WTF is Love?
An Introduction or Refresher Course, Depending on How You Love
It has come to my attention that there may be some confusion on what love is.
I will not linger on the absurdity of you being your age and still being hazy on basic questions like: What is love? Am I in love? Are they in love? What does love feel like? How can I make love last forever? How can I make someone love me?
Let’s not mince words. Love isn’t some romantic, sentimental, mystical nonsense. You can dredge that out of any YA fiction, your horoscope or a therapist. I’m going to give you the Real Deal.
Let’s get some basic facts straight. Accept them as if they were whispered to you by God, or Oprah, or Joe Rogan, or whoever is the Ultimate Authority figure of your choice.
- Love is a choice. More on this in a minute.
- Choices only exist in the present.
- Therefore, love only exists in the present while you’re choosing it.
Yes, I know, all marvelously indisputable, yet utterly uninformative. Here’s what you need to take away from that:
4. Love only exists while you’re choosing it. If you want it to “last forever,” that’s easy. Just keep choosing to love, in the present moment, forever. You have to do the work.
5. Love is a choice. Nobody can force you to love anyone. And, you /can/ choose to love anyone. Obviously, you will find it easier to love some people instead of others. Most people are lazy and out of shape at loving others. So we should all expect some stamina-building to be required at being present and choosing love. And, there’s nothing preventing you from choosing to love everyone. I know that last thing might sound weird, but it’s actually about the most beautiful thing a person can do.
6. If you’re not choosing love *right now* you’re not “in love.” There is no “in love” that’s magically locked into that mode forever. That’s Disney gaslighting you and should be erased from your psyche immediately and forever. And, if you’re not loving right-this-second, the *only* remedy is to get present and choose love again. You can skip the flogging yourself drama. I think apologizing to the other person would just be confusing. And, none of that is being present either. Grant yourself the love to accept your lapse and immediately get back into the love game.
Okay, if you’re still reading, I’ll assume you’re at least pedaling your love tricycle now. So let’s get to the WTF is it part.
Love is the profound and complete acceptance, in the present moment, of everything that a person is AND is not. Love is viewing a person as perfect in who they are Right Now. Viewing them as whole and complete, without any judgment or urge to change them or make them do anything. It’s making an immaculate mental space for them to be with you, completely judgment-free. This is NOT EASY for most people, because we tend to live our lives in a perpetual orgy of judgment, wants and assessment.
More about love:
7. Love NEVER has a purpose or an obligation. If there is any sense of purpose, motivation or obligation, then it is NOT love. You cannot love someone in-order-to anything.
8. Love takes practice to get good at it. To love another takes mindfulness in the present. Most people will need to build their love muscle.
9. I understand that many people hold romantic and sentimental delusions of “true love” and “eternal love” and so on. I’m not anyone’s experiential referee. I’m speaking from experience. If you spend 10% of your time /actually/ in love with your SO, you’re doing pretty damn good. The game is constantly return to being present and choosing love. Anything else isn’t that.
10. You can tell if you’re in love if your “self” disappears AND you have no motivation to change or resist the other person. When we are present, we will experience psychological timelessness. And if we are present, and openheartedly observing the other person without judgment, desire or assessment, we will have no motivation to change or manipulate them.
11. Love is distinct and independent from trust and lust. You can lust someone and not love them. You can trust someone and not love them. You can love someone and not lust them. And you can love someone and not trust them. Again, love never has a purpose or obligation. It is NEVER valid to say “If you love me, you will blah blah blah.” That’s just emotional manipulation. We do not have to modify any of our personal boundaries just because we choose to love someone. Love does not diminish our autonomy.
12. Cool bonus feature: Loving others enables us to learn about ourselves. We can learn what things we have a hard time loving (our hang-ups and judgments). And, when we are loving someone, we become very attuned to their every reaction and nuance of feeling. And that perceptiveness includes seeing how we affect them, thereby learning about how they perceive us. But this “reflection” effect only works when our “self” has disappeared.
I hope this article has been illuminating. And I hope you will go forth and choose to love often and deeply.
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