An introductory note to the reader: The first multifaceted notion I had wanted to dive into upon creating this series, of course, would have been love. Let’s not sugarcoat or hide behind superfluous descriptions of my mind, and let’s get straight to it. Right?
Right, I wanted to start dwelling into my own self first, work upon other notions of every day life, that could help me build toward that greater understanding of the concept of… “Love”. In order to complete the entirety of my own thought-trail and reasonings, I’ve decided to divide this “MISUSE” exploration into three parts. Each will be released accordingly within the next three Fridays to come. So, are you ready? Wonderful, because I don’t believe I am. Dear reader, I am holding your hand through this… Please hold mine as well.
“…to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part”, and just like that, you’re bonded to someone in a marital sense, with “God” as your witness, a few guests perhaps, and an officiator. By law of course, and perhaps, -as I like to refer to weddings as “spiritual entanglements”-, by spirit also. Love, usually, is the reason that people get married. Or-so that society has taught us well to believe this. I won’t get into the multi-million wedding industry and the facade that this holy ceremony has turned into, yet I will say that we are conditioned from a young age, to seek for that special someone. Even if we marry them or not. That is what a union is for after-all, becoming “one”, with someone we deem to be our other half. Great?
And as every generation brings forth new ideas of love and partnership, I can however still see that the patterns remain mostly the same. If we are fortunate enough, we will live in families with love, and even if we don’t, we long for love and aim to find it. Within billions of others on this planet, are we lucky enough to fall in love, truly? I could say yes, and multiple times as well. There are billions after-all. What would be the odds of never finding love? Well, very high, as we can only love someone, as much as we love ourselves. And today’s world is riddled with a constant self-battle of having love for ourselves.
We see it preached on the internet like a commandment we have ignored for years, self-love books and guides exist in corners on their own in bookshops, and everywhere you look, everything is built in a way to promote “self-love”. But how can we define self-love, exactly? The Oxford dictionary states, “regard for one's own well-being and happiness”, that must suffice I imagine. Though, do we really understand that this is not an egotistic remark, and strive for that inner-happiness, before we do so whilst in the company of another?
Mothers are often the “victims” of selfless love. Making sure that their child has been nurtured in the never-ending spectrum of their care, a mother’s love never rests for her child. This love has no “self-care days”, no “vacation” days, and mothers often neglect their own well-being for it. It all starts within the womb. Women follow a series of horrible (again, let’s not sugarcoat) effects, simply because they are with-child. Yet, they overcome the pain, and love their children, more than themselves. The example of a mother’s love towards her child, is the total essence of bringing forth life, creating another human, giving them the inner world they deserve to carry as adults. So, if mothers love themselves, they surely should be able to raise humans who know they are loved by someone, and who also knows about self-love, right? The child is in fact, a walking “symptom” of the love that forged them, and they are embodying all of mother’s and father’s (let’s add him in here too, she didn’t make the baby herself) love, all-at-once. That is, in a world where all mothers and fathers have loved themselves, each other, and finally their children perfectly.
A perfect kind of love could never exist. Perfection perhaps combats the very notion of love. Therefore, perfecting self-love, being totally “in love” with yourself, could never really happen. And if self-love was constructed for the precise term of "one’s own self-being and happiness”, then there would never be any sacrifice for the sake of loving someone else. Therefore, loving someone else must mean we set aside our own self-love, right? Such as the example with mothers and their children, yes?
Not quite.
This is not to be put into a “set-up” of making yourself love someone who isn’t worthy of you, though it is within the understanding that love -no matter how ethereal and ecstatic- requires an effort, of balancing self-love and self-respect, to bring it forth from within and sharing it, almost exposing it to someone else. If you manage to portray the way you love yourself to someone, they could perhaps understand how you would be able to love them. If I let’s say, show my partner that I care for myself, adore myself, and make sure I am constantly well, then surely I must be doing all of this for them also, correct? However, we always seem to do the opposite.
We often aim to show how “good” we are at loving others, and leave ourselves on the side, ignorantly “asking” others to love us, in some way that we haven’t even decided what exactly would mean for us to receive. Should we blame books, movies and modern society for creating an image for “love”, that might not exist at all? Why is it that the romanticisation of some form of love, that we haven’t ever experienced, makes us long for it? This is also very well perceived in literary works, often catastrophic in nature, that portray characters being “beasts capable of love”. Why do we adore characters who hate themselves, yet seek for a salvational love in others? How could that even be, since they do not know how to love themself? How could loving someone, treating them well, “worshiping” them, abandoning our needs, be desirable to the other person at all? Is someone’s misery the cost of our self-indulgent happiness? And all that for them just to hit a line like, “Without you, I am nothing”?
Because, indeed, without fixating on the other person, and being left alone with ourselves, is scarier than being with someone and not caring for own selves. You would therefore be left with nothing, and as some form of a “blackmailing” love-confession, we declare that without the other person we would never be able to live in this world. Alone. Yet, all the while, I believe that is why we are truly brought into this world. To live alone. To live alone and love ourselves on our own.
As mentioned in one previous “MISUSE” exploration on “CONNECTION”, we must never forget that “all is one”. If we could perhaps, take a few moments to notice the world around us, and all it’s uncomplicated beauty, and that we are indeed a part of this, perhaps we could learn to love ourselves more. If we love our world, we love ourselves. We are all interconnected into the greater consciousness of each other. And this perhaps, justifies a sudden shift in emotional intelligence across new generations to come. We are becoming more conscious of our own selves, we are learning to analyse our feelings, we are adapting to life and the inner life we hold.
So imagine, when we choose to marry someone, that not only we are becoming one with them, but that both of us, are becoming one with all. And not just that, when we decide to bring a child into this world with that person, we are also adding them into this oneness. Can we really do that? Can we understand that total and pure love, could in actuality be, oneness?
I will have to stop this here and allow us all to take these thoughts in a bit…
Part 2… Let’s see where you’ll take us! Until then, I want to know; How do you perceive love? Let me know below
Well you certainly picked a very well easily solved subject to examine. Punk as fuck! You certainly have a set of ovaries on you. Well now I have to think.
In her latest essay, Musing Love Part 1, Athina proves to be a 'natural' existentialist. I have no way of knowing if she thinks of herself this way, but her 'Musings' on the subject of love reflect the existentialist point of view that, romantic love, self-love, and 'Storge' love, that is, love of family, children, and friends, not characterized by passion or desire are interconnected.
Athina makes the point that we must love ourselves before we can love others and portrays 'self-love' as positive, even necessary in a romantic relationship that might lead to marriage, even parenthood.
In one section, she writes, ' If you manage to portray the way you love yourself to someone, they could perhaps understand how you would be able to love them.'
This is a complex piece of free-form writing. I've read it 3 times and see something new with each reading, I'm going in for a 4th read right after tapping the 'Post' icon ......