Love as the flag of revolution
Despite of being an atomic physicist, love is one of the subjects that fascinates me the most in our universe. How could atoms, in their simplicity of interactions, give rise to such complex beings, who possess complex feelings like love? But as any standard scientist, for me “magic” is never a good enough answer. That said, I don’t believe in love as a magical hook that pulls us in the middle of an evening when we’re alone buying a frozen dinner at the supermarket and an unbelievable charming stranger crosses our path.
Recently, the nature of love was one of the central themes debated in a book club section that I participated. We talked about the Little Prince then. Specifically, I was keen on debating the passage “It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important…People have forgotten this truth, but you mustn’t forget it.” because a lot of people seemed confused. “Is he implying that love is a mere choice?” — A woman asked. “But sort of is, isn’t it?” — I replied and continued “I mean, you cannot choose who you are attracted to, but once you are, being together with this person requires effort and negotiations, and a lot of hassle that you need to decide if it worth to deal with or not”. I had such answers in the tip of my tongue not because I am a master of love but because that is not a new concept or question to me. I have been wondering for a long time now about the nature and structure of love. And honestly, after a great deal of considerations, I believe in love as a state of mind, a choice one does.
However, what I didn’t realize at that time, but came to my mind a few days after, while reading “The art of loving” is that love is a choice, not only in romantic relationships (as shown on Little Prince), but also for life in general. Love is a way to conduct life. Some people decide to be assertive, some others pro-active, and hopefully, some will choose to be “loving”. Brave enough are the ones who decided to love, because let me tell you, my friends, it is not easy.
Love is the attitude of respect and care for the well being of each and every human being, regardless of their antagonism with us. This comes from the very simple premise that we’re all bounded by the human condition, that we don’t decide when we’re born or when we’ll die and the best we can do is to profit from our time here on earth in the more satisfying and authentic way. This should be our ultimate right! Therefore we are faced with two major consequences: to respect our fellow humans, however path they decide to take, and to respect and know ourselves, in order to live fully. However incredibly simple to describe, the two statements above lead to revolutionary ends, not only in the way we conduce our lives, but also in our understanding of others and in our relationship to the world around us. A change of perspective that can lead to profound impacts in our society, and therefore, I defend love as the flag of revolution.
For example, if love were a political principle, we would spend less time fighting about the correctness of left wing or right wing, and more time trying to conciliate all options and knowledge, creating a more representative, problem-solving politics, against the old fashion ideological we have nowadays. If love was a commercial principle, that would be the end of the age propaganda. No more advertising to make you feel shit in order to invest your money in products you don’t really need. Products would be designed to attend real needs, to enhance people’s experience of live. Market would act on demand, instead of forceful creating a demand.
Skipping religion and other aspects of society, I would just like to finally add; imagine relationships built upon love? Where two people would consciously choose to mutually respect each other individuality, where a bound to achieve fullness of being would be sealed, where people would face life ensemble as a constant learning of conciliation of the fundamentally different? Relationships then wouldn’t be built upon the premise of a “magical power of love”, one that can come and go, but in a solid decision of live lovely towards each other.
To wrap it all up; love is a incredible powerful force, however, not magical. It is within our reach and can be achieved by us all, as long as we have a more humble approach to it. To benefit from love, and the same goes for any other force of nature (Believe me! I am a physicist!), we need to give away the throne of masters and see ourselves as we really are; constant learners. So, how about starting to learn more about how to love?
