What is love ?

What is falling in love but a leap of faith into the unknown, letting go and fully giving yourself to another? Or throwing down our defenses and opening ourselves up for either a form of ecstasy or brutal pain. A strange thing to do when you think about it, each and every one of us knows it’s a zero sum game that neither participant gets out of alive. Yet, we are driven toward it like a moth to a flame, with vigor and intent we fall (a precarious choice of wording) deeply in love. Often with people we barely know. Why do we not say “i am rising in-love”, no i suppose it must be falling. As many people can attest to falling in-love with the wrong person , or even a bad one, perhaps falling is a fit. Nonetheless, romantic love is perhaps the most captivating of emotions. Wars have been fought, civilizations put at jeopardy, all in the name of an ethereal feeling that we do not fully understand. Brain chemistry perhaps ? Is it mere firings of neurons in the brain that tap deep into our reptilian centres and thrust us toward a mate in order to further our species? Maybe. Love in that regard does have some practical utility, you know, keeping us breeding. However, sex and love are not exclusive. So i do not think that is the guts of it. 

The brain and body are most definitely linked to love. I am sure we have all heard of someone “dying of a broken heart” , perhaps an elderly person who has lost their partner of 60 years. I for one have felt heartbreak so deeply I thought I would die at various times in my life. What is that all about? To be 16 and not in any true danger and to feel as if the whole world is coming to an end because someone no longer wants to be with you. I do not know, and in hindsight i am thankful for those experiences, they made me the man i am today. Maybe that is the reason for the feeling, a lesson. Ultimately life is just a constant set of lessons, one after another, we can either smile for having had the experience or cry at the pain of it. Sometimes both. 

Love can slap us straight in the face as we turn a corner, or slowly burn from an ember into an inferno and I for one am glad for that. What else is there ultimately to live for but love in one form or another? Love of a project one is working on, their son or pet dog, or of course, the love one feels for their partner as they come home from work after a long day.

A yellow flower can change my mood, and I have love to thank for that (also my fiancee). I look forward to many more lessons in love with her and in life. 

❤ Mitch

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