Have you ever examined your feeling of love for someone? What are we really saying when we decide to shower someone with our love..
One usually doesn’t probe too deeply in one’s feeling of love for someone else. We take it as face value. We apply the standard definition that we have been given of love. We also unleash it as it were a favour we were bestowing on another person.
“I love you so much. You will not find another to love you as much as I do”. Something that the other person surely should be grateful for, appreciate and also return the favour.
But off late, given the failure of a recently and vividly felt experience of ‘falling in love’ I had the seclusion and isolation of thought to have a closer look at what I was really feeling and where it was coming from. And I wonder if you, who are reading this have seen those depths of your mind too.
You may not have found what I found. And for that reason, I will look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments below. I hope you choose to share them.
Everyone says they need love. The world needs love.. I need love.. You need love. That is the most natural thing in the world, right? There is no argument against that. That is how it is supposed to coded into our DNA.
But the word ‘love’ itself is a cloaking word. The meaning is ambiguous. It’s like a package deal of many other emotions, needs and mental markups. They all come in a parcel that is labelled as love. Love on its own is nothing. It is the name of the dish that is made different ingredients. Everybody could prefer a variation of this dish and adjust the ingredients accordingly. A little less salt, more sugar, no pepper and so on.
What does love mean to you.. replace it will all other things that love stands for in your mind.. is it attention, caring, security, affection, happiness, provider etc. ? The odds are that it a mix of a lot of things.
It is a bunch of needs and expectations bunched together. And let’s not forget about sexual needs and wants. How many times does ‘love’ start as attraction and a powerful sexual desire. How many times does love stays till the sex is good and leaves out of the door when the sexual excitement is over.
Kids, partners, parents, a spouse.. All loved because we need something from them.
You begin to love someone and like her. You tell her that you do. And you do it like you are offering something. Something precious and valuable. Your love. But what are you really saying?
You need this person. You need this person to love you back. This person makes you happy. Takes away your loneliness. Gives motivation and purpose to your life. Wants to make you do great things. Makes you want to wake up in the mornings, go on adventures and overall, just live.
All this. About you. What you need from it and what this love does for you and why you need the person to love you back. Be ‘yours’. Otherwise you cannot be happy any more.
If all this is true, then what part about it sounds like as altruistic as we tend to make love sound? Perhaps the only reasons why we don’t think of love as something born of very self-centred needs is that it tends to be a game of ‘give and take’.
Sure, we want gratification and validation from another person, but we also feel that we are giving something back in return. In fact love works till the time that there is a fair exchange. You will know that when this 2 way street becomes one-way, it no longer functions. It breaks down. Relationships break down. All kinds.
That’s love. Do you agree?
