that much better, because as I see it, an angry person is an honest person, and you also get to see what the other person really cares about.
I've been through this in my own life, with my closest friend. We've fought and argued countless times, gone months at a time not speaking or really acknowledging each others' existence, and we pulled through all of those times, and reached a better understanding of each other, to the point where I can now be confident that any time we argue, we'll always be able to work through it, and get back to our normal relations soon enough.
But what about those brief moments of passion that happen upon you when you least expect it, and that fade away just as quickly? What should one do in those situations? Should you embrace them, and take in every fleeting moment of passionate, unbridled love (regardless of what kind of love that may be) that you can, or rather be wary of those that take you by surprise, maybe even cultivate them to see if it grows into something more mature, or dies and fades away? I don't know that there's a definite answer to this. I don't think any one answer can be said to adequately apply to any situation that would arise.. there are just way too many variables to consider. It's probably best to deal with these on a case by case basis, but then can I really take the time to analyze every situation? Should I analyze every situation? Love, like all emotions really, is not a rational thing. To try and rationalize it is, well, irrational. But then is just going with my gut all the time really a good way to go about it? I don't think so. My gut, unfortunately, oftentimes likely doesn't give a rat's ass about much else besides basic biological necessities, and I can't really live by that now can I? I won't allow myself to succumb to a pathological following of all my base desires. As with most things, the seemingly best path is a middle ground - a balance. Everything in nature tends toward equilibrium, so while it most certainly is not easy (it sure as hell hasn't been), I think the best thing to do is try to seek a balance between the emotional and rational.
Can you learn to love... that's a difficult question. On the one hand, people have often had little choice but to do so; arranged marriages leave little choice for the spouses to be. But can you really call that love? I don't know. I guess it depends. If put in an arranged marriage, sometimes you'll get someone that you just can't stand, and maybe you'll force yourself to live with it, just get used to it and accept it as your lot in life because that's what society expects of you, or maybe you'll find some way out. Either way you certainly haven't learned to love the person. On the other hand, you might get someone that you're very compatible with, and live happily together, but then have you learned to love them, or rather fallen in love with them? Is there even a difference? I'm leaning toward the idea that the kind of relationship where you're happy with someone for a long time is a mix of both. At first, you fall in love with them, get infatuated I suppose, there's that immediate attraction, that spark that draws you to them. But eventually that wears off, maybe you get to learn some things you didn't know before that you don't like so much, at this point you either leave or stay. If you do stay, there's something more than that initial bit of falling in love that keeps you there. I imagine it's at this point that you learn to get along with the person, faults and all, where you learn to accept, and hey, maybe even love all their little quirks. You stay with them not because you don't have a choice, or (hopefully) not because you've fooled yourself into thinking you love them, but because you actually do, all the darker bits included.
I don't know if I've really answered any of the questions, or if any of this amounted to anything really.. I don't even know why I wrote it all out, but I did, and it seems a waste not to post it now, so here it is.
Interesting. I was planning to write a lengthy post that ties in love, lust, falling in love, platonic love, parental love, passionate love, manic love, pragmatic love (you touch on it here - 'can you learn to love'), monogamy and all that into a single coherent thesis, but with exams at the moment I don't have the time. I'll work on it over the holidays, hopefully I come up with something good haha
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