Do you understand love?
“To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.” - Rainer Maria Rilke
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about relationships. To me, they are of paramount importance not only for our well being but for our survival. If we do not have any connections, then we die. At the center of these relationships is love. It is a fundamental human desire to love and to be loved. I brought this topic up with my mentors over the past few weeks, and I would like to share with you all what I have learned.
There are many kinds of love
Generally speaking, in the English language we have a single word for “snow”. However, in places where it snows frequently and with great magnitude, they have developed many words for snow. We might call it things like “heavy snow”, “powdery snow”, “icy snow”, etc. In other languages, there could be dozens of words for such a phenomenon. The same can be said about the term love. We have a single word when there are many different kinds, varieties, and intensities of a feeling that we pigeon hole into a single word. Because this single word attempts to encompass such a broad spectrum of meaning, it is difficult to understand many of its nuances. Philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle leveraged several terms for love to describe some of its differing yet critical components.
Eros
In the modern-day, “eros” has degraded to the term “erotic.” Essentially the word erotic has to do with the arousal of sexual desire. This point is where the contemporary contemplation nominally ends, whereas the ancient philosophers merely began here. They were not so concerned about sparking sexual desire, as to what was it that was creating such an attraction. In their eyes, aesthetics and beauty were a thing of admiration that transcended the individual. When we admire someone beautiful, it is the position of Plato, that what we see in a person reminds us of the true beauty of Ideas or Form in the world. The ancient philosophers were drawn to the notion that what attracts us sexually to another is their display of traits that represent “Ideal beauty”.
Philia
This term, “Philia” is similar to the English term “friendship” with a few distinct yet essential differences. Philia also incorporates “loyalties to family and polish one’s political community, job, or discipline.” The foundation upon which these relationships are predicated is that those who can engage in philia are morally good and virtuous. This notion points to a relationship where the give and take are similar, and the premise of the relationship is not so that one party might benefit from the other. In other words, “...philia is objective: those who share our dispositions, who bear no grudges, who seek what we do, who are temperate, and just, who admire us appropriately as we admire them, and so on.” We must be like this before such an experience might occur. If we are not like this, then philia will be an imaginary experience.
Agape
The paternal love of God, the reciprocal, and brotherly love are all incorporated into this term. Agape gets a bit tricky because this is where “love thy neighbor as thyself” comes into play. The next point of contention is, should we love our neighbor even if they are Hitler? The next question is, at what point should we no longer love our neighbor? There are many loopholes where some argue we should love the other person’s soul, not their body, or actions. The fact remains that the other person is doing things that we determine to be morally wrong.
Kierkegaard stood behind the concept of “impartiality” or giving respect to all rivals and disputants, a sort of fairness. This concept is to say that we can treat all with a kind of reverence because they are fundamentally human, but we do not necessarily have to love them. Even with this term of impartiality, that is one step, the next would be a sort of intimacy to form love. This portion takes time and partiality toward one person to be able to cultivate. So we must be selective with whom we devote such time to because we do not have the time to become intimate with all people. So perhaps there is a perfect kind of transcendent love, we still must regulate it to some degree due to our bandwidth for sharing this sort of excess of emotion.
Self-love
Now that we have discussed what the different forms of love might look like, it is crucial to shift the discussion to what is the most fundamental and essential aspect for building strong relationships rooted in love. This notion is the idea of self-love, which allows for an internal drive based on the ego. However, it is not “hedonistic, or glorified”. It is instead the alignment with a contemplative life where one actively, yet respectfully, engages others to pursue a “life well lived”. A large part of this thoughtful process involves figuring out what it means to live life well. We need others (friends) to help us to understand what living well is and what it means. This approach can only occur when we are living a good and virtuous existence.
I’m also reminded of what Jordan Peterson says about “Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.” What he talks about under this conceptual umbrella is the idea that we know our internal landscape, that is to say, what is inside our head. This landscape consists of all of our perceived and real shortcomings, fears, insecurities, mistakes, etc. When we interact with someone else, they have the same view of inside their heads. However, it is much easier for us to love them because we cannot see all of their foibles and pitfalls. Because we can see the ugliest parts of ourselves, it is easy for us to deem ourselves unworthy of love, both from ourselves and others. For me, it is a powerful message to keep this in mind when attempting to develop self-love as opposed to loathing.
Relationships are a gift
In any relationship, there is give and take. When we come upon a new relationship, it’s like receiving a gift. If we value the contribution (love it), then we will take care while opening. If it is nicely wrapped, we will not only tear into the paper. We will unwrap it and treat it with care.
There is also the opposite side of the coin, where we have something to give. If we show up in a relationship wondering, “what can I take?” Then from the start, we are doomed. It is our life’s work to discover what unique gifts we have, and how we can give those to others who have shown character traits that deserve them. This idea is to say; I don’t walk down the street, tossing my gifts to everyone. It is emotionally exhausting to give to folks who either do not care or, worse, continue taking from us until we have nothing left to give.
The way I see relationships is that each side has something to give the other. When we tend toward love, we care for gifts that we can provide and the ones that we receive. If we do not take care of either our giving or receiving (express no love), then like a plant with no water, the relationship will die.
To get, we must give
I would like to circle back to the idea of giving a gift. I think it is important to emphasize something I have noticed about folks in relationships. It seems to me that frequently the dialogue is “what can I get” in terms of a relationship. So, for example, if I am looking for a beautiful girl to date, what does that say? I am trying to take in the sense that I lust after someone physically attractive. I would like to use them to fulfill my superficial desires. I could also be using her to bolster my self-confidence and raise my self in terms of status with peers. This notion, however, does not work because I am coming from a place of insecurity with that approach. If instead, I asked, “what can I give”? In other words, what unique gifts do I have that I can give toward the growth of a relationship, then this becomes much more enduring.
I think this is not only present in romantic relationships, but friendships and business interactions as well. I have experienced “friends” who only call when they need something. This situation, to me, feels like they are taking from me. If I had a friend who contacted me randomly to check-in and then one day they called for a favor, I would be there in a heartbeat. But if I get a call for support only, I am hesitant at best because I don’t feel the brotherly love. The same can be said for business relations. In business, if one party is taking advantage of the other, as soon as the deal is sealed, the relationship will fall. This in my eyes is parasitic.
Gratitude grows love
It makes sense to me that for our survival, human beings were tuned to focus on the negative, to focus on what we don’t have, or focus on the worst potential outcome. In my mind, this is a survival mechanism. If we were walking across the Sahara, and a bush moved a bit, and we thought positively, something like “Oh, that’s probably just the wind.” Well, we didn’t because our ancestors were lunch that day. We had to think worst case. We had to believe that everything could have eaten us. We do not live in such a situation anymore, and while that type of thinking was essential to our survival, it is no longer germane.
Now we have the chance to exert mental effort to practice gratitude. This idea is to say; we can challenge ourselves to focus on what we have, instead of what we do not. We can choose to focus on what someone else is, instead of what they are not. We can choose to focus on the positive, kind, and likable qualities in another, instead of what we see as harmful, immoral, or distasteful. This concept is especially true when we have had a friend or spouse that has been in our lives for quite some time. It seems easy at that point to start focusing on things that we don’t like with a person whom we are so familiar with and comfortable.
We did not make ourselves
Along the lines of gratitude, it helps me to keep in mind that we did not make ourselves, and what that implies is others did not make themselves either. So when we judge others harshly, it might not be fair. If someone is doing something that we disapprove of, it might be difficult for us to “love” them. I’m thinking here being impartial is a positive way to move forward. What I’m suggesting is that we do not have to cut the person off emotionally. However, we can choose to treat those folks with fairness out of the understanding that we know they had to go through some tough times to become rotten or terrible people.
We cannot control others
As humans, we want to love and to be loved. If we see someone that we love, it makes sense that we would like them to love us in return. This idea, however, is an unfounded assertion. Love does not imply reciprocity, as Plato postulated. When love is of this sort, we are in desire of the beauty of the object. This concept does not mean that the object will love us in return. However, there is a specific component, especially when the object is a human that we would seemingly want the love to be reciprocated. However, this seems to lead down a detrimental path. When we want the love of another, which implies we are low on self-love (potentially stemming from deep-seated insecurity of not being worthy of love), we could tend toward trying to manipulate, control or change others. When we attempt this feat, we strangle the love, and it dies. This action ends up driving the other person away.
On the other hand, if we do not try to change the other person, there is a likelihood that they will not like or love us. This idea, too, is alright. These people will also go away. There is little to nothing that we can do to change the mind of the other person because we each form our own set of values based on this personal value system we either like or dislike other people. The function of the “autonomic nervous system” is that of like or avoid. This situation is a subconscious endeavor. We have little control over what we like. It makes sense from here that we have even less control over what someone else might want.
Conclusions
We, as humans, have a fundamental desire to love and to be loved. It is our life’s work to develop ourselves to love and to be loved. It is useful to keep in mind that there are many kinds of love that the English term pigeon holes. Self-love is quintessential in the growth of healthy and loving relationships. Relationships are gifts; caring for these gifts is an act of love. To get, we must give, but to offer does not mean that we will get. Gratitude is the fertilizer of love. We have the choice to focus on the positive and good in others, or distasteful. We did not make ourselves, and others did not make themselves. For this reason, compassion is essential. We cannot control others, and if we try to, they will leave. If we do not try to control others, they might go as well, but with a healthy amount of self-love, we can quickly move on.
As a refresher, check out “What can we learn from animals about love” to reconnect with our basal desire for love. Of course, love is not the only essential component to an enjoyable life, check out “Patience, understanding and love” to be reminded of the complicated endeavor it is to accept others into our lives.
“Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting. […] There remains, then, only one way of honourable attachment which custom allows in the beloved, and this is the way of virtue; for as we admitted that any service which the lover does to him is not to be accounted flattery or a dishonour to himself, so the beloved has one way only of voluntary service which is not dishonourable, and this is virtuous service.” - Socrates, Symposium, By Plato, 360 B.C.E, Translated by Benjamin Jowett