Heylow,
For some reason this past week I was challenged on my current working definition of Love. For the past, 5 - 6 years I have had a pretty firm definition of love as commitment. Which then begs the question what is commitment and how does it relate to love. My analysis of this was that commitment was the pinnacle of what Love requires and thus is love. In committing to someone you give time, you give emotion, you give your intellect, you give yourself, wholly and with out condition, you have made a decision to love this person or thing or idea and that is revealed through commitment to it.
That has been my current definition of Love. This past week, I was thinking of Love and was challenged, not to reject or to change this definition, but rather to add to it. I have realized that with many concepts, one definition is rarely enough to encompass the whole of its meaning, for instance, God, Hate, Liberty...etc. Can these be described in one sense, or by one word? I would say no, that is why we struggle with understanding them. With Love, I was challenged that my definition does not encompass the mystical side of love, the feeling side, the side that has no words or actions, the emotive side.
If the manifestation of love is commitment, then the emotive side of love is mystical. What do I mean by this? Love as I know it has the commitment side, if you are not committed then you are not loving, regardless of time spent, resources given, or words said, above all that is a commitment to the other, whatever that "other" is. This is the concrete conceptual side of love.
There is another side, there may be many other sides, but I am only at two so we'll go from there. The other side of love is mystical. As in the picture at the top of this blog, you can make out the shape of a heart, but it is transparent. When you love "other" there is something that happens in you, whether immediately or over time, something happens. Call it fondness, dependence, becoming one, fulfillment, whatever you use, something emotive happens. What is that? that is this mystical side of Love.
When you love there is a conversation that goes on, a conversation without words, actions, or even thoughts. It seems to be purely emotive at its core. I don't believe that it is E.S.P., it may be described as neurons firing in my brain, but that merely describes what is happening, it doesn't answer the why? This mystical spiritual side of love is not outside of commitment, but is wrapped up in it. To be clear, love requires commitment, but love is mystical, undefinable, as well.
To use a trivial example, Soccer (football, futebol...etc) I love soccer, I have committed to it most of my life. It brings me joy, and keeps me fit. I have a concrete commitment to Soccer, I go and play every-week, I run around, kick a ball and play, but there is something else. The is an emotive side to this. A mystical side, that is not there when I play hockey, basketball, or american football. That is not to say that one sport is better or worse, or more emotive, no.
The point is that I have decided at some point to love this game called soccer and with that decision come Love. Love requires commitment and brings with it a mystical side, that is special (special in the sense that it is different than if love was not present). I know I have not given a concrete definition of the mystical side of Love, because right now I cannot, I don't know how, I don't know if it is even possible. I will say that the adding of this mystical dimension of Love to my definition makes my understanding of love broader, even if I can't define what that broadness is, outside of commitment.
The thought I have is that there is an infinite aspect to Love. An aspect that can never be defined or understood, but is there and we participate in. Like the picture, I am appreciating, but will never be able to touch, even the people there in the picture cannot touch the heart they have made, but its there and they experience it.
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6 comments:
well j.j.
I know this.
Kali is coming home soon. And I love Kali. And when she comes home we'll wonder what your doing/wearing 'cause we love you.
Whitney.
whitney,
well, I will be wearing clothes. when is she coming home, i will be home over christmas for a few days.
I think around the 20th.
... Ryan and I are putting a lil show up in my new coffeeshop, if it's up in time-and you have time we should all look at it.
I have something I made for you a while ago that I've been meaning to send - but maybe I'll give it to you for the holidays.
booyah
I think of it (your second aspect) as a kind of indefinable joy - or, more simply, a pleasure, a contentment. I feel a sense of joy when I'm near the people I love - it can bring pleasure to do even a mundane task for a beloved person. Or I think of Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire- "When I run, I feel His pleasure." After a year of hating running (it was boring and painful), I remember when I first started to feel pleasure during a run - the rhythm of it, the joy of it. Now I love it - but of course, sometimes it still hurts. Sometimes running 10 miles makes me want to throw up. :) But I still love it, even when the joy part is temporarily gone.
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