LOVE

I used to have theories on love, many theories. I was able to make sense of it. Well so I thought and I am humbly going to say that I am in a place of not knowing.  

But here’s the thing. There is no logic in love.

So I am not writing about love today, I am wondering about love. As human beings what we most struggle with is love, love for ourselves, love for others, relationships, connections etc.

It’s supposed to be who we are yet we can’t quite seem to understand it. In human form love is not simple. It tests us, it makes us question things about ourselves and life and it brings out our insecurities. So do we surrender to it or do we look at what we can learn from it? Is love something people get obsessed with because they are too scared to look at how much fear they really have? And are we confusing love with fear?

Could love be different for everyone or is there a certain set of rules and guidelines for it? Like we all supposed to feel ONE LOVE and unity? What about those people we don’t actually connect with? I certainly don't love everyone. I can show love and compassion yes but that is different from loving somebody. 

I am not sure about any of it.

People are always trying to explain love, and find its meaning. Maybe because it’s the one thing that makes even the most “tame” person, crazed and we want to understand that which we have no control over,that which controls us.

People have come up with many theories for love. For example, apparently when you first meet someone and fall in love it’s only lust, but is it? Could it be more than lust? What about past lives of love? What about soul families and connections?

Love is a projection...
Yes maybe. So perhaps we have to work on ourselves, rid ourselves of our baggage to experience "real" love. But what is real love? And what are we measuring it against? Is it real love when it causes no pain and only happiness? But that isn't life at all. Life is not all happiness.

This is what I have been told about "true" love. It has no fear, it has no expectations  it doesn't need and it is unconditional. I question this. 

Love is opposite to fear... 
But how can we know love if we have not known fear? Just like we cannot know the light if we have not experienced the darkness.

Love should have no expectations...
Does that mean we are not allowed to ask for what we need in our relationships? Can we EXPECT our partners to be faithful to us for example?

We have to love ourselves first before we can love another...
But can we not discover self- love through another?

Love is not love unless its unconditional...
As humans we really struggle with this, but if our love does have conditions then does that make its not love? 

If you need someone then you don’t love them because love and need are opposite. And if you have a fear of losing someone then it’s not love...
But as children we needed our parents does that mean we didn't love them? The thing is, is it ok to say I need you? Is it safe to need someone? Is it not ok to need one another?

Is love supposed to big, or is it understated? Do we settle for small love because we are too scared to want ferocious love? And does ferocious love exist and if so can it last a lifetime or does it always have to fade away and change?

People say love is the answer to everything yet it has the ability to take away everything we thought we knew about ourselves and others. In society we are supposed to find THE ONE, meaning we must only really love one person. Connectedness between humans is a natural, reoccurring process but if we are apparently only supposed to truly ever love one person then we spend our lives searching for this and in the meantime what about other connections that could be made, whether they are small or big?

Love is all there is...
That is wonderful concept but in theory love is not all there is because there is fear and there is darkness. That is the reality of the world we live in and it is part of many of us.

But maybe one day on our death bed, we may still not have fully understood love but we can say that we experienced the greatest thing that any human being can experience which is love in all its extremities. We can say we felt the pleasure and the absolute elation of love, we felt the depths of its darkness. We felt crazed, we felt hopeless, we felt lust, we fell in love, we fell out of love, we cried, we laughed and all in the name of love.  At times we waited desperately for it, at times it came out of the blue knocking us over the head, and at times it was unrequited.  We experienced the kind of love that made us poets, love that made us sinners. We loved love, we hated love. We swore off it, we couldn't get enough of it. We became addicted to it, we let it go. We knew everything about it, we knew nothing of it. We knew its wonderful fantasies as well as its hard realities.

We are love but we cannot always control love and is that not the gift of humanness?

Maybe tomorrow will be different and I’ll come up with another theory on how I have discovered love. Maybe not. Maybe it’s the part of the mystery of life. 

But at the end of the day, the question is, did we let love in, did we let it un-tame us, did we let it send us into a craze, did we let it shake us, rattle us, awaken us? Did we look at fear in the eye and say “I am going to love anyway”? And did we look at love in the eye and say show me all I need to know about my fears and about how I hold myself back. 

I would love to be able to love completely unconditionally one day, but perhaps for now its about asking LOVE to teach me all I need to know so that I may really know and understand love, through myself.

And maybe that's enough.