I wish so badly that I could see him. Just see him. Ok, not just see him. Talk to him. I long to talk to him. Somehow he always has the answer. And I could really use and answer right about now. But I will have to wait. And I will wait. I will close my eyes and listen to the soft, sad music pouring out of my soul while I wait in the dark abyss of unanswerable loss. Until he comes. He will enter like a crack lightening, flashing across the black clouded sky, shining a bright white light on everything in reach--the light that, until I met him, I never wanted to see. The light that would burn every time it touched me. The light that would expose me for...
He's here. It's amazing. The music did not change, but somehow it feels happier. I can no longer see myself as that wretched thing I was about to describe. Suddenly I feel light--as though I could pick up my feet and float away. I feel beautiful. I feel loved. Yet I don't know that he does. Love me, I mean. Yet somehow, when he is near, I feel content. No, more than content. There must be something there. What else would light up a room so? I'd call it love. I dare to call it love.
"Is love a fancy or a feeling?"
It's funny. When beginning this analytical, I looked up the word "fancy," to be sure I had my perception of the word's meaning correct. The 9th definition listed was a single word: LOVE. Inspired by this interesting attempt at defining a word that is itself so indefinable, I looked up LOVE. No where did I find that word "feeling" in those definitions, nor did I truly expect to. The writers of the dictionary would have been fools to include the word "feeling" in one of their definitions of "love." And yet, the word was implied.
I guess I don't think of love as a fancy or a feeling. I do not truly believe that you can truly love a completely inanimate object. Very few would dare to disagree that when they love an object, it either has a personality attached to it, a memory associated with it, or it symbolises a living being in their minds.
Love. What an obscure thing. Love is one of the few things that psychologists simply cannot reason out. Yes, it is caused by some function of the brain, but why? Why do we have crushes and infatuations, and how are they different from love? Of course, asking this question is fruitless. No studies can truly prove any answer, let alone the answer. Some people are attracted to those similar to themselves, others feel quite the opposite. Some people take years to fall in love while others take mere moments. The variation in love is, I think, what makes it so impossible to define and even harder to study. No two people love in exactly the same way. Some people like the "bad" boy or girl, others like the "funny one" and still others prefer the "smart one." So why are we so susceptible to this indefinable feeling of love? Perhaps it is true that humans are not the only species who are affected by it. Regardless, as is often the case, I think it is safe to say that we are the only species foolish enough to try and define it. Love is fairly east to define as a verb. It isn't until we attempt to define it as a noun that we stump ourselves. Love is neither a fancy nor a feeling, for it is that which we love. Part of the reason love seems so impossible to define is because one cannot simply say that which we love and get away with it. People would claim that the definition only covered love in the form of a subject. Most, if not all, of us were trained from an early age to never define a word with the word. Even I am having trouble explaining this, and I know exactly what I'm talking about.
If love were a single, identical feeling or impulse no matter with whom we were, it would be as easy to define as peanut butter. Peanut butter, after all, is still peanut butter, no matter what you put it on (or vise verse). But love... love is different for every person. The love that we feel changes from one person to another in our list of friends, family and acquaintances. What is the love for your mother? Well, it's the way she squeezes you when you walk in the door after being gone at college for a few weeks; it's the smell on her clothes when she's cooking dinner; it's the lone of her voice when she calls your name.
As much as I would love to clap my hands together, grin and say "case closed," I am aware that defining a word with itself is the worst of all dictionary sins. So what is love really? Love is the perception of the world around oneself when in the presence of a particular other being. The story at the top of the post illustrates this quite nicely. Nothing really changes in the world when he enters the scene, but everything changes. Suddenly the sad music makes her happy; the room is lit with a soft light rather than the harsh interrogation light that preceded it. And this, it is love. Had someone else entered this particular scene, the results would have different. This is where it gets interesting. If someone else had entered, the light may have seemed harsher, maybe the music would eat away at her soul, and she would sit in the corner and cringe.
Love is hate is love.
"Be careful where you step, young one; the water is only shallow for so long."
No comments:
Post a Comment