SONG — AND QUESTION — FOR THE DAY: 10 JULY 2021
“What is Love?” — Howard Jones
80s Music
“What is Love?” — Howard Jones
There are entire industries (medical, psychological, pharmacological, musical, fantastical …you get the idea) built around attempting to tell you all about love. However, despite all the propaganda, this one question remains. It seems to have been plaguing us since the beginning of time: does anyone know what love is?
This should NOT be confused with the other question plaguing use since the beginning of time: does anybody really know what time it is?
If there is a eighth wonder of the world, it’s love.
At its base level, love is an intrinsic feeling. Right? You can’t see love, only the manifestation of love.
That said, for me, there are two solid truths about love:
You know it when you see it.
“Those people look so in love.”You know it when you feel it.
“I love you.”
The concept of love is strange though, right? For some, it’s a powerful feeling. And when it hits you, it can consume you …or it can just find a home and rest in you and you make peace with it.
Love doesn’t always need to be reciprocated. I’ve certainly loved women who didn’t love me. And often when I said or mentioned it, it was like waking the relationship grim reaper.
Because, you see, for others, that powerful feeling of love is not positive — it’s the harbinger of doom, the death knell.
Which is understandable. After a certain age, we all have baggage. It’s inescapable. In your experience with matters of the heart, some may have been good, and some bad. The truth is, love is wild. If you’re lucky, that’s a good wild, but if you love enough, it ain’t always gonna be a good wild.
So much of our basic emotional toolbox for life is given to us by the adults around us in our youth. In short, our base understanding of love is learned from our surroundings as a child. And if it sucks, your perception of love is probably going to suck as well.
While I may have witnessed a love between my parents I couldn’t understand, I knew there was love there. For them. However, I knew it was not the kind of love I wanted.
And for years, I didn’t have the emotional toolbox for love. I probably still don’t, but I’m working on it.
I’ve had the benefit of loving a lot in my life. Not only feeling it, but both receiving it and giving it. Be it a woman (my gender preference), my pets, my family, friends, etc. — I think that makes me one of the lucky ones.
But if someone were to ask me “what is love?” I would probably take out a red laser pointer and draw the attention to the red dot as an evasive tactic. What I know of love is what I know of love. I just know it when I feel it. Let me parse that out a little further, I know what I feel for someone and if that person gives me the feels, then it’s probably a good indication I love them.
It also helps if I want to spend time with them and don’t consider that time an annoyance.
Love, proper love, grows. It’s not just a good fuck (although that can be part of love). But in order for love to grow, it has to be fed. And when you stop feeding it, like any other living thing, it will wither and die. If feeding the love is painful, if the person matters, if there is love there, you gotta feed it.
Who the fuck am I, Dr. Phil? No. I’m not nearly that much of an asshole.
Many moons ago, I wrote something about fear and love. How it’s a choice. You can chose to fear love, or you can chose to love. I still believe that.
For me, love is like life …it’s a journey, not a destination. And if you’re lucky, you find someone willing to take that journey with you …or at least go for a ride.
Love can be one-sided:
I love you whether or not you love me
I love you even if you think that I don’t
Sometimes I find you doubt my love for you
But I don’t mind
But a part of romantic love is doubt:
Can anybody love anyone so much that they will never fear?
Never worry, never be sad?
The answer is they cannot love this much
Nobody can
This is why I don’t mind you doubting
Love is also about letting go:
And maybe love is letting people be just what they want to be
The door always must be left unlocked
To love when circumstance may lead someone away from you
And not to spend the time just doubting
But at the end of the day, love is one giant unknown:
What is love anyway?
Does anybody love anybody anyway?
What is love anyway?
Does anybody love anybody anyway?
What is love? Maybe it IS just as simple as leaving the door unlocked. But then, WTF do I know?