Love

I'm going to tell you all about love.

It's basically a transcendental experience, or concept, easier to feel than to explain or understand, but I shall do my best.

The depth of love we feel can vary wildly. Someone might love strawberry cheesecake. They might also love their husband or wife. The fact that they love both things is for certain, but the depth that they feel for both is not equal.

Similarly, love also comes in many different forms. People love their parents, their pets and their significant others, but that love is not the same. Romantic love and family love are two very different things. East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet. Not necessarily the case with love. Some people do indeed fall in love with members of their close family; brother, sister, mother or father. In most, cultures of the world, this is frowned upon, if not illegal. However, in ancient Egypt, brothers and sisters often married. Of course, this is not to say they were in love with one another. Also, in ancient Rome, parents and children were often known to have sex with one another.

Society's demands and values wax and wane. Some things that are encouraged, approved of or fashionable today may be seen as obscene and wrong tomorrow.

However different the expression of love might have been over the ages, love in itself has never been seen as wrong, though some people do see it as a weakness.

Sex and the expression of sexuality may differ from culture to culture, but love remains constant. All people are capable of feeling love or being loved. This is what sets us apart from the animal kingdom. It is one aspect of us that makes us human.

Why do we love? What makes us take that step from liking something or someone to love?

Love may be seen as a beautiful thing, an expression of the ultimate human emotion, but I wonder if it's darker than that.

I believe love is selfish. We love something because we want it, we are a jealous species and in being so, demand something or someone we covet to keep only for ourselves. When falling in love, we desire our romantic partner to be kept exclusively for ourselves, to uncover their naked body only to ourselves. Why? Because we desire that thing, that person, in such a strong manner, we want that part of them which expresses love to us, their sex, their sexuality, only for ourselves. If we felt love in its simplest form, we would wish the object of our affections as much happiness as we feel ourselves in loving that person. But we don't. We don't want them to be happy if it means having sex with someone else or having a loving relationship with someone else, sometimes, even friendship with someone else. Again, why? Perhaps because we feel that those relationships may be a threat to the relationship we have with our beloved. We jealously guard that person from those perceived threats by demanding they keep themselves only for us. We do not care for their happiness, only for our own. That's why love is selfish.

Selfishness is not a good emotion. So is love?

That's up to you.

The more we love something or someone, the nearer to hate we get. We hate our beloved when they are unfaithful or do something we disapprove of. But why does our beloved do these things? For their own happiness, ultimately. If we loved that person, shouldn't we be happy that they are happy?

Someone may love their dog and they are happy (for the dog) when it's given a bone. Someone may love their wife, but they are not happy when she's kissed passionately by another man.

Love does not make us happy. It makes us fearful, uncovers jealousy in our hearts, makes us feel hatred, bitterness and anger.

Should those feelings, though, not be celebrated? We only feel those negative feelings because our love is so strong. If we did not love a person with such depth or if we did not love a person at all, we would not care who they slept with, who they kissed, who they went out on dates with, or with whom they had friendships.

As I said before, having emotions are one of the things that makes us human, the good ones as well as the bad.

Love is power, and with such power comes great responsibility. We are responsible for the happiness of the people we love. If we claim to care about them, we must want them to be happy. If that love is reciprocated, they must also want us to be happy, too.

So, here's the rub. For both parties to be happy in a relationship, there has to be compromise. Complete happiness cannot be gained through compromise, only partial happiness. Ultimately, then, we do not seek out happiness for our lovers, we only seek it for ourselves but accept and resign ourselves to the fact that complete love and ultimate happiness are unattainable things.

The question is, then, would we be happier without love in our lives? Probably not, or we would not have such a desire to keep seeking it. It's the perfect sado-masochistic experience.

The deeper the love we feel, the deeper the hate we are capable of feeling. Every action has a reaction, both equal and opposite. Things we must learn to live with lest we not feel even partial happiness but no happiness at all.