Abstract:
People think ‘hate’ is a strong word, yet they throw around ‘love’ like its ‘hello’. One cannot exist without the other, as light cannot exist without darkness, and freedom would not exist if it wasn’t for the threat of oppression. If you use one word and mean it with all its might, you must and should be capable of realising both its source and impact in some context or form.
Question number one: How can one love?
The bipolarity of Love is simple: Romantic versus Platonic. Two contradictory notions in concept and manifestation, yet they share the same sort of attraction. One is empowered by lust, the other by a sense of soul resonance. Yet they can blend into one, forming something that can feel like omnipotence. A person in loves feels capable of anything, and therein lies its irrevocable force. A force so great, poets, writers, noblemen and common folk have strived to understand for centuries. However, it is not a case of understanding, but a case of simply accepting. It cannot be resolved in reason, but only in faith.
To love deeply, to love passionately and to love truly and unconditionally is an elevation of being. To love selfishly, whimsically and superficially is impious. To love in mediocrity, through commiseration, or piteously is an utter waste and screams blasphemy, causing a shake in the very core of “The Temple of Love”, if there ever was one. Loving from a distance, loving in spite of obstacles, loving altruistically with no personal gain is commendable as the Love amplifies in a rainbow-multiplier and crosses conventional confines, sometimes even metaphysical ones. Receiving love and not returning it renders one unworthy while unrequited love is the root of all evil. Continuing to love when all other things show you that you are fighting a lost battle either makes you a martyr or a blithering idiot, putting a heart-shaped sieve on a pedestal watching your love drip right through it, as you take your place in line as part of a “Chain of Fools”. The scar of this unreciprocated love is carved on your chest forever, and people you approach will smell the wet Love-Sick puppy fur in the wind. That’s life, really.
To love again when you have already been wounded is daring, bold and reinforces the cliché statement ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ “a.k.a. The Love Gun”. To shy away from love is fear of a life worth living, in its good times and in its shitty times, and breeds a half, petty existence. Knowing your limits and treading softly is a safe strategy, but will you ever burn this way? Will you ever attain the immortal feeling that being in love instills? To be silent in love is a downward spiral of self inflicting pain, often rooted in some guilt trip of the past, or a hard learned lesson in Inappropriate Love and you’ll never get over what never started with “The One That Got Away”. To love obsessively, blindly, is destructive and should be monitored as the boundaries of ‘I love you, I hate you’ are as fine as a fresh paper cut.
Question number two: What are the objects of love?
We are capable of being very versatile in love: loving people, things, ideas. Generally each of these will fall into one of two categories: the tangible and the abstract. The tangible you can see and feel. I love my Mum. I love my Friends. I love my Dog. (Notice the possessive ‘my’. We consider these as being in our sphere of Love, and that our Love gives us some sort of authority or leverage over them. On the other hand, those who mess with this set of ‘love objects’ are in for a mean grilling). I love leather pants, I love Metal music, I love food. And sex. I love good sex. Notice no possessive pronoun. Usually you enjoy having the things of this set in your life, to use and/or abuse them, but if they were to be lacking from your daily routine, it should not be a life shaker, although admittedly it would be a mood breaker. I love, Freedom, Choice, Truth. Absolutely non-negotiable. If you love and embrace these, and have opted to abide by the codes each set you simply cannot do without them in your life, and if they are being compromised or discounted you feel trapped, suffocated and asphyxiated like someone is holding you underwater.
Question number three: Why does one love?
Why does or why should one love? Can anybody love? Is it true those who have received it are able to pass it on, while others who have been deprived of it are simply people with a non-diagnosed case of Asperger syndrome? And in some instances, forget about love, some or not even capable of empathy. It’s a disconcerting thought. On the other hand, consider the hopeless or hapless romantics that never, ever lose hope of this thing called love, and fall head over heels again and again, like it was the first time, as if they have no memory. Or in the hope (false or not) that it will end well this time round. Alas, there is no recipe, no manual, and sometimes the ones who have not felt love become such paragons of love, wanting to experience what they were never lucky to receive in the first place. Others succumb to the dark side and tap into their inner demons who feed off emotions such as anguish and fear. A matter of light versus dark, a common theme in human existence no doubt, without saying that there is no love found in darkness. On the contrary, the dark souls have an untapped resource of love that needs to find the correct receptor in order to be instigated. And inevitably, let’s not forget that one loves a variety of things (both in the literal and abstract sense) because they give them satisfaction. Actually if you analyse it enough, love is quite a selfish thing really in the sense that loving something makes you feel good about yourself, doesn’t it? It is a fulfilling experience, it no doubt transforms us, sometimes into a better version of ourselves, while at other times into a lesser, baser version, at times it can be self-indulgent, addictive, and in extreme cases self-destructive.
Therefore, we should not throw caution to the wind when it comes to love. That, or be prepared to burn in the hope that you are a phoenix.
Now what about the acute pain that is so often associated with love? The trauma that is caused by Cupid’s arrow when it falls on infertile soil resulting in a ricochet that stabs you in the heart instead? That can turn deeply warm affections into vengeful, spiteful emotions, as thorns have displaced the petals. Hate is way of dealing with shattered Love, a way of channeling strong feelings from one end of the spectrum to the other, as a means of coping, of surviving. And what about being untimely in Love, meaning it never fully manifests itself in reciprocation due to circumstances of time or events, and stargazed lovers end up shifting backward, forwards, and sideways in time, trying to find that moment of exuberance when they feel mutually safe in love. Either they succeed or they fail – becoming wretched souls, in the eternal torment of wandering in Love Limbo. Such are the cases of the mythological figures Orpheas and Eurydice, and to use a more lyrical example of forbidden love this time, the Shakespearean icons of Romeo & Juliette, inspired by a true story, no doubt, somewhere down the line.
Question number four: So what is all the fuss about?
Why the superfluous number of poems, of songs, of letters, of gestures, of war (!) in the case of Troy, enacted in the Name of Love? There is a gargantuan plethora of literature exploring the boundaries of hyperbolic, or obsessive, or pure, or lustful, or lecherous, or idealised Love? And then a disturbing thought enters my critical mind – what about those sickening forms of diseased and pestilent love like incest. Why should this even exist?
Epilogue:
You may find this a cynical account of Love. You would not be mistaken. Sometimes you get so lost trying to understand why you do the things you do for Love, or for the short-lived Being-in-Love phase that all lovers will eventually fall out of, and either you can’t help wondering, is it worth it, or even worse, that thought never crosses your mind as you blindly make blunder after blunder with no filter on tongue or body or mind. Yet, that’s what we want: mad, crazy, baffle-my-senses love that will make us feel impervious. Because we need a nudge to find the power within, we need the spark that will ignite the fire, the fuel to feed the engine. We love people and things because we love the way it feels to hold that feeling. Fact or fable?
Consider the following tale of Greek mythology, consummating that love is also a form of test of perseverance and purity of emotions, and not fit for the faint-hearted.
Once upon a time, eons and eons ago, there was a woman of astonishing beauty called Psyche, and the goddess Aphrodite could not bear the thought that a mortal could be more beautiful than her. She ordered her son Eros to make Psyche fall in love with the most despicable being ever, so that she may suffer in love. What an unloved bitch, this goddess of love, huh? However, upon seeing her, even Eros himself was not immune to his love-dipped arrow and fell deeply in love with her. He visited her only in the dark, veiled in anonymity for fear of his mother finding out about his defiance. He made Psyche swear to agree to never attempt to confirm his identity, and for a while she abided, blinded with an inexplicable feeling of love towards this bizarrely familiar stranger. Coaxed by her envious sisters, Psyche revealed Eros’ identity by describing him, thus betraying his trust and deeply hurting the young god. In turn, he refused Psyche, knowing the wrath that was to ensue. Psyche became forlorn, spending the rest of her life trying to redeem herself, hopelessly. But Eros had vanished, exiled by his mother. After enduring many hardships, Aphrodite finally felt pleased that both had suffered enough but not before she made Psyche walk the underworld and lose her good looks, as a price of a living person visiting the land of the dead. Only there, in the darkness, did Eros and Psyche reunite, since Eros did not care that his love had lost her looks and Psyche was relieved her beauty was no longer a point of comparison. It no longer mattered, if it ever really did to Eros at least. Together they had a child they called Hedone.
Conclusion: So, let’s not fall in love, let’s rise in love. If you feel loved, spread it, share it, shout it. Make it contagious. If you feel unloved, start loving yourself and watch the changes.
Helen Marie Joyce 