The light in the dark side of mE

Questions about
love would always hark back the memories of my elementary days— autographs here
and everywhere.

‘Love is blind’
or ‘God is love,’ are the most overt answers to the question ‘define love’ in
any autograph book I would read. Though
it may sound cliché, people who had resolved to those answers were, indeed,
right.

Agape is the most important love of
all. It is different from all the
others. It is eternal; it is universal;
though, sometimes, it is taken for granted. For no one can teach you what agape involves, thus, it is also
something that all of us need to develop; it is, irrefutably, God’s love.

Eros is a
different kind of love. It speaks of
physical love. It is physical love and
physical affection between two individuals. When people fall in love, eros love gets involve. That’s the time when love, becomes blind…

 

But still, it's a mystery 

How you ever came to me

Which only proves

Love moves in mysterious ways

— Julia
Fordham, Love Moves In (Mysterious Ways)

 

            Love comes to us arbitrarily. Hence, just like a box of chocolates, you’ll
never know what you’ll get. You can’t
teach yourself how to love, what more to dictate to yourself whom to love. Thus, just like in the art of teaching, it is
the process that really matters in what they call, ‘the art of loving.’ How you substantiated that love of yours or
how determined were you to show your love to the person you really care for.

 

Cause I feel myself surrender 

Each time I see your face 

I am staggered by your beauty 

Your unassuming grace 

And I feel my heart is turning 

Falling into place 

I can't hide it

Now hear
my confession

— Josh Groban, My Confession

 

        Falling
in love is the most obscure offense a person could do to himself/herself. Falling in love is taking the risk of
gambling your emotions, your affection. Simply, you actually love even without the assurance of being loved
back. It’s just like sowing a seed
without even knowing what kind of plant it is. Will it bear a flower? Will the
flower develop into a fruit? What kind
of fruit it might be? Yet before you
should have asked those questions, are you sure that the seed you’d sown would
actually grow?

 

If I can reach the stars,
Pull one down for you,
Shine it on my heart
So you could see the truth:

That this love I have inside
Is everything it seems.

— Eric Clapton,
Change the World

 

            Now that you’re certain with your feelings, make sure as
well that you invest also in the motivational and cognitive facets of your
love. Knowing whom to love is not
enough; knowing why and how long you’ll love somebody is imperative as
well. There should be the sense of
passion, hence commitment, aside from the overwhelming intimacy.

        For
sure, any shortfall in any of these requirements might lead to a love
quandary.

 

I know I misbehaved
And you made your mistakes
And we both got room left to grow
And though love sometimes hurts
I still put you first
And we’ll make this thing work
But I think we should take it slow

—
John Legend, Ordinary People

 

            Love needs to mature,
just as every seed do. It should be
nurtured, supplied by its rudimentary provisions.

        Love
is a give-and-take relationship. It is
always a two-way process. It shall never
be a one-way function.

        The
reason why some cases of ‘love’ don’t last long enough is because it is simply
not participated by both parties. May it
be just a liking, an infatuation, empty love, romantic love, companionate love,
or fatuous love, these patterns of love actually happen because only one party
is experiencing any of the three elements of love.

           You
can’t say that an infatuated person would be forever in love with another
infatuated person; nor you can’t find a couple in a harmonious relationship who
are just committed to each other, experiencing empty love forever; nor people
who just like each other and stay together for the rest of their lives.

         Anyone
who is in a romantic, companionate, or fatuous relationship won’t stay together
for a long period of time either. Spontaneously, time would judge their love until the instance that
suddenly the love they had treasured for quite some time is gone already. As a consequence, love, eventually, dies.

Accordingly, it
may be construed that this might by the reason why certain love doesn’t last
long, hence, why break ups occur.

 

So I've learned that love's not possession

And I've learned that love won't wait

Now I've learned that love needs expression

But I learned too late

— Michael
Jackson, She’s Out of My Life

 

        Now
that you’re not attached to each other anymore, you’ll soon realize the
absurdity of life. And just as what a
friend of mine asked in an email a couple of weeks ago, “Why is it that the
people we love, are often, the ones who hurt us?” “We trust and we’re betrayed; we care or
love, but we’re abused or taken for granted,” he added. He even pointed out that love should be
returned by love, perse, but at least, “if not love itself, love should be
rewarded with kindness.”

Yes, maybe he’s
right. After all, and just as how Levine
said it: “love is the only rational act.”

 

Nobody said it was easy
Oh it’s such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I’m going back to the start

—
Coldplay, The Scientist

 

            But the end of a relationship is not the same as the end
of the world. Am I getting a point here,
or am I just exaggerating?

            The
gist is that sometimes, we seem to be over reacting on the things that had
happened to us, to our lives. We are
pressuring ourselves to give in into a relationship that actually doesn’t give
us any assurance. How long will it
last? Will your love be paid back also
by love, or even just by kindness, as mentioned earlier? You’re certainly risking a part of your life —and
that’s just a part of your life. Hence,
if you’ll look into the bigger picture, there are still other facets of your
life that needs your attention. There
are more relevant things that you need to spend your time with, rather than
contemplating and scrutinizing and blaming yourself of what went wrong.

            I
may sound hypocritical on this part, though, this, I think, should be how we
should perceive love. The end of a
relationship is not, and will never be, equitable to the end of our lives. After all, love is the only rational act.

 

In my eyes you do no wrong
And I believe in you
Although you never asked me to
I will remember you
And what life put you through
And in this cruel and lonely world
I found one love
You’re still you
After all, you’re still you

— Josh Groban, You’re
Still You

 

            Nevertheless, the most
profound love for me is simply the love that is liberating. It’s merely letting go of someone else that
you truly love. It’s the ultimate
sacrifice a person could do to the one he loves. Let’s admit it, it’s easier to fall in love
with somebody than breaking out of that love and letting that person go. Indeed, the art of letting go is remarkably
harder to realize than the art of loving. After all, love is the only rational act.

 

Jamás sentí en el alma tanto amor (I never felt so much love
in my soul)

Y nadie mas que tú, me amó (And no one but you loved me)

Por ti reí y lloré, renací también (Because of you I laughed
and cried, I was reborn also)

—
Josh Groban, Aléjate
(Go Away)

 

            Why did it take me a long
time to reflect on this matter?

            Honestly, I don’t know
the answer. It’s just that, love, in
reality, kills me —even at this very moment of time.

 

Pano mapipigil ang isang damdamin
Kung ang sinisigaw
Ikaw ang lahat sa akin
At kung hindi ngayon
Ang panahon, upang ikaw ay mahalin
Bukas na walang hanggan
Ako’y maghihintay parin

— Martin
Nievera, Ikaw Ang Lahat Sa Akin

Written September 20, 2005 as a reflection paper
for the course EDFD 100 (Developmental Psychology).

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