The Chronicles of Love
By: Andrea Laurentius
“How was I ever able to live alone, my little everything?
Without you I have no self-confidence, no passion for work, and no enjoyment of life.
In short, without you, my life is a void.”Albert Einstein
Such an eloquent quote carved by Einstein, declaring the importance of two humans’ need for each other by expressing their inability to live on their own. Einstein uttered this quote to his fiancé, Mileva Maric, when they studied together at the Zurich Polytechnic, Switzerland. It profoundly describes the hyperbolic locution of emotion toward others because of love. Love…, love…, and love. Such a common topic to be discussed, but yet remains extremely intriguing. An ostensible self-contradiction in illustrating love as an oxymoron makes this discussion more interesting, for some humans perceive the fundamentals of love as a picture of their own thoughts, narrow-mindedly creating a sense of understanding that eventually impacts the expression of love in the society. This is why the expression of love is so diverse that one may not clearly interpret that of others. One time, love emerged as the basic perception of belonging between two humans, making the notion of perfect love a dream for everyone in the world. However, some humans exploit love to selfishly engage their necessities to almost everything. Selfish love causes personal catastrophes, feeding humans’ own egos through emotional relationships and letting love glorify nothing more than their personal bubble of feelings. It is a vacuum cleaner as opposed to a fountain. It absorbs instead of giving. Some of us might have noticed this, some of us might not; maybe the rest of us ignorantly chooses not to be aware. Till now, the exploitation is not over as more and more people may not provide the kind of love that will guide others to kindness and selflessness. Even though most people have gone through a phase when they begin to give everything selflessly to others, this phase would not last for long and will more likely than not be replaced by other negative emotions. Upon deeper analysis, an insufficient degree of appreciation or a misunderstanding of love expression is usually the cause of these negative emotions. This is a classic problem which everyone faces in any loving relationship. Why is it that love brings so much complication towards relationships in this modern life?
Philosophers have been trying to comprehend the secret power of love that could drive others to madness, stupidity, and desire. Apart from that, they are also bewildered as love can also be explained as an act of altruism and empathy. Many theories have been proposed, but none of them can precisely depict its meaning. Hormonal model of love, triangular love theory, ancient Greek concept of love, or even Korean dramas could not simplify the virtues of love into a written postulation. The ideas about love have also changed greatly over time as historians date modern conceptions of romantic love to European style courtship like Romeo and Juliet despite the prior existence of romantic attachments attested as ancient love poetries, which can be found in any region in the world. Its abstract nature has often turned the discussion of love to a thought-terminating cliché.
Stop here. This writing was not intended to represent the general audience as the meaning of love is relatively based on life experience. Please note that the word ‘love’ does not merely refer to describing romantic relationships between partners, yet it helps to elucidate the expression of love by understanding its fundamental nature, increasing the quality of love expression itself. The author is by no means an expert on the topic, but decades of life have made the author learn a few meaningful lessons worth sharing on what it means to love, to be loved, and to value love the way it is supposed to be valued. Most importantly, love is a force which deals with someone’s mind and heart. It cannot to be explained in a one-size-fits-all way. And last but not least, one can teach others how to love, but not why to love.
What Does It Mean to Love Others?
“Love a person the way they need to be loved, not the way you want to love. It’s not about you. Love is selfless, not selfish.”
Tony Gaskins
Falling in love is one thing, loving others is another. Why do we quarrel if love is supposed to create happiness? Why would loving others sometimes result in anger or sadness? Some of us might say that conflicts strengthen bonds, or that the nature of love is similar to a rollercoaster model of emotional rush. Some may have other interpretations of what the nature of love is. This is commonly based on different personal experiences associated with love, and that causes the pitfall for any kind of such questions being asked in the first place. In spite of whatever they are, seldom do people understand that love naturally plays a central role in connecting the extremes together, a role that allows Yin and Yang to achieve its balance. As the combustion of flammable hydrogen and oxygen creates water, a smiling mother looking at her crying newborn baby, or the appearance of shadow within the disappearance of the light, all of them go along with the natural laws of the Universe. Thus, both happiness and grief are the consequences of loving others. Akin to waves in the ocean, it is only a matter of time for one emotion to dominate, only for it to eventually be overpowered by its counterpart in the future. Mutual infatuation leads to happiness, and as it grows stronger it would grow to be a desire to possess: an inherently flawed but humane desire of wanting the one they love to always be theirs. When the clock of life strikes midnight, this feeling of possession will ultimately result in grief following the loss of a loved one. In other words, the expectation toward others that is caused by emotional desire is the root of unsatisfaction in relationships. There is a popular saying that goes, “Loving others means to let them be the way they are.” Establishing relationship based on unconditional and non-possessive love would be the way to go as it fundamentally does not demand others to fulfill their own selfish desires or emotions. Viewing others through the lens of acceptance and letting them be who they are are glorious signs of emotional maturity, creating a better chance to understand others and to acknowledge the reasons for the appearance of negative aspects in a loving relationship.
In a loving relationship, the best thing that all humans would want is the cheerful feeling when one finds reasons to cherish those moments. Moreover, one tries to avoid situations when they are compelled to reconcile the differences of value that each possesses. However, disputes against each other seems to be inevitable regarding such distinctive point of views. Do you often feel familiar with the condition? This rhetorical statement emphasizes the expectation that the actions and thoughts of others are intended to fulfill one’s own ego. Again, desired expectation is the root of unsatisfaction in relationships. Nonetheless, things will be different if they follow reasons to be open-minded and to accept others’ imperfections and to keep on supporting others. This is not as easy as it seems as some people choose to be stuck in the past, trying to rewind their best loving feelings, in which case they tend to seek out and recreate those same dynamics at the present and exert pressure on their partner to be the primary subject responsible for love.
The epitome of loving others is to love our own selves. It is indeed hard to express love outwardly when we do not recognize our self-worth in the first place, reflecting on a parable of how we will not be able to amply share food to others before we solve our own hunger. Trying to be one’s own best standard and comprehending one’s own inner voice is the secret towards loving oneself. Love, once it is found, is worth every fleeting moment of its highs and lows. It will perhaps be found someday when one least expects it.
Additionally, loving others means to appreciate their existence in our lives. In terms of love, humans are slightly different from other life forms. Psychological complexity of human emotion urges the engagement of love to be a form of egoistic fulfillment other than sex, such as approval of thoughts or feelings. It relies on how humans independently choose the ways of perceiving love. Furthermore, what most humans are currently referring to as a loving relationship comprises the need of interpersonal endorsement. Praises sound like music to one’s ears, sympathies form deeper engagement towards one’s feeling, and so on. Justification of these behaviors could be seen through the lens of human beings as social creatures.
The expression of love among humans entail efforts in terms of reciprocity of one’s thought and action. This cross-perception could apparently be achieved by understanding one’s veiled intention through a combination of certain verbal and non-verbal cues during interpersonal interactions. The accuracy of the output is enhanced as human is surprisingly the only species that could express emotional thoughts into the combination of 43 facial muscle contractions. It is indeed a valuable response as recognition to other’s subliminal messages. As humans have many ways to interact socially, love can be shared with others in many forms. Loving others is a gift.
To make things more interesting, let’s look underneath the profound layers of love.
I’m in Love, Please Refer to Toxicologist and…Linguist
Let physiology be the mastermind of bodily reaction to love. Think about the time when you found someone attractive. Your body seemed to react strangely. Your palm may have sweated (the elderly often finds it as sign of ‘lemah jantung’) and your speech ability may slur downward to elementary level. Some of you may lack boldness to talk to them. Some of you may not experience these at all. Nevertheless, it is a fight-or-flight response toward non-threatful situations. Weird… isn’t it? These anomalies are known to happen in either men or women with similar intensity. Lovesick is the term to describe these anomalies. Love makes you ‘intoxicated’, but it does not literally condemn you to be treated in the emergency ward. In fact, it brings certain associations with a wide range of health benefits, such as relieving physical pain, lowering blood pressure, easing stress, and generally improving one’s cardiovascular health. But if love was nothing more than positive reactions of our body, we probably would not apply the word ‘lovesick’ to describe the intense effects of the emotion. Splashes of chemical cocktails in the brain provide answers to how people in love react strangely to others. Let’s say oxytocin and vasopressin do their job when you meet someone attractive for the first time. Of course, they will induce awkward thoughts or cause heartbeats to rush like mechanical pistons. In a long-term relationship, it is dopamine that acts predominantly in the subconscious region of human mind. Dopamine creates addictions if left uncontrolled, subsequently hijacking the brain reward system and ceasing all activities related to survival instincts such as eating. Deeply possessive love may result in stressful situations as a lack of dopamine surge in the brain triggers emotional instability and craving of love. This sadly will result in an unhealthy relationship. Thus, understanding love in a wider picture of bodily reaction could provide insights to its benefits and side effects, as well as hints on how to control it emotionally.
As these reactions occur naturally, it is normal for humans to think in an abrupt and irrational way. Learning how to control and acknowledge these reactions would be good to maintain a healthy love life. Nurturing one requires an understanding of other emotional needs in terms of a loving relationship. The concept of understanding explains how we express love in the right verbal or non-verbal cues in which our partner can receive and appreciate the message we are trying to convey. In other words, the expression of love should fit in with other’s love reception. Inspired by Gary Chapman, an American author who promoted the concept of Five Love Languages”, an interpersonal expression of love involves a ‘love language’. It is a form of language which does not appear as part of convention among humans, yet it is suggested that the language possesses a degree of psychometric validity despite its abstract nature. It serves to connect steps inherent to emotional communication in loving relationships. Besides, one tends to naturally give love in the way that one prefers to receive love, and better communication can be accomplished when one can demonstrate caring to the other person in the love language the partner understands. Verbal expression, acts of service, physical touch, quality time, and receiving gifts are the five types of love languages. It is believed that one person tends to address one type of language as its primary and the other ones as its secondaries. A famous example would be if a husband love language is acts of service, he may be confused when he cleans the dishes for his wife and she does not perceive that as an act of love, viewing it as simply household duties, because the love language that his wife comprehends is verbal expression. To make those language valued, his wife sweeps the terrace for him; likewise, if he tells her he loves her, she receives that as an act of love. Knowing one’s love language can be one of the important things in a relationship. It provides insight on how to express one’s care and respect to partner. Taking little time to adjust oneself with others and their love languages would be a worthwhile effort, thus minimizing misunderstandings which may exacerbate inappropriate emotional responses in the long run.
Love: A Double-Edged Sword in this Modern World
Take a look around. While you are reading through this passage, you realize that technology have become a part of daily necessity. Living through this sophisticated new world filled with technology hinders the retrospective way of human connection when social media has not yet been invented. This might be the reason why relationships back then were stronger and longer-lasting. Technology has made a loving relationship more trivial than it is supposed to be. While a standard relationship involves frequent face-to-face contacts, technology, on the other hand, removes this requirement. Direct communication is defined as the sharing of personal ideas to each other, providing couples with a sense of passion in the relationship. To explain further, past generations had solid roots in establishing a relationship since it was formed through a formal manner of courtship, such as pre-arranged betrothal, medieval chivalry, or Victorian formality. All of them emphasizes the need of prior communication and time to get to know each other. Modern relationship is a different story as pickup lines delivered through online chatting sums up the first step in any dating process. As mobile dating apps and social media becomes the norm of interpersonal communication, it comes with a price which is the loss of interpersonal communication as seeing others through a screen can never substitute in-person presence. This is a great explanation on how modern relationships are based more on physical attraction rather than personality. Nowadays, adults have a selfish outlook towards a relationship and makes it so that one cares only about their needs in the relationship and not about the other person’s needs too in the relationship. Over time, it is abnormally normal in this era that the culture of relationship has changed its meaning from respecting each other and long-lasting love to a temporary physical lust for one another. Hence, building long-term relationship requires both partners to put efforts in, especially when it comes to communication.
It has been the pursuit of love that has fascinated humans, not what humans do with it after they get it. Humans were challenged to fulfill their desire of love. Love stories end happily in a wedding, and things are about to be different once it is presumed that the lovers fade away into a happy ever after. Back in the day, a popular notion stated that love and marriage went together like a horse and carriage. Addressing such notion in this modern world requires clarifying what we mean by the ultimate reason to love each other. The idea that love is seen as a favorable outcome of marriage is not a good reason for getting married in the first place. Nobody is a hundred percent sure of the fate of the marriage, but lovers still tend to express their optimism of nurturing love throughout their entire lives. Situations are different when one encounters problems before and after marriages. Precious moments that one spends together with others are not a guaranteed representation of future family life. This could be because when one enters a marriage with lots of expectations such as the unending passion and romantic feelings for each other, these feelings may be overpowered by more pressing issues such as adjustments and compromises when marital reality and responsibilities come in. Divorce is the final stake. The essence of marriage does not involve love as its sole factor; however, it is a social framework that exists within other factors besides love. Getting married takes into account additional aspects, such as socioeconomic status. In this modern society, it is common for many to fall in love with people who have a higher socioeconomic status. Even though love ought to have a central place in life and account for the decision to marry others in this modern era, the success in long-term marriage cannot be represented based on intense loving feelings alone but should also include mutual activities, problems, and economic capabilities. Thus, a marriage decision which might lead to a romantic disaster involving misery and the feeling of having made a romantic compromise could be prevented when long-term considerations are taken into account.
“Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open”
George Bernard Shaw
Fin.
Acknowledgements
The author would express his deepest gratitude to the following reviewers who have provided such constructive feedbacks and comments toward this piece of writing.
- Wilson Gomarga
- Brenda Cristie Edina
- Devyn Altan
- Jovanovick Luidaniel
- Adriana Viola Miranda
