What is Love?
As naive as it might be of me to try to define it.
“I didn’t arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.” — Albert Einstein
Now… I must warn you, there’s a 50% chance that I’m right but that also means there’s a 50% chance that I’m wrong and I never know which one I give to people — I guess time will tell.
“Well, it’s obviously a feeling”, some might immediately contend. But is it truly that obvious? Then what is an emotion? And what draws the line or distinguishes between these two [feeling and emotion]?
Let’s consider the input of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, also the author of Descartes’ Error — a great book that I highly recommend — who explains, what he considers to be the difference between emotions and feelings: “emotional reaction occurs automatically and unconsciously. Feelings occur after we become aware in our brain of such physical changes”.
For instance, fear would be the emotion that your body picks up from its environment but when you actually become aware of this it is then considered a feeling. If it were me, I would’ve switched up the words and given the explanation for feelings Damasio gives to emotions and vice versa — but it’s fine.
Now… not all feelings arise from our environment, right? We’ve all experienced an emotion (I’m using my preference here with the use of the word) from the absence of any specific external stimuli. Based on more of Damasio’s insight, he believes this is due to the ability our brain has to map out feelings coming entirely from within. This last bit was probably a bit hard to grasp because we still don’t have an actual starting point, it’s all quite evanescent.
Here we find a major obstacle. The use of language as our method to define something as complicated as love immediately builds walls around it because we are trying to make it fit into something that can only grasp certain aspects of this plane of reality. I do not believe we can find the definition of love in our words but more in the space between our words.
By the way, I must warn… my attempt [to define love] will be severely limited by my lack of proficiency in that respect mainly because I don’t have the confidence to say I understand it myself. So if I don’t understand it, let alone pinpoint where it originates from, how could I even try to define it?
Is it a mere neural reaction created by hormones and neurotransmitters that we happen to be able to pick up with brain imaging? Wouldn’t that be something… How straightforward would it all be if that were indeed the case?
What if these neurological reactions are just symptoms?
What about the people whose brain injuries or chemical imbalances prevent them from experiencing love at all? Does this mean love is not there if they cannot feel it? So, one must be able to feel love in order for one to claim that it exists. If no human on earth had ever felt love because they were incapable of doing so, does that mean such a force does not exist? Once a phenomenon is discovered by human consciousness then it becomes “real”? Must there always be a conscious presence for certain aspects to manifest as they do that would otherwise transform into something else when they are not being witnessed? This last one reminds me of the double-slit experiment which continues to keep us all at the edge of our seats waiting for the explanation.
See… we do not like not knowing. Sometimes, maybe more often than we think, we will create these haphazard explanations for complicated aspects of existence out of plain impatience. We will create these “true enough” ideas that will get us through the next few years. I guess we have to start somewhere… fair enough. I want to delve into this so much because it has to do with the scientific method but that will have to wait.
You’re probably thinking that I am idealizing love by the way I speak of it. If not, then now you are. And so I ask — do you understand it that well yourself to know for a fact whether it is right, or wrong, to hold love in such regard?
Maybe you’ve noticed this also, at least some have — many try to attain an idealized version of love and because of that we see much dissatisfaction or disappointments in relationships.
But the reality is, it’s ok. It’s human to fall for ideals, to have dreams, desires, biases, etc… it’s all part of it. Part of you. [Keyword: “part”].
Clearly, the task of defining love brings me some degree of pain since I keep avoiding it.
Let’s jump into it.
What is love then?
I believe true love is a higher level of awareness where the “I” is gone. It can see what lies behind the physical and the psychological. It’s where my soul meets yours.
You will never run out of this. There will be endless empathy, kindness, acceptance, and compassion.
The sort of love people usually speak of is, for the most part, conditional because it is tied to ideals, expectations, and judgments. It’s an egotistical love. This one is finite and brings us much pain because here is where the power struggles happen, hierarchies are set, value discrepancies appear… Most of us live here, on this sort of love.
Q&A
- “What if I don’t accept what someone I truly love does?”
If you loved them with the sort of love I spoke about initially, you would know the answer to this. — That’s ok. When I say “acceptance” that doesn’t mean saying “yes” to everything. It’s also not a battle about imposing your views on others. But if after true and careful consideration of the matter at hand, you find yourself still resisting, you can say “no” from the same source of true love. What you are accepting is the circumstance that you were unable to change, without attaching yourself to whatever ends up happening. - “If it’s innate, endless, and pure why is it so difficult to give this sort of love then?”
Because we realize how open our hearts must be in order to have access to this [love]. We are too afraid to get our hearts broken — our identity is broken, really. You would need to let go of many things we hold on to very tightly such as a sense of value, pride, beliefs, traumas, etc…all things you only think are you. The truth is, yes, your heart will break and other times it might shatter to pieces, so much so that you’ll die but remain alive and you’ll have to ask yourself questions that threaten what you thought was “true” because you are trying to hold on to something — the ego needs it, it cannot stand not having something to hold on to. It’s too scary of a place for many. - “What if I’m happy with the “egotistical” version of love?”
That’s ok too. To open up and give the genuine love you carry isn’t for everyone and you cannot force it upon yourself either. When and if the time is right, it will happen. It’s just helpful to know that there is an alternative method for relationships that fosters a high degree of equanimity.
To conclude,
My favorite color is red.
