Is it just me or is love one of the most misused words in the English language? It’s like we can’t make up our minds whether it is a good or a bad thing, poetic folly or hard line spiritual all-pervasive truth.
It’s talked about in so many contexts, but never so much out of context by those who suffer the pains of love. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself why love hurts? Why so many crap films and crap songs are written around the theme of love being an ache of the heart, suffered by fools and players alike?
We are short of words, because that is not love. We have all felt love (hopefully), even in the act of doing something we have a passion for we feel love, and it never hurts. So why does love get the blame for pain?
Pain is the opposite of love, in my opinion, not hate: hate comes from pain. Pure and simply it hurts not to have love, not because you love too much, but because you love too conditionally. We might as well face it, we are addicted to love, or else all of us would have given up hope a long time ago. When we finally get love, we feel rewarded – as if finally something has gone right for us.
And we want more of the persons company, and more of their time, more of the rewarding feeling. Love becomes need, and wherever there is need there is condition. There is nothing more conditional than saying “I love you”, when really what you mean to say is “I need you.” And in fact, it is not the person you need, it is how the person makes you feel, that is what we crave.
Why does love turn to need? If we really loved someone, really cared for him or her – as we do for most of our friends – we would let them be free. When was the last time you were worried if your best friend loved you as much as you love them? You give them the freedom, without condition, to have other friends. You give them freedom, without condition, to love others equally to you. In fact, in most cases, best friends encourage their friends to make more of their loves and lives.
But lovers are a different story. The one we are in love with is the one we often wish to control the most. This is true of me; it might not be true of you. The one you are in love with is the one you expect to call, expect to show you special treatment, expect to love you most. If any of these expectations are not lived up to, your love flips into pain. From that pain comes anger, doubt, resentment, entire days in bed watching shit films/afternoons in the bar drinking heavily until night falls.
If not for the expectations/conditions in the first place, the pain would not be there. The pain is self-made. You can love without pain. Our friends are proof of this. But it’s so hard to love without condition. I’m not saying that I know all of the answers…I’m just looking at things from a different point of view.
There is an illusion that has a lot to do with flipping love into pain, and that is the future. Everyone is obsessed with the future, what it holds, how to get there, who to go their with. But…it does not exist. You might as well book a day trip to Narnia; you will never meet the future. What is important is now. Life is happening to you now. The future, for most people, is their exit strategy from the past. And this is where love comes into play.
It is not uncommon for someone, man or woman, to have a run of shit relationships and then suddenly meet “the one”. They feel love has changed them, they can let go of the past, and now look to the future…but something is deeply uncertain about the future because you do not know what is going to happen, so to fight uncertainty, you begin to condition the other.
You do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, your lover might change his or her mind and love someone else. I love you means you must love me. Everyone in a relationship has the fear of this not being so. Only those who really take each other for granted don’t fear this.
Happy couples are obsessed with future, it all becomes about the future. With every relationship, sooner or later, the question arises of does this have a future? It seems the more we can imagine ourselves with someone, the further we are pulled from reality as it is.
You can think about or feel something from your past, but you are doing it now. You can project your thoughts and your feelings into the future, thinking they are taking you somewhere, but you never leave now. It is in the known, and the unknown. The only time you can feel love is now. The moment you think of love, and you feel pain, ask yourself is this really love?
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