ON A lighter note, let me talk about something that cuts across every one of us; LOVE.
Ironic as it is, everyone claims to know what “love” pretty much is. Yet, situations in our lives shake our predefined notions of such, and push us to face the bitter truth that we are totally clueless about it.
Perhaps a way to unravel its essence is to take a look into the principles from which we get to experience love and loving. Here goes my phenomenology of love, a phenomenology of altruism;
Love...
- always has a subject or a receiver; a family, a friend, a special someone, a community, a thing, an idea, and even a dream. It is always oriented towards an outside subject. If it is geared towards the self then it must be something else. This being said, the moment we demand from our love ones to do things for us, then perhaps it should be enough indicator that we are totally off the track of love and loving.
- is not an end, not a goal, but a method, a process, and a means. While we think that love is something we arrived at or destination we direct ourselves towards, we end up missing the whole point of it all. Love is the process itself. It is the continues choices we make as we journey through life whether or not we arrive at our set goals and dreams or we die trying. To enjoy it would mean not to see it as a state where we arrive at but a way of arriving at any state we dreamed of reaching.
- is born out of pure free will; neither a duty nor an obligation. It is a conscious choice, free of pressure, and given for no other reason but itself. The moment it gets tainted by other vested interest aside from loving itself, then it ceases to exist. It sounds cruel to an extent but one can only experience love when one does not want it or demand for it. It cannot exist from coercion. Holding on is therefore not a way of loving. To love is to let go, and only when it is let go that true love comes back freely. If it doesn’t come back then it was not love at all.
- is as personal as can be; something a person gets to decide only by himself or herself.
- is an ultimate exposure of oneself characterized by pure vulnerability. A person who loves takes the highest risk of being rejected and being abused, yet somehow in his/her most vulnerable point the person is also in his/her strongest self. A happy martyrdom illustrates this irony.
- causes pain as well as pure joy, and satisfaction. Getting hurt comes with the territory of loving, so before one decides to love, he /she has to embrace such possibility of pain as well.
- is essentially disinterested. It has no expectations and has no vested interest. It doesn’t need reciprocation to achieve perfection. It is pure and perfect as it is.
- is exclusively a human act. No creature on earth has the faculty to love other than us. It separates us from lower animals. It defines us.
- is the true ember of one’s soul, embedded within.
- is the only thing that binds us with our root, our Creator.
In a way, it is the essence of life, the ultimate call, the realization of our true nature, the perfection of our being.
Putting all this at hand, one can say that love truly has its own rules. It is unfair. It is unreasonable. It is a risky business with no assurance of return of investment yet it’s the only business worth pursuing.