Love, in All Its Fractured Glory
Love Is
Love is a mortgage,
A debt promise of pain.
Paid with interest,
For those you outlive.Love is making connections
Despite knowing they will be broken.
And it’s the letting go
Of the guilt for doing so.Love is for the small sacrifices,
That contain the hidden joys.
And the memory that’s both
Blessing and curse.Love is knowing when to push,
And when you must concede.
The realisation that you’re wrong,
And the leaving of transgressions unseen.Love is the give and take,
The unspoken word.
The comforts freely given,
And those gratefully accepted.Love is the discipline to say no,
Through begging, pleading and pain.
And the careful observation,
Of limits reached.Love is tempered guidance,
A shot at eternity.
And the words of encouragement,
To try once more.Love is a partnership,
A bonding of the muse.
A step into darkness,
Taken together in faith.
“Love is a mortgage,
A debt promise of pain.
Paid with interest,
For those you outlive.”
All relationships end in breakup or death.
It can feel like the more you love now the more pain you will suffer later. One person will outlive the other; left to handle the emotionality of their companion’s passing. Given the inevitable pain that such a connection causes, why is it that we are drawn to one another? Why have the poets spoken of love so passionately? Why is love at the centre of so much art, literature, and culture?
Love gives life meaning.
True, it can be a double-edged sword; a pendulum that swings from joy to pain. But it also acts as a counter point to the inherent suffering that life brings. We will all experience loss, pain, embarrassment, and shame; love balances this equation. It gives context and meaning to those experiences, and accentuates the good times.
When we suffer, love heals us.
When we triumph, love enables us to share.
We do not have a choice in the matter; we are genetically programmed to love. Our very survival as a species is predicated upon parents loving their children. Loving them so much that they would sacrifice themselves to ensure the survival of their offspring. Not all parents are such paradigms of love of course, there are plenty of lacklustre, abusive, and neglectful examples; yet there are many more positive.
We cannot help but to love, it is as natural as breathing.
In the act of loving our children, we are entering into a contract with them. By giving them our love, they stand taller and travel further. They grow, develop, and prosper. Yet by giving them our love, we are inadvertently entering them into a contract of pain. At some later point, one of us will suffer the torments of grief.
I hope that my children outlive me. Yet by doing so, I am guaranteeing that they will suffer. They will suffer because of the love they are receiving from me now.
But what is the alternative? I cannot stop loving them, nor would it do them any good if they were to reject it. A loveless life leads to neurosis; an infinite hole that cannot be filled.
“Love is making connections
Despite knowing they will be broken.
And it’s the letting go
Of the guilt for doing so.”
Love is not a zero-sum game. It does not give to one hand, only to take from the other.
We humans are irrational creatures. Subject to the torrents of emotions that flood our brains. As children we feel small losses with fervour; then we apply that emotionality to our future. We imagine such pain and suffering that we do not think it possible to survive it. And when future losses come, our assumptions are proven right, justifying our anxiety’s presence.
We remember the pain, and we are shocked. Thus, in times of grief and loss, we find it easy to conclude that love is not worth it. That all the connection, happiness, and joy we felt cannot possibly make up for the pain we are feeling now.
“Love is for the small sacrifices
That contain the hidden joys.
And the memory that’s both
Blessing and curse.”
Love comes to us as a cool breeze, the sun’s warmth on our skin, or the lapping of water over sand. Its impacts are gradual. With time love shapes us and we grow. A million such moments of subtle bliss occur in a love filled life, yet we struggle to rectify them against the sharp stab of loss. We become overwhelmed with grief’s intensity; temporarily blinding us to the sun, the wind, and the waves. Nonetheless, they are still there waiting for us to embrace them once more.
Love persists.
Love is knowing when to push,
And when you must concede.
The realisation that you’re wrong,
And the leaving of transgressions unseen.
This quote comes from The Prophet, by Kahil Gibran.
Love is both the cause of, and the answer to, the pain we feel when someone close fails. It gives us the strength to guide them through a solution, rather than simply fixing it for them.
Love does not guarantee perfect harmony. The act of loving almost always results in friction. When we care for someone, we empathise with their pain. We feel their losses and want to help them to avoid future suffering. This is why I push my children to eat well, speak rightly, educate themselves, and avoid excess. I impart my learning to them, sharing my mistakes and lessons learnt. I push through the resistance, complaints, and arguments. I model the behaviours I wish them to embody. I gently encourage appropriate actions and dissuade the undesirable.
We all take similar, albeit less direct, actions with our partners, families, co-workers, and friends. Love enables us to have the awkward conversations that reveal hard truths.
“Love is the discipline to say no,
Through begging, pleading and pain.
And the careful observation,
Of limits reached.”
Conversely, we must also have the wisdom to watch those we love fail. To pick them up when they do, and to encourage them to try again. We must watch this process repeatedly because we acknowledge the value of self-reliance and self-efficacy. They must learn these lessons for themselves because we will not always be there for them. Holding their hand now, will create problems later; they need to know how to do it themselves.
“Love is tempered guidance,
A shot at eternity.
And the words of encouragement,
To try once more.”
It is easy to spot the flaws of others, yet almost impossible to do so in ourselves. We are the subjective centre of the universe, and thus tend to judge everything against our internal standards. ‘Rightness’ and ‘wrongness’ vary depending on what we have done or think we would do. We judge the world against ourselves and are left wanting.
When asked, the average person ranks themselves above average on intelligence, personality, looks and athletic ability*. This is of course impossible, as the average person is average. Regardless, it wonderfully reveals innate biases. We desperately seek to live in a world that confirms our brilliance, and will avoid most dissenting voices, surrounding ourselves with an echo chamber of friends who will parrot our beliefs in such a way that confirms the truth that we knew all along; that we are wise.
Yet love has a way of throwing a spanner into the works, because the more we love the more we realise how flawed we truly are. By opening ourselves to love, inner barriers fall.
It is the small words, the looks, the laughs, the raising of an eyebrow, the hints, or the sarcastic question. It comes when our partners firmly but gently pull us up, show us the mirror and say, ‘despite this, I still accept you’. When we trust those around us, we allow them to act as a guide. They encourage us to travel in whatever direction we want, but subtly ensure that we do not veer off course. That we see ourselves as we are, not as we think we are. If we have the courage to listen and accept their words, their guidance keeps us safe. Together we embrace the future, knowing that we are accepted, both for who we are and for what we are becoming.
“Love is the give and take,
The unspoken word.
The comforts freely given,
And those gratefully accepted.”
It is folly to completely loose ourselves in love. This is a cliché that is, at its core, toxic. There is a give and take to be had, a finding of balance between the self and the connection.
Love is two pillars standing side by side holding up the structure of the relationship. It is not those two pillars collapsing into one another. True, for a while they would be closer, but ultimately, they will collapse. With nothing individual remaining, what does one give the other that the other does not have?
Love is two individuals traveling side by side assisting, guiding, leading, and following, but never crashing together. There will of course be times when one pillar is at risk of collapse. At those times, they will accept their partner’s help, knowing that at some time they will have to be the strong one.
Love is the implicit trust gained from time spent growing together. When each member willingly contributes what they can and accepts the support that they need, balance is attained. To the external, the contributions may seem unfair, but to those in love, those short-term imbalances do not matter.
Love is a true partnership. One that does not need to be constantly balancing its books. It knows that whatever is given will be repaid tenfold. Not in kind, but in kindness. It will come back how and when it is needed. The partnership creates synergy, with all involved growing more together than they could have hoped to on their own.
“Love is a partnership,
A bonding of the muse.
A step into darkness,
Taken together in faith.”
This chapter is from the book Reflections Of The Self: The Poetry, Insights, and Wisdom of Silence
