Monday, July 6, 2009

Science vs. Romance

I chose this Rilo Kiley song for the title of this post because it's about the same conflict I've been having in my own mind for the past few weeks...the conflict between my romantic self and my realistic self. So I thought it would be nice background music for this post while I share my newest thought that reconciling these two halves of myself inspired:



I think the thing that drives me the most crazy is that I believe in (or want to believe in) love so badly despite never really having experienced it. As with most things in life, seeing is believing, right? So believing in love requires so much faith on my part that it's almost like a second religion to me...my religion of love.

Now, in order that I don't go totally insane about this blind assertion, I have to rationalize my experiences and rationalize what I believe love is...my way of proving to myself that love exists using logic because logic is pretty much all I've got.

Paradoxically, what has brought me the most peace so far is the conclusion that love, in itself, does not exist.

That's right, what I have realized and what seems true to me is that love is not feeling itself; love is a label we attach to all of the emotions that a person feels toward another. To quote Before Sunset: "What is 'love' if it's not respect, trust, admiration?"

You see, defining "love" as a label rather than an emotion means that each individual is able to decide whether he or she is experiencing love or not. Now of course I know that we cannot simply choose to be in love or not; it's rarely as simple as black and white which is why there is always so much confusion about love.

Yet the peace that I find in this definition comes from the empowerment that I feel because of it. Love, in this sense, is not some external entity that we must seek out. It's not some force that we pull out of the ether or even something that we have to "earn" out of another person.

Love is in each of us already. I already have all of the emotions and the feelings and the thoughts that make love so wonderful. It is just a matter of being with a person and combining those feelings with a set of experiences, compatible personalities, and chance circumstances.

So I find peace knowing that love is already in my heart, just waiting for the right combination.

You may or may not agree with me; but this is what keeps me sane at the moment.

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