about love
Hello,
I've been watching lots of movies regarding romance, it's not necessarily because I want to feel like I would like to be in love if that makes any sense, but it was to understand the underlying components of love. this is what I do in my spare time sometimes, I end up overanalyzing simple ideas, which is why I love philosophy and think that everyone should take philosophy at least once but I can’t get into that tangent.
Lately, I've been asking myself the question of what love is, and what love constitutes.
What is love
I think love is one of the most important aspects of life. Everything in life has some connection to love. Everything in my opinion was created from a place of love. Any other feeling that one feels, is coming from an absence of love. Love, therefore, is omnipresent and fully existent.
Even if it’s not romantic love, there is still love. There is love between friends and love between family. There is also love for ourselves. I just think that love is really important.
Love, in my opinion always starts off as a chance. Then two individuals choose to love. From chance, love grows into choice.
What is anti-love
I don't think the opposite of love is hate. I think that the opposite of love is grief and loss. When you are no longer able to express love because grief and loss are love without a place to go. Hate is a feeling that quickly arises, but when you dig through the hate, there is often sadness masked by grief and loss. It's the paradox of love.
What does love mean to me?
I don't really know what love means to me, yet. but I know I feel pure love without any other emotions when I think of my baby cousins. I genuinely love and cherish them, which makes me ever wonder if I'll ever love someone the way I love my cousins. This is so personal, but it’s just my thought. The purest form of love I have ever felt was with my small cousin who I cherish like my own child.
Otherwise, these are examples of what I think love is.
Love to me is the umbrella you lend to someone on a rainy day, knowing you'll get wet, but making sure they're dry.
Love to me is remembering that they don’t drink hot coffee, only cold ones, even if the last time you saw them drink coffee was years ago.
Love is letting them pause and catch some air while arguing because you know that they aren’t good at thinking at the moment, or expressing anger.
Love is remembering not their favourite colour but their least favourite colour.
Love to me means choosing that person again and again, over and over, not because I have to, but because I want to. I think that that is love to me.
I also think that Love is realistic and different from expectations. Love is not easy. I think that we have been conditioned to expect that “one day you’re going to find the perfect person and they’re going to come into your life and you are going to love them so deeply and happily ever after…” but in reality, there is no one that is perfect, and even if you find them, you don’t know where they are coming from, or where they are in their life journey. You have no idea the story and shit that they will bring to you.
First off, the whole “perfect person” thing and only saying or eluding to the fact that love is between people that are romantically involved is messed up.
There is absolutely love between friends, there is love between family and there is love between strangers. The love between ideas also exists.
Love is so different from what we expect.
Also, in my opinion, there is no such thing as “love at first sight”, or “falling in love”. I believe that there is a building toward love.
I find that love at first sight only occurs between mother and child, there is an inexplicable connection that will never fully be understood, however, that is my only exception to love at first sight.
Instead of saying “I love you”, I personally think it’s more worth saying “I’m trying to love you”. Because you bring your own shit to relationships and friendships, whether they are platonic or romantic. And because of these underlying preconditions that you bring, loving someone is not easy. This could literally start with communication, timing, love languages and so forth.
If someone’s love language is words of affirmation and the other person’s love language are gifting, but they’re only spending quality time, they won’t be happy because their needs are not being actively met.
Therefore, I think it should always be “I’m trying to love you”, over “I love you”.
Loving someone is difficult, and because of this, it’s also more realistic.
What I think the conditions are for love
Forgiveness
To be able to forgive your loved one takes a lot of strength, but it is an important condition. Because you have to continuously forgive the other for all the little and big fuck ups. This includes words and actions.
Forgiveness also means you’re able to acknowledge that the other person isn’t perfect, and you are able to make
Loyalty
Being able to stick by their side, having their back and protecting them even if they are not physically there. Because love isn’t just about expressing care when they are around you. It’s also the thought and the feelings you feel when they are absent.
Whether for short periods of time or long, I genuinely believe that, to care for someone even if they are not around is still love. That’s why I think loyalty is important.
Patience
Not everyone can be perfect. No one is. Therefore I think love needs patience.
Being patient and loving even the imperfections of others, seeing the other party grow, understanding their changes, but still choosing to love them either way, is an important condition of love.
Being realistic
I think it’s important to be realistic about love. Love is not easy.
Maybe you won’t find the perfect person, and maybe even if you find them, it won’t be easy given your life circumstances, the timing and so forth. So I think it’s realistic to be realistic about love. Of course, we want the "happily ever after”, but remember they exist in fairy tales. Life isn’t a fairy tale. Fairy tales are an extension of romanticizing the harsh realities of life.
Bravery
The courage to be loved, and the courage to love. The courage to acknowledge that the love I give might not be returned. The courage to understand that love is not easy. The courage to realize that my love language might not be understood by my loved one. The courage to find the flaws within ourselves. I believe that love takes courage.
How to love better
Treat the other person like a child.
I don't mean literally treating them like a child, mothering them or babying them. I mean, trying to understand them like a mother would to a child. I mean being warm, understanding and empathetic.
If they are having a bad day and they’re being rude, don’t always take it personally, or internalize it. Just see it for what it is: “they are simply having a bad day”, and proceed to act to make their day better, with actions that honour your boundaries.
It's trying to understand the other party as if they were a child, instead of being reactionary and wondering if they're angry or upset or whatever it is, simply ask, what's wrong? It’s treating the other person with empathy and care.
Humour
I personally really like people who can make you laugh. I think that making someone laugh is a joyous gift worth celebrating. Because like they say, laughter is the best medicine of all.
Love can’t always be easy but I find that if you are able to laugh with your loved ones, you carry that memory forward for many years. When my grandmother passed away, at first I was overwhelmed by sadness, however now, I remember her smiling face and all the happy memories I shared with her.
Secrets are okay
We don’t need to tell the other party everything or reveal everything. Our loved ones don’t need to know everything about us, and we don’t need to know everything about them.
Realistically speaking, you can’t learn or know everything about anyone. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you need to reveal everything. There need to be boundaries, there needs to be some level of privacy so that you feel whole. Because you can’t love someone if you don’t feel fully yourself.
Love can be lonely
Just because you love someone, or someone loves you, it doesn’t mean that you won’t ever feel lonely or alone. Even if you’re with someone, you can still feel alone and that’s okay.
Love will make you feel less lonely, however, it won’t create an absence of loneliness.
How to know you’re ready for love, in Yves’ opinion?
That everyone is kind of mad
I can’t be perfect, which means the other person can’t either. Sometimes I don’t really understand myself, so what would make me think that I would be able to understand the other person?
Life is so hard like it’s so bad and so hard and no matter what I’m doing to stay on top of things, I feel like it’s sand. The stronger I try to grab onto it, it slips between my fingers.
It’s difficult. Life literally drives me crazy, so I’m only going to guess that the other person is crazy as well.
You can’t always be happy
You won’t always be happy every day, even if you are in a very healthy and mutually beneficial, platonic or romantic relationship. And it’s okay to be negative sometimes. There will be arguments and disagreements. There will be hurtful actions and words being said. But that is all okay
There’s a reason why parents say that parenting is hard. Although they might love their kids, they aren’t always going to be happy parents.
Just like we can’t be happy every day, we can’t always be happy when we’re in love.
Have to be realistic
I might be the main character of my own life, but it’s MY LIFE, not a MOVIE. Being realistic is very important.
In this capitalistic society that we live in, we need to work in order to live. There is no other way. We need to pay for food and necessities, and we need to abide by the written and unwritten rules of society.
Love needs to fit within the realities of life. That’s why people break up, that’s why people fall apart, and that’s why people divorce. People leave others voluntarily or involuntarily.
Even if you choose to love, remember that you need to constantly choose love in order to maintain love within the harsh reality that we call life.
I hope that this wasn’t too cringy. This reading week I spent my time watching a bunch of movies about love and romance and just had this deep philosophical episode. I just randomly had a thought about this as I wrapped up my reading week and wanted to make note of it.
I hope you all enjoyed it, good luck with the rest of your semester :)
