Perfect Love
If 100 people who I know were to tell me they were writing a musing on Perfect Love, at least 99 of them I would declare unqualified. Of course that doesn’t stop me, not known as the last of the great Casanovas. Everyone has thoughts on Love. I reckon to define any Perfect Love we need first define the term love. Already we have a problem here. Love is a feeling. Not much chance of defining a ‘feeling’ very accurately. Feelings have no fixed boundaries, no clearly definable elements, and are always subjective. For example, the human thresholds for labeling something painful can be rather accurately measured and the threshold is quite narrow. The problem is that people react to the same amount of pain differently. Their feelings about the pain kick in. Some will simply indicate that at the threshold level the stimulus is painful; others will start to get emotional about the pain, and how emotional varies from person to person.
Love seems to be an extension of liking someone. Where does liking someone and loving someone separate? Beats me. People use the word love in a lot of situations. In fact, it is used so much that the meaning of love often gets lost. Then there is the relationship between love and sex. If we can love someone and not desire to have sex with them, it just seems we need two different kinds of words here. One love involves a desire to have sex with someone; another love exists without any desire for sex. If someone saves us from being run-over by a car we tell them we love them and always will. Wait a minute, now we love someone we hardly even know, forever no less. But how can you not love some one who just saved your life? I guess gratitude is different from love. In sports the word love gets thrown around a lot. In the armed services too. In politics too. “I hate Terrell Owens’ or “I love Terrell Owens” doesn’t do much to firm up a neat definition of love. How can one person ‘hate’ and another person ‘love’ the same individual? No wonder it is so hard to define love. Is this an objective logical decision—to hate or love Terrell Owens?
To make matters even more confusing, the easiest way to be loved is to die. Seems rather late to me, but at the funeral everyone is full of love for the deceased, or at least pretends to be. Or maybe, for most people, there is something within in them that can be loved. Like if you are on a debate stage with Trump and he doesn’t trash your personality or looks, maybe that is a reason to love him?
Perhaps it is best here to just shy away from the periphery of love and just concentrate on the word love as it applies to strong attractive feelings between two individuals. Now, should love be reserved for the person with whom we are most attracted to or can we love several others at the same time? What are the characteristics which make others love us, or us them? Physical attractiveness is a strong component of intense love. We may be assisting a group of younger people advance with their lives, and profess to ‘love’ all in the class. If the most physically attractive among them suddenly, at some point, when they are pleased about something, gives us a vigorous kiss right on our lips, we are not likely to be offended. If some sorry ass disheveled unattractive member of the group does the same thing, we are horrified. Why? I thought we loved them both.
Another huge hurdle for us here is the fact that “love” is not a stable feeling. It changes over time. In most marriages the operative word for “love” has to be redefined over time. Each person in a marriage changes over time, so of course how to ‘love’ them must change too. Sometimes it doesn’t, and the marriage ends after often a long drawn out debate over whose fault it was for the failure. It seems we simply get more mired down here the further along we proceed with trying to define the Perfect Love.
For practically everyone, the Perfect Love is simply out of reach. That’s because for practically all of us, we don’t have the personal qualities to attract this person who we could generate any perfect ‘love’ for them. We can’t practice our perfect love on those who prefer not to engage us in such an adventure. That’s a downer. We are out of the running to achieve the ‘perfect love’ before the attempt to do so even starts. Most guys know enough not to make a fool out of ourselves by asking the Prom Queen to the dance. Most gals know enough not to even make any flirtatious moves on the Prom King. You know, who wants to be publicly embarrassed. “I can’t believe he/she really thought she/him would be interested in them”. God have mercy on such naivety. So all of us sort of have to assess where we are on the dating ladder and see if someone in our range of attractive-ness can generate within us some form of ‘love’ toward them. Based on this we can assume those marriages between the most attractive potential partners will last longer than those forced to settle for less. Makes sense, yes. Is it true? No.
People who are highly attractable as mates usually have more divorces. Of course they do, finding another attractive mate is no problem at all. They don’t have to go to bars or internet dating sites or church events to meet new potential mates. Wherever they go potential mates are always right up in their face. Some experienced with varied sexual partners claim that the most physically attractive are less exciting in bed simply because they have to make so little effort to attract other people. In other words some people have to work hard and long to end up in bed for sex with someone and others simply have to smile at the nearest person of interest to them. And yet despite all of the above lengthy discourse, we use the same word love to define the relationship.
After 7 paragraphs it is clear defining the “Perfect Love” is hopeless. Those who claim to have found it are simply successful at being realists. They have settled in, accepted what they have, and have no interest in chasing after a new lover. They probably didn’t enjoy the chase before, they don’t wish to repeat it, and ‘enough is enough’. Maybe ‘love’ doesn’t even drive most marriages. Some sort of ‘roommates’ with kids may be a more apt description of the relationship. Some married couples are rarely apart; others rarely do anything together. Which is the better marriage? Beats me. Whatever works, works. Maybe we should define love as a relationship that works, and leave out any description of the feelings involved.
Perhaps we can at least separate initial love from lasting love. That is, youthful love vs mature love. It doesn’t seem they are the same at all. Sex plays a bigger role in youthful love. Well, probably most of the time. And what about those who marry for money, social position, a certain lifestyle, etc. What are we to think of the ‘gold diggers’? I suspect that some people care far move about a lifestyle then they do about an intense romantic sexual affair. Some people find sex way overrated and we haven’t even mentioned the various types of sexual activities. Some couples actually live some kind of open marriage. Jackie Kennedy didn’t really care about Jack’s extramarital affairs so long as he kept them under the table. Apparently it reduced the amount of sex she would be expected to engage in. Some women or men can never forgive a sexual affair by their spouse. Others work through it with less fuss. Divorce court must be a most bewildering endeavor.
Love expressed is not always sincere. There are often other ulterior motives. These can end up sad affairs and the hurt generated may never go away. So who is to blame? A middle aged OJ Simpson, who really thinks an 18 year old girl finds him the most lovable person out there, or the girl who values a lifestyle more than a romantic sexual affair? In this case someone ended up dead. Both played a dangerous game.
Love is one of the most unpredictable ventures of human life. Strangely, with animals, the hormones kick in, sexual behavior proceeds in a very predictable manner, a ’slam, bam, thank you ma’am’ and it’s over. Not so for humans: “Everybody’s journey is individual. You don’t know with whom you’re going to fall in love.....if you fall in love with the wrong color, wrong religion, wrong sex---you fall in love.” James Baldwin (American novelist, poet, social critic). If we assume this is basically the reality of love, then defining love is beyond human capability.
According to Professor Sam Wang at Princeton University, getting married makes us happier, on the average, for about 2 years, then that person’s happiness level goes back to where it was. That’s a tad weird. Marriage is a temporary measure to improve one’s happiness? The goal, I guess, should be to marry every two years. Maybe that gal in Kentucky who was on her fourth marriage and objected to gay marriage because it destroyed the sanctity of marriage, was brighter than we thought. The sanctity of marriage depends on a new marriage every two years. Huh? But aside from this, it tells us there is a period of time, the first two years of marriage, in which love is more ’special’ than at any other time. I am sure there are exceptions. But this means, if we want to retain that ‘perfect love’ feeling towards someone—lose them during the first two years of marriage, via death or any social norms which force a separation before it can start to fade. Then, every time we think of that person we will cherish the memory maximally—the best of love feelings will never go away. There had been no time for changes of varied ilk to impact on our love feelings toward them. Well, that certainly sounds like great memories to have. Yes and No. Yes, for obvious reasons, but no since this means any new amour has impossible standards to meet. We will never, for any length of time, be able to retain such warm feelings toward any new love compared to those we had for the ‘perfect love’ lost during the prime two year period. With the ‘perfect’ mate gone, attaching on to someone ‘less perfect’ will feel at least uncomfortable and unfair to the new mate.
It seems, in the matter of love, we can only roll with the punches and hunches. Few things are ever in flux like our state of love. Is putting such emphasis on marriage permanence really the best idea? Maybe there is no best answer since every ‘love match’ is unique, not governed by any general rules at all. We can’t even come up with any general rules which apply to the best interests of any children involved in a divorce. There are so many variables involved considering each parent, each child, differing environments, financial matters, etc. that every case is different. Marriage itself is changing, and not just with gays marrying. Marriages tend to occur later, they end in divorce more often, and the amount of stress involved is more than some can handle. Nothing new with the latter.
Love may be a powerful human experience, but also a very stressful experience. Courtship is stressful, having kids is stressful, and resulting divorce can be stressful, and readapting to changes in each spouse over time—both physical and mental—can be very stressful. I thought marriage was to generate eternal bliss. Many marriages, I have no idea what percentage, may well hang together solely because what one has in hand may be better than what will end up with in hand if the marriage is dissolved. And it seems marriage fits some like a glove and others like a strait jacket.
Love may not be all that it is cracked up to be, but the absence of love can lead to serious depression. Love, it seems, needs to come from somewhere. Even pets know that. Especially pets know that. But since love cannot be precisely defined, or controlled, or learned, it is more a crap shoot than anything else. Even whether it is more important that your mate love you or you love them gets tricky. Some people marry A rather than B because A loves them more. Another will marry person B because they love person B more than person A. Maybe the alternative is to hate everyone and be done with it all. Smile.
Can we trust our own feelings in matters of love? Maybe some can. Probably some can’t. How do we separate feelings of love from feelings about sex? Can love be sustained when feelings about types or frequency of sex vary? Can a marriage be successful in the absence of sex (apart from having children)? Are marriages of convenience always a mistake? My own impression, which means little here, is that there is nothing better than a good marriage, nothing worse than having gone through a bitter divorce, and being single is somewhere in between. I wouldn’t want to even hazard a guess as to what constitutes a good marriage. What we cannot understand is our own feelings when it comes to love, let alone understand anyone else’s feelings about love. On the few instances when someone might try to go into depth about why they love someone, we often feel “will you shut up already, enough is enough, if you love them, that is good enough for me. Now stifle yourself”. How many parents have said something similar to “What is “that” you have been hanging around lately? Are you blind or retarded? You are better than that. Now just come to your senses right now before you end up with painful regrets.” They may just as well talk to every third person they meet on the street in terms of affecting anything in that situation. Remember, “if you fall in love with the wrong color, wrong religion, wrong sex---you fall in love.” Probably can throw in the town idiot here. On the other hand, if diversity is a key player in evolution, than who is going to mate up with who, I reckon, requires some arbitrariness to enhance the genetic pool. We sometimes wonder “Who the hell parented this kid?” And I suspect there were times when my parents wondered, “What the hell did we do to deserve this kid”? Perfect love, like perfect health, or perfect happiness, and maybe Heaven, are all areas for daydreams. But that’s ok, daydreams help keep reality under control. Churchill had it all under control. When someone remarked that “if I were married to you, I would offer you a glass of poison”, Churchill responded: “And if I were your husband I would drink it.”
It is hard to think about the essence of, or definition of, or the consequences of, love without considering the term in relation to religion. Religion is often promoted as a social means to bring peace, love, fairness, compassion, and judicial judgement upon human societies. Yet religions have been one of the most—if not the most—divisive, destructive and brutal forces in human history. When viewing history through the lens of our evolutionary process, religion just doesn’t fit in as an evolving improvement over life on this planet. I suppose we are a lot less ignorant about our world than in the past; that we, for the most part, no longer burn witches at the stake, or disembowel people in a public square, or sacrifice animals or other humans on altars, and so on, but the number of people murdered, made homeless, discriminated against, used as slave laborers, and subjected to all sorts of injustices—for religious reasons——is still an overwhelming problem across the globe even today. In the more civilized nations across the world organized religion is in retreat. A smaller percentage of most members of any religion today are religious ‘purists’ obsessed with perceived ‘heathens’ all around them. Modern means of communication have forced more and more people into meaningful contact with diverse others. Thus, many artificial barriers are falling, not fast enough for any knock out punch, but fast enough to stir up intense anger amongst the remaining ‘faithful’. While more individuals are gravitating to the universal ethical principle of the “Golden Rule”, this just drives the remaining religious purists into a desperate last stand state of mind hell bent on destroying all these despicable heathens via any means, and the more barbaric, the better.
While all religions preach some sort of ‘love’, in practice love is hard to find, especially among the most faithful purists. Among the purists of any religion love is not very evident—judgement of each other and a seriousness at genocidal cleansing is what stands out. They have a weird sort of advantage in their attack on others—they genuinely believe God is on their side and that God wants them to punish all the heathens, preferably in the harshest and most cruel way possible. They are going to strike the fear of God into the hearts of others one way or another. Are there exceptions to this bleak picture? Of course, there will always be true believers of every religion who practice the Golden Rule every chance they get. It is noteworthy, albeit rather weird, that anyone who practices the Golden Rule seems to qualify for Heaven in practically every organized religion. What reason is there to love someone because of their religion? We love someone because of their behavior and looks and maybe other things, but not because of their religion. Imagine falling in love with someone and at some point they tell you they believe the earth is flat. Huh? Despite such an absurdity, on what basis would you fall out of love with them? Or at some point they inform you they are Buddhist? It does no harm to believe a lot of ‘nonsense’ as long as it does not change the way we relate to others.
In a very practical way, love is not comfortable in any purist religious setting. Neither is a lot of laughter. I think, if the Ayatollah ever laughed he would fracture his face. These are generalizations that perhaps beg some exceptions, but in general this seems to have merit. Despite all the energetic preaching, organized religions have a track record, a long track record, of barbarity and hate, and it is not a pretty picture.
Well this tractate is finished, for no better reason than it is too long, as usual, and is coming to no conclusion at any rate. Perfect Love is undefinable. I have always thought about the comment a Supreme Court Justice made about pornography, “I can’t define pornography, but I know it when I see it.” I started here to think the same way about perfect love, but caught myself——I wouldn’t know it if I did see it. Love, yes—but not perfect love. A particular level of love has no permanence, whatever constitutes a state of love is changing all the time. When we have a fond memory of a love affair we think of particular moments in time, not just any old moment and get the same feeling. I suspect most every one is leery of love and frightened by it precisely because we know whatever feelings we have will change over time, and we have no idea in what ways.
“Life’s a bitch and then you die.” (Don Carpenter ?). I think there is a caveat here——so I would add—not if you have a sense of humor and adopt the Golden Rule as the basis of your ethics. After all, God’s evolutionary process was not designed to please us. It is when we start to believe we are important to the process that depression/frustration sets in. Whatever love is, love when we can. It is good for our mental state. Of course the love must be expressed appropriately for the situation, or the subsequent commotion blow everything up.
“It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all”. This sounds right but also sounds like a thesis on it would need to be tested for any real credence.
“Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.” Carl Gustav Jung (Swiss psychologist, psychiatrist). This statement is directed at the love of diversity in a political sense. Somehow it seems to fit in with parenting also. There are so many different forms and applications of love that starting anything on this topic is going nowheres.
Let me put it all in perspective to escape here:
“What is an individual man? An atom, almost invisible without a magnifying glass---a mere speck upon the surface of the immense universe; not a second in time, compared to immeasurable, never-beginning, and never ending eternity; a drop of water in the great deep, which evaporates and is borne off by the winds; a grain of sand, which is soon gathered to the dust from which it sprung” Henry Clay (American lawyer, politician, orator). Considering our relative insignificance to the evolutionary process, it is hard to consider our inability to define ‘Perfect Love’ a meaningful failure. Maybe we think too much. Not that I have ever been guilty of making a mountain out of a mole hill. Sometimes I sits and thinks. Sometimes I just sits. Many, probably like me best when I just sits.
From henceforth perhaps I will sign correspondence: Yours, with imperfect love, RSJ
