Love. A while ago, I fell out of it.
Or, if I can be honest, I was pushed.
No, no. Let’s tell it how it is.
It felt like I had been thrown against a wall; and despite all the bones in my body, my heart – as an organ – bore the most noticeable crack.
Speaking with the same honesty, but with more maturity. I actually feel that I’ve learned more about what love actually is since then.
I’ve met a lot of wealthy but lonely people; so it’s definitely not a product. You can’t buy it. It’s not tangible. Nor is it a coupon that someone gives you – initially appealing, but riddled with conditions.
A better description comes to mind, but it isn’t the prettiest.
It’s like a spider web. Elusive and difficult to spot from a distance, but you definitely know when you’re in it.
But the problem with this analogy is that without a spider, there is no web. Which means that without the other, person, animal or insect, there is no love.
Hmmm.
But I’ve still found myself ‘stuck in love’ while single. Maybe love is like the wind. We don’t know its origins. It comes and goes, but at its strongest, it’s felt in force. A force that pushes us, elevates us.
No, no.
It’s like glue! It helps people to bond, stick, and realise they’re all in this together.
I can try many messy metaphors but the best description I’ve personally come across that explains this mysterious phenomenon is by M.Scott Peck in his book “The Road Less Travelled”:
“But what is this force that pushes us as individuals and as a whole species to grow against the natural resistance of our own lethargy? We have already labeled it. It is love. Love was defined as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” When we grow, it is because we are working at it, and we are working at it because we love ourselves. It is through love that we elevate ourselves.And it is through our love for others that we assist others to elevate themselves. Love, the extension of the self, is the very act of evolution. It is evolution in the progress. The evolutionary force, present in all of life, manifests itself in mankind as human love. Among humanity love is the miraculous force that defies the natural law of entropy.”
It might just be a biological trick to ensure the mating of our species, but it’s become so much more than that – allowing us to do so much more, and be so much more. Like Peck describes, it allows us to transcend our feelings of isolation and loneliness to embrace a sense of intimacy with another person, an activity, or the world; and to even find love in the least thought of place… amongst the barren and broken that once was oneself.
