What is Love?
I just washed my hair four times because it was so disgusting.
Anyway, that's beside the point, except to provide a backdrop for my philosophical self-inquiries. I do my best thinking in the shower, and probably my second best while washing dishes. I spent a collective five hours or so reading through roughly 2,500 PostSecrets over the past two days, curious as to what all these people had to say that was so deep and dark. Alot of them were overdramatic, a few dealt with suicidal thoughts, strange fantasies, weird habits, vengeful "I just slept with your boy-/girlfriend" notes, and the like, but the overwhelming majority had to do with love. I can't begin to estimate the number of times I saw something like "I still love him/her," or "He/she is my best friend and I'm in love, but we will never work," or some variation. So I got to pondering, what exactly do they mean by "love?" Well, my ultimate conclusion was that this word is a sort of misnomer, although I do suspect that some of them were genuine, if slightly campy or "emo."
"You know," I said to myself, "I bet people who say things like 'I love pizza' are more accurately expressing true love than people who say with alarming frequency to each other 'I love you.'"
"That's funny," I answered, "and quite true. I mean, no matter how many times you get sick from eating too much pizza, you will never stop liking it, right?"
And that's funny, because I suddenly realized that people who casually say they love anything, be it music, food, television, sports, or whatever, are probably telling the truth. For instance, one week ago today I was supposed to see My Chemical Romance play at the Glens Falls Civic Center. This is the first music I think I've ever really liked, and I daresay I've said I love it frequently enough. Alas, three members of the band were stricken with salmonella a few days prior, and as a result about six shows were cancelled, mine included. This naturally made me quite upset; more upset than I think most people realize, and more upset than I would have thought myself. For the next day or so I refused to listen to "The Black Parade" (and actually I'm quite thankful for this, because I discovered how truly awesome Muse is in the process) for no real reason. I thought I would only be upset further by listening, so I didn't. Then, all of the sudden, I had an intense longing to hear "Famous Last Words." I dialed it up, and amazingly it was the same awesome music it had always been. There was no bitter taste. No matter what, even after having been crushed by this very music, I was still able to listen, appreciate, and love it as much as before. So I asked myself again, what then is love?
"Well," I ruminated, "most people, when they hear the word 'love,' probably think of hearts and kisses and romantic Valentines type stuff, right?"
"Indeed," I agreed. "From what I understand, most people think of love as this sort of feeling that you get when you are around that 'special someone,' a supposed soul mate."
And here is where the tricky part of the discussion began. Perhaps people are too caught up in the romantic to realize the realistic. What's the difference between loving pizza and loving a person? As it turns out, loving pizza is just as shallow as the pop culture version of loving another human being. If pizza didn't taste good, would so many people still like it? Oddly enough, human beings have an added level of attraction that seems to be at the same time the key to and the bane of true love. Unlike pizzas, humans have personalities and souls, all individual. Through this, rather than by taste (well, maybe some people actually like the way other people taste; I wouldn't know), humans connect to each other. And yet, while a pizza is perfectly content to be consumed by a human and has no desires of its own, every person is innately selfish, greedy, and lustful. Naturally this makes it impossible for one to love a person the same way they love a pizza, because the pizza will satisfy their desires unconditionally. Thus, it seems there must also be an added facet to this higher dimension of love. Because every person wants the best for themself, no one can possibly get exactly what they want all the time.
"Well now, you've struck upon an interesting point," I said.
"Indeed.There is no personal sacrifice involved in loving a pizza," I concluded.
And then I thought of Jesus, who said to love our enemies. Whether you take him as God, a prophet, or just an inspired teacher, this brings up an interesting point. Obviously it's rather silly to think of romantic attachment to our enemies. Clearly that's not what was intended by that directive. Rather, this deals with the part of love that is conscious choice. We don't have to like our enemies, but we should be forgiving, kind, patient, and thoughtful of their humanity. No one is perfect. No one is exactly like us, which is just a recipe for conflict, especially given the huge number of people on the planet.
"Hmmmmm..." I made an onomatopoeic sound indicative of deep thought. "So unlike our mindless love for pizza, love for another human must also include some decision on our part, beyond a simple attraction."
"Precisely." I think I had finally hit on something important.
Then I imagined a pizza with a personality and wondered just how much that pizza might want to be eaten. Now, if I were a conscious pizza, I probably wouldn't enjoy the thought of my own consumption very much. No, I certainly wouldn't want to be eaten, but what if the person who wanted to eat me was starving to death? What then? Would I be willing to give myself up for that person's betterment?
"Aha!" I exclaimed.
"And yet," I pondered, "people are still not comparable to pizzas, not even living pizzas, because we don't eat each other. Well, maybe cannibals do, but I mean in general we don't."
Nevertheless, I think by this point I had realized where this discussion was going. Pizzas, it is clear, love the people who eat them unconditionally. How do people love each other though? Well naturally, it seems that if one person loves another person, they would do everything in their power to make that person happy, wouldn't they? In general, I suspect that people who are romantically attached to each other automatically have this sort of desire initially. I suspect further that the emotions we are capable of realizing exist solely for the facilitation of that ultimate decision to really love another person. I also hit upon another interesting idea: it must be easier to love someone from whom we have nothing to really gain, especially in a physical sense. Maybe the romantic aspect of a relationship makes actual bonding more difficult. Maybe people who are just friends, no strings attached, simply connected by common interests values, actually experience the strongest form of love. On that same token, though, wouldn't two people who are romantically attached that are capable of achieving that sort of connection have an even more powerful love between them?
"You know," I said," your shower wasn't actually this long."
"Yes, I'm aware of that." I replied. "I only came up with the basic framework. All of this is kind of building on my pondrances whilst under the streaming water. It must have something to do with water, these strange epiphanies that I have."
Despite all my deep thinking, I don't suppose I've really come to a good conclusion. Despite my best efforts, I can't put a definition to love. Still, I have decided that people who place their lives in the hands of a feeling in hopes of a fairy tale life are on a collision course for disaster. It's said that the person you should marry should be your best friend. I think this is probably true. Obviously not everyone is going to end up marrying someone they've known their entire life and are literally "best friends" (in the traditional sense) with. That just means that we have to put forth the effort to become best friends with those we are involved with romantically. I can only conclude that a physical relationship is detrimental to those who have not established a true friendship. That of course opens up a whole new can of worms (what is friendship, exactly?), but I shan't get into that one now.
"So what we're saying is that there are certain necessary aspects of true love," I summarized the whole thought process.
"Exactly," I affirmed."There's a choice involved in developing a real relationship with another human being. We have not only to share an attraction and common interests, but we have to share values like trust, faithfulness, honesty, and a desire to serve each other. These sorts of things are all willing admissions. We trust each other, despite our many reasons not to. We remain faithful to each other, despite potential desires that cause us to stray. We open up to each other so that we have a mutual understanding. We work to make each other's lives better, even if we have to make personal sacrifices."
"That's pretty profound," I thought aloud. "I can't believe I came up with all of this in the shower. Well, at least the general idea, anyway."
So when I went back to thinking about these PostSecrets, I wondered how many of them actually dealt with true love. I don't intend to pass judgment on anyone, but I concluded that in the cases of the "I still love him/her" postcards, there is a good chance these people focused on the romantics and failed to achieve true love. The feelings that they may still have are merely those some emotional attachments. Obviously this isn't universally true; any number of circumstances could lead to unrequited love like this. In general, I think people try too hard to apply fairy tale magic to real life, and end up with a skewed idea of love that only makes things worse. Maybe some people make it work. I don't know. As for me, I fully intend to achieve true love, not just the Hollywood version, but the kind that will last a lifetime. I don't ever want to be the guy posting "I still love her" on PostSecret.
"Alas," I said, "little league is calling your name."
"I know," I said, "as is food and clothing, since I still haven't gotten fully dressed after my shower."
"Well I don't know about you, but I'm gonna get right on that," I ended the absurd conversation with myself finally.
Anyway, that's beside the point, except to provide a backdrop for my philosophical self-inquiries. I do my best thinking in the shower, and probably my second best while washing dishes. I spent a collective five hours or so reading through roughly 2,500 PostSecrets over the past two days, curious as to what all these people had to say that was so deep and dark. Alot of them were overdramatic, a few dealt with suicidal thoughts, strange fantasies, weird habits, vengeful "I just slept with your boy-/girlfriend" notes, and the like, but the overwhelming majority had to do with love. I can't begin to estimate the number of times I saw something like "I still love him/her," or "He/she is my best friend and I'm in love, but we will never work," or some variation. So I got to pondering, what exactly do they mean by "love?" Well, my ultimate conclusion was that this word is a sort of misnomer, although I do suspect that some of them were genuine, if slightly campy or "emo."
"You know," I said to myself, "I bet people who say things like 'I love pizza' are more accurately expressing true love than people who say with alarming frequency to each other 'I love you.'"
"That's funny," I answered, "and quite true. I mean, no matter how many times you get sick from eating too much pizza, you will never stop liking it, right?"
And that's funny, because I suddenly realized that people who casually say they love anything, be it music, food, television, sports, or whatever, are probably telling the truth. For instance, one week ago today I was supposed to see My Chemical Romance play at the Glens Falls Civic Center. This is the first music I think I've ever really liked, and I daresay I've said I love it frequently enough. Alas, three members of the band were stricken with salmonella a few days prior, and as a result about six shows were cancelled, mine included. This naturally made me quite upset; more upset than I think most people realize, and more upset than I would have thought myself. For the next day or so I refused to listen to "The Black Parade" (and actually I'm quite thankful for this, because I discovered how truly awesome Muse is in the process) for no real reason. I thought I would only be upset further by listening, so I didn't. Then, all of the sudden, I had an intense longing to hear "Famous Last Words." I dialed it up, and amazingly it was the same awesome music it had always been. There was no bitter taste. No matter what, even after having been crushed by this very music, I was still able to listen, appreciate, and love it as much as before. So I asked myself again, what then is love?
"Well," I ruminated, "most people, when they hear the word 'love,' probably think of hearts and kisses and romantic Valentines type stuff, right?"
"Indeed," I agreed. "From what I understand, most people think of love as this sort of feeling that you get when you are around that 'special someone,' a supposed soul mate."
And here is where the tricky part of the discussion began. Perhaps people are too caught up in the romantic to realize the realistic. What's the difference between loving pizza and loving a person? As it turns out, loving pizza is just as shallow as the pop culture version of loving another human being. If pizza didn't taste good, would so many people still like it? Oddly enough, human beings have an added level of attraction that seems to be at the same time the key to and the bane of true love. Unlike pizzas, humans have personalities and souls, all individual. Through this, rather than by taste (well, maybe some people actually like the way other people taste; I wouldn't know), humans connect to each other. And yet, while a pizza is perfectly content to be consumed by a human and has no desires of its own, every person is innately selfish, greedy, and lustful. Naturally this makes it impossible for one to love a person the same way they love a pizza, because the pizza will satisfy their desires unconditionally. Thus, it seems there must also be an added facet to this higher dimension of love. Because every person wants the best for themself, no one can possibly get exactly what they want all the time.
"Well now, you've struck upon an interesting point," I said.
"Indeed.There is no personal sacrifice involved in loving a pizza," I concluded.
And then I thought of Jesus, who said to love our enemies. Whether you take him as God, a prophet, or just an inspired teacher, this brings up an interesting point. Obviously it's rather silly to think of romantic attachment to our enemies. Clearly that's not what was intended by that directive. Rather, this deals with the part of love that is conscious choice. We don't have to like our enemies, but we should be forgiving, kind, patient, and thoughtful of their humanity. No one is perfect. No one is exactly like us, which is just a recipe for conflict, especially given the huge number of people on the planet.
"Hmmmmm..." I made an onomatopoeic sound indicative of deep thought. "So unlike our mindless love for pizza, love for another human must also include some decision on our part, beyond a simple attraction."
"Precisely." I think I had finally hit on something important.
Then I imagined a pizza with a personality and wondered just how much that pizza might want to be eaten. Now, if I were a conscious pizza, I probably wouldn't enjoy the thought of my own consumption very much. No, I certainly wouldn't want to be eaten, but what if the person who wanted to eat me was starving to death? What then? Would I be willing to give myself up for that person's betterment?
"Aha!" I exclaimed.
"And yet," I pondered, "people are still not comparable to pizzas, not even living pizzas, because we don't eat each other. Well, maybe cannibals do, but I mean in general we don't."
Nevertheless, I think by this point I had realized where this discussion was going. Pizzas, it is clear, love the people who eat them unconditionally. How do people love each other though? Well naturally, it seems that if one person loves another person, they would do everything in their power to make that person happy, wouldn't they? In general, I suspect that people who are romantically attached to each other automatically have this sort of desire initially. I suspect further that the emotions we are capable of realizing exist solely for the facilitation of that ultimate decision to really love another person. I also hit upon another interesting idea: it must be easier to love someone from whom we have nothing to really gain, especially in a physical sense. Maybe the romantic aspect of a relationship makes actual bonding more difficult. Maybe people who are just friends, no strings attached, simply connected by common interests values, actually experience the strongest form of love. On that same token, though, wouldn't two people who are romantically attached that are capable of achieving that sort of connection have an even more powerful love between them?
"You know," I said," your shower wasn't actually this long."
"Yes, I'm aware of that." I replied. "I only came up with the basic framework. All of this is kind of building on my pondrances whilst under the streaming water. It must have something to do with water, these strange epiphanies that I have."
Despite all my deep thinking, I don't suppose I've really come to a good conclusion. Despite my best efforts, I can't put a definition to love. Still, I have decided that people who place their lives in the hands of a feeling in hopes of a fairy tale life are on a collision course for disaster. It's said that the person you should marry should be your best friend. I think this is probably true. Obviously not everyone is going to end up marrying someone they've known their entire life and are literally "best friends" (in the traditional sense) with. That just means that we have to put forth the effort to become best friends with those we are involved with romantically. I can only conclude that a physical relationship is detrimental to those who have not established a true friendship. That of course opens up a whole new can of worms (what is friendship, exactly?), but I shan't get into that one now.
"So what we're saying is that there are certain necessary aspects of true love," I summarized the whole thought process.
"Exactly," I affirmed."There's a choice involved in developing a real relationship with another human being. We have not only to share an attraction and common interests, but we have to share values like trust, faithfulness, honesty, and a desire to serve each other. These sorts of things are all willing admissions. We trust each other, despite our many reasons not to. We remain faithful to each other, despite potential desires that cause us to stray. We open up to each other so that we have a mutual understanding. We work to make each other's lives better, even if we have to make personal sacrifices."
"That's pretty profound," I thought aloud. "I can't believe I came up with all of this in the shower. Well, at least the general idea, anyway."
So when I went back to thinking about these PostSecrets, I wondered how many of them actually dealt with true love. I don't intend to pass judgment on anyone, but I concluded that in the cases of the "I still love him/her" postcards, there is a good chance these people focused on the romantics and failed to achieve true love. The feelings that they may still have are merely those some emotional attachments. Obviously this isn't universally true; any number of circumstances could lead to unrequited love like this. In general, I think people try too hard to apply fairy tale magic to real life, and end up with a skewed idea of love that only makes things worse. Maybe some people make it work. I don't know. As for me, I fully intend to achieve true love, not just the Hollywood version, but the kind that will last a lifetime. I don't ever want to be the guy posting "I still love her" on PostSecret.
"Alas," I said, "little league is calling your name."
"I know," I said, "as is food and clothing, since I still haven't gotten fully dressed after my shower."
"Well I don't know about you, but I'm gonna get right on that," I ended the absurd conversation with myself finally.
posted by The Chris at 3:02 PM
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