Valentine’s Day—what’s love got to do with it?
Is love real? Can it only be expressed poetically?
Valentine's Day. The 14th of February. A day people exchange cards with their romantic partner, or send cards to the targets of their desire. There are several theories about how the practice arose, but since it started in the dark ages, nobody really knows. Sure, we have the St Valentine theory. A propaganda exercise used by the Catholic Church to transform a Roman ritual for organizing breeding partners into a Christian Saint’s day. But that had nothing to do with inter-human romance.
As with many modern holidays and traditions, the superficial practice has become more important than the foundational values, or any values for that matter. However, it is a good time of year to reflect on love, and to express it if you have the opportunity.
Everybody likes to be loved. For one, it provides a sense of self-worth, safety, and security. Here, the natural scientist can see the strings of evolution, conjuring our feelings through bioelectrical flows, and shaping our behaviour. The aim is the furtherance of the species; an act of expansive will. But, humans are complex machines with emergent properties that are sometimes misaligned with the correlating commands. In other words, things get mixed up.
The messy manifestations of our competing biological drives can feel uncomfortable and lead to incomprehensible outcomes. We crave power, possessions, procreation, and status. These imuplses can lead to ‘hard’ behaviour: aggression, conflict, injury, and death. Yet, we also desire protection, deeper connection, and a safe place to sleep, leading to a more serene and malleable state, and behavioural ‘softness’.
It is in this sense of giving that higher love acquires its association with death, the letting go of egotistical aspiration. Often, the most revered acts of love come with the loss of life, too. We know that we are biological, that evolution has no purpose, and that our genes control most of our functioning and impulses. However, it isn’t necessary to conduct ourselves wholly in accordance with the genetic program. By transforming our urges, we can bring something else into being. A beautiful love that is not dependent on material conditions, nor acts as a placeholder for a contract of exchange.
You can spot fake love fairly easily. It lacks understanding, patience, and is quick to anger. There is a failure to control impulsive judgment. It feeds on debasement and humiliation. For example, couples, friends, and families who bond in the abuse and hatred of others are rarely capable of showing each other true love. Still, love is a complex and nebulous idea, and for that, we have prose and poetry.
Ann Landers suggests, ‘Love is a friendship that has caught fire.’ Aristotle said, ‘Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.’ Goethe wrote, ‘Love does not dominate, it cultivates.’ They are attractive aphorisms that I find resonance with, especially the latter, which can equally apply to self-love. However, in response to Goethe, I wrote this poem:
Love comes like wild flower
Within the cracks and slow decay Love comes like wild flower Exactly when, no one can say It blossoms without glower
A song of beauty and delight Formed from Sol’s bright rays Whispers day in blackest night And rescues from the maze
If unbidden, it dares bloom In troughs of worried garden A rake will come and bring its doom And cast it in a dark bin
There it lays with scraps of green A wasteland of digestion Breaking down to formless dreams To feed a giant onion
Finding the essence of love may be a synergistic alchemy. In the following poem, I distil the essence of philosophical thought, including Plato, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Camus, among others. It makes for a strange and mysterious brew.
So, what is love?
Love shines eternal in the realm of forms A flame that flickers not Yet in mortal hearts, waxes and wanes
Love is grasping at moon’s reflection A dragon that enslaves Yet, tamed, it burns the ego to ash
In absurd shadows, love shines defiant Rebel’s cry of freedom Dissident will, against fate’s cold void.
Love is not feeling, but disposition The heart’s eye sees all Hidden union, within and without
Love lives through attention, devoted focus Accepting the strange Curious passion without reason
In whirling worship, all is lost in mist Exploding mirrors Love’s shards echo, memories unborn
Sublime creation, lick dust from the soul Unity loved whole Magic eye, eternal horizon
Unspeakable connection, love’s tears Cleanse the toxic skies Unite the hub, the spokes, and the rim
On body’s passing, journey to the flame The endless fire Burn in love, dissolution of time
