Questions about love would always hark back the memories of my elementary days—autographs here and everywhere.
‘Love is blind’ or ‘God is love,’ are the most overt answers to the question ‘define love’ in any autograph book I would read. Though it may sound cliché, people who had resolved to those answers were, indeed,right.
Agape is the most important love of all. It is different from all the others. It is eternal; it is universal; though, sometimes, it is taken for granted. For no one can teach you what agape involves, thus, it is also something that all of us need to develop; it is, irrefutably, God’s love.
Eros is a different kind of love. It speaks of physical love. It is physical love and physical affection between two individuals. When people fall in love, eros love gets involve. That’s the time when love, becomes blind…
But still, it's a mystery
How you ever came to me
Which only proves
Love moves in mysterious ways
— Julia Fordham, Love Moves In (Mysterious Ways)
Love comes to us arbitrarily. Hence, just like a box of chocolates, you’ll never know what you’ll get. You can’t teach yourself how to love, what more to dictate to yourself whom to love. Thus, just like in the art of teaching, it is the process that really matters in what they call, ‘the art of loving.’ How you substantiated that love of yours or how determined were you to show your love to the person you really care for.
Cause I feel myself surrender
Each time I see your face
I am staggered by your beauty
Your unassuming grace
And I feel my heart is turning
Falling into place
I can't hide it
Now hear my confession
— Josh Groban, My Confession
Falling in love is the most obscure offense a person could do to himself/herself. Falling in love is taking the risk of gambling your emotions, your affection. Simply, you actually love even without the assurance of being loved back. It’s just like sowing a seed without even knowing what kind of plant it is. Will it bear a flower? Will the flower develop into a fruit? What kind of fruit it might be? Yet before you should have asked those questions, are you sure that the seed you’d sown would actually grow?
If I can reach the stars,
Pull one down for you,
Shine it on my heart
So you could see the truth:
That this love I have inside
Is everything it seems.
— Eric Clapton, Change the World
Now that you’re certain with your feelings, make sure as well that you invest also in the motivational and cognitive facets of your love. Knowing whom to love is not enough; knowing why and how long you’ll love somebody is imperative as well. There should be the sense of passion, hence commitment, aside from the overwhelming intimacy.
For sure, any shortfall in any of these requirements might lead to a love quandary.
I know I misbehaved
And you made your mistakes
And we both got room left to grow
And though love sometimes hurts
I still put you first
And we’ll make this thing work
But I think we should take it slow
— John Legend, Ordinary People
Love needs to mature, just as every seed do. It should be nurtured, supplied by its rudimentary provisions.
Love is a give-and-take relationship. It is always a two-way process. It shall never be a one-way function.
The reason why some cases of ‘love’ don’t last long enough is because it is simply not participated by both parties. May it be just a liking, an infatuation, empty love, romantic love, companionate love, or fatuous love, these patterns of love actually happen because only one party is experiencing any of the three elements of love.
You can’t say that an infatuated person would be forever in love with another infatuated person; nor you can’t find a couple in a harmonious relationship who are just committed to each other, experiencing empty love forever; nor people who just like each other and stay together for the rest of their lives.
Anyone who is in a romantic, companionate, or fatuous relationship won’t stay together for a long period of time either. Spontaneously, time would judge their love until the instance that suddenly the love they had treasured for quite some time is gone already. As a consequence, love, eventually, dies.
Accordingly, it may be construed that this might by the reason why certain love doesn’t last long, hence, why break ups occur.
So I've learned that love's not possession
And I've learned that love won't wait
Now I've learned that love needs expression
But I learned too late
— Michael Jackson, She’s Out of My Life
Now that you’re not attached to each other anymore, you’ll soon realize the absurdity of life. And just as what a friend of mine asked in an email a couple of weeks ago, “Why is it that the people we love, are often, the ones who hurt us?” “We trust and we’re betrayed; we care or love, but we’re abused or taken for granted,” he added. He even pointed out that love should be returned by love, perse, but at least, “if not love itself, love should be rewarded with kindness.”
Yes, maybe he’s right. After all, and just as how Levine said it: “love is the only rational act.”
Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start
— Coldplay, The Scientist
But the end of a relationship is not the same as the end of the world. Am I getting a point here, or am I just exaggerating?
The gist is that sometimes, we seem to be over reacting on the things that had happened to us, to our lives. We are pressuring ourselves to give in into a relationship that actually doesn’t give us any assurance. How long will it last? Will your love be paid back also by love, or even just by kindness, as mentioned earlier? You’re certainly risking a part of your life —and that’s just a part of your life. Hence, if you’ll look into the bigger picture, there are still other facets of your life that needs your attention. There are more relevant things that you need to spend your time with, rather than contemplating and scrutinizing and blaming yourself of what went wrong.
I may sound hypocritical on this part, though, this, I think, should be how we should perceive love. The end of a relationship is not, and will never be, equitable to the end of our lives. After all, love is the only rational act.
In my eyes you do no wrong
And I believe in you
Although you never asked me to
I will remember you
And what life put you through
And in this cruel and lonely world
I found one love
You’re still you
After all, you’re still you
— Josh Groban, You’re Still You
Nevertheless, the most profound love for me is simply the love that is liberating. It’s merely letting go of someone else that you truly love. It’s the ultimate sacrifice a person could do to the one he loves. Let’s admit it, it’s easier to fall in love with somebody than breaking out of that love and letting that person go. Indeed, the art of letting go is remarkably harder to realize than the art of loving. After all, love is the only rational act.
Jamás sentà en el alma tanto amor (I never felt so much love in my soul)
Y nadie mas que tú, me amó (And no one but you loved me)
Por ti reà y lloré, renacà también (Because of you I laughed and cried, I was reborn also)
— Josh Groban, Aléjate (Go Away)
Why did it take me a long time to reflect on this matter?
Honestly, I don’t know the answer. It’s just that, love, in reality, kills me —even at this very moment of time.
Pano mapipigil ang isang damdamin
Kung ang sinisigaw
Ikaw ang lahat sa akin
At kung hindi ngayon
Ang panahon, upang ikaw ay mahalin
Bukas na walang hanggan
Ako’y maghihintay parin
— Martin Nievera, Ikaw Ang Lahat Sa Akin
__________
This essay was written in September 20, 2005 as a reflection paper for the course EDFD 100 (Developmental Psychology).
