I don’t do love very well. I’ve never really gotten a grip of them; the words that is. They always come out mangled as if someone’s been at them with a chainsaw. Soar? No, they don’t soar. The words don’t even get off the ground! What are words but squiggles on a screen - musical notes – the slant of copperplate – the inflections of desire. What is the most hackneyed combination of words in the whole world? ‘I - love – you’ – overused and over abused. I - Love - You, how pathetic! What does that stupid phrase mean anyway? ‘I – love - you’. Who invented it? It sounds like something someone who doesn’t have anything to say, would say. Perhaps that is its appeal? If you don't know what to say, then say: I love you...
‘Love is being in love with the idea of somebody being in love with you’
Think about it. Love is selfish. Love is narcissism.
I know this is going to sound a little crude so I hope you’ll forgive me. It's something I was thinking about the other day. A sort of little test: if you want to know whether you ‘really’ love someone. And I mean really love them for who they are and not as a device for sex - than ask yourself how you feel about them after you’ve had a wank (i.e. after you've masturbated!). If your desire for them takes a nose-dive than that means you only want them for sex! Good huh? Sick huh? Brilliant huh?!
Here’s another question: What is the purpose of love? Why do we ache and suffer for this crazy little thing called love? – What is its (as the French so nicely put it) 'Raison d’être?' (Reason for being). Everything has a utility function. The utility function of feelings of romantic love is quite simply procreation. i.e. babies. Let me rephrase it:
I am in madly in love with you because my brain releases certain chemical compounds when I see and think about you. These chemicals released by my brain strengthen certain neural ‘connections’ – thus leading to feelings of being helplessly, hopelessly, head over heels, madly in love with you. My brain releases these chemicals because it has been programmed to do so. I have inherited this programmed ability from the genes of my ancestors. My ancestors passed on this ability to their descendants when they had children. The ancestors that had children, and thus who passed on those genes for feeling romantic love, were those who ‘fell in love’ themselves.
In short: thank god my ancestors fell in love…and had children. Love is good because humans who fall in love have children. All my ancestors going back millions of years fell in love and had children. Not a single one of them said: ‘Nah, I don’t think I’ll bother’. Some people might flinch at my scientific determinism; the reducing of love down to its basic principles – thus taking away from its emotional beauty. Don’t get me wrong. Love is beautiful and wonderful – probably the seminal experience of the human condition and I am not trying to degrade it here. All I’m saying is that looking at love from a different angle helps one to see it differently.
Also, I may ‘know’ that the raison d’être for love is to ‘encourage’ humans to have children but that doesn’t mean that I am not affected by it. Though I can see through the screen of its trickery, though I can say ‘Oh love! I know what you're up to. You don't fool me!’, ultimately my brain is human and love effects me in exactly the same way as it affects you or anybody else.
Also, I may ‘know’ that the raison d’être for love is to ‘encourage’ humans to have children but that doesn’t mean that I am not affected by it. Though I can see through the screen of its trickery, though I can say ‘Oh love! I know what you're up to. You don't fool me!’, ultimately my brain is human and love effects me in exactly the same way as it affects you or anybody else.
There was something else I was thinking about the other day. It’s an interesting thought and I’d like to share it with you. The world is populated with approx 8 billion people. 4 billion of these are male or female. Excluding those who are too young or too old, that means that there is a vast reservoir of people with whom you could ‘potentially’ fall in love with. Yet, when you fall in love you fall in love with one person and you believe that this ‘one’ person is the only person for you. You start believing that you somehow managed to chance upon this one person and are amazingly lucky to have them! What I am getting at is the 'exclusivity' of love. The fact that we humans don’t fall in love with two or three people at the same time – it’s usually just one - one out of billions. What is the probability that you would meet and fall in love with the ‘one’ out of a pool of billions?
The reason we fall in love with the ‘one’ is not because they are the ‘one’ but because they live near us, work with us, are a friend of a friend or family, that we accidentally bumped into them in the supermarket. The reason for our infatuation with the 'one' is more prosaic than we'd like to admit. Obviously there are compatibility criteria, but even within those compatibility criteria, there are still a hell of a lot of potential people you could fall in love with but this is limited by the number of people you meet.
The reason we fall in love with the ‘one’ is not because they are the ‘one’ but because they live near us, work with us, are a friend of a friend or family, that we accidentally bumped into them in the supermarket. The reason for our infatuation with the 'one' is more prosaic than we'd like to admit. Obviously there are compatibility criteria, but even within those compatibility criteria, there are still a hell of a lot of potential people you could fall in love with but this is limited by the number of people you meet.
And yet when you fall in love you think that this is the only person for you and you’ll never find anybody else! When your partner leaves you, your whole world falls apart, and you contemplate suicide and think life is not worth it! This always fills me with wonder - this irrational coup de foudre. Another way to put it is to say that within the limits of compatibility, who you fall in love with is more or less out of your control! Yet, if you ask any couple, they'll say that they were ‘destined to be’, that it was ‘written in the stars’ or that it 'couldn't have been any other way'. Bollocks! The laws of probability say otherwise. The human brain is just not very good at seeing the inter-connectivity of the world and how these invisible forces of probability and proximity conspire in our lives.
In my daily life there are a whole bunch of people I could potentially fall in love with. People who are rushing by me all the time; on London’s bustling trains, on the buses, on the streets, in the supermarket, serving me in the shop, in the bookshop. In a parallel universe I might fall in love with one of them. In another parallel universe I might fall in love with another, and in yet another universe I might get knocked over by a bus…well who knows!
The thing is we are slaves to forces beyond our comprehension and control. Like pawns in a celestial chess game we scuttle along the three dimensions of a multi-dimensional universe. Cause and affect. Love and love-lost. Paradise and paradise lost – if we really understood these things perhaps we’d be masters of the universe?
The thing is we are slaves to forces beyond our comprehension and control. Like pawns in a celestial chess game we scuttle along the three dimensions of a multi-dimensional universe. Cause and affect. Love and love-lost. Paradise and paradise lost – if we really understood these things perhaps we’d be masters of the universe?
I know what you're thinking. Am I master of the universe?
(wink)...Of course I am.
