the art of loving

"There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly as love." - Eric Fromm


It is really quite phenomenal that love is so commonly identified or labeled as just some vague sensation or quasi-unknown/graspable feeling that can just magically appear or degenerate just as swiftly.

"I am sooooo in love with you!" "Um, I just don't feel it anymore..."


The modern state of love seems to be rooted in that which most western lives are - passivity.

People passively sit by as elections are out right stolen, people passively watch the television for hours or passively "stalk" on facebook, people passively give up the ownership and responsibility of their own actions or emotions with "You make me angry!" and "You hurt me!" etc... and so it would just make sense that most people are passive participants to that which they call love. "I am totally falling in love with him!" As if love is an accident for which we know no other name...

What can we possibly be expecting when we place the same mindless value on love as we do as getting into a slight fender bender on the 101? "It doesn't seem like there was any damage..."

No wonder the majority of our country find themselves in a state of divorce or constant and consistent failure in relationships. How can we be so carelessly engaged in what (perhaps arguably?) is the most important aspect of our lives? Would we choose to engage in our career choices with the same kind of nonchalant behavior and attitude? Oh, I just fell into this job, and well, maybe one day I'll fall out, whatever is whatever (not to say that that never happens...) but, would that really be the most intelligent way most of us would choose to set ourselves up?

Can any of us articulate what this allusive love even is?


When most of us have dated for years, and are quick to get down with the sensual and sexual, what part of this "love" has anything to do with actual love? Touch is so powerful. We recognize its ability to harness intimacy but we don't ever think (at least not while in a relationship) of its power to create illusory feelings of intimacy. You get together, the chemistry is off the hook, the sex is mind blowing, all of a sudden you are saying your vows of love and then 3 months later - snap - what happens? "Uhh, this just isn't what I had in mind," or " I just see that we are too different." Whatever it is that you wish to place here - You were ignoring that touch was creating a bond with someone you maybe shouldn't have been bonding with. (Or, you could say that the sex was worth it, hence, whatever- all is fair, but my point is about love. Not the sex.) It seems to me that from all my personal experience and that of many friends is that this "vague feeling of I'm soooo in love" is rooted in this passive acceptance of love, or of what love possibly is.


As if love is not an action.


But - love. is. an. action.


Love. is. a. choice.

If I were to answer "What is love?" with, "Love is the attachment that results from deeply appreciating one an other's goodness," would my friends laugh at me? If I were to proclaim that love is lasting when it is built on a full and deep appreciation of who someone besides you is, would that sound very hot, immediate, or romantic?

Probably not so much.

But this is love. This appreciation, this goodness, comes from giving. You can't be a lover if you aren't a giver. Right, I mean, hello! Been with someone who sucked in bed? I will guess that they weren't much of a giver (at least to you...) Unfortunately, most of the "dating" world is all about getting. What am I going to get out of this? Expensive dates, some hot tail, change of pace, relief from loneliness, boredom...? I mean, who can really say that their experience at large dating in the modern urban environment is one of "Oh, please, let me give to you, I want to give to you!"

I look to my parents when I try to place giving in the framework of love. I have never given what my parents have given, I do not even barely remotely know yet (if ever) that frame of existence - to give on par or beyond the needs of yourself to another. This is why they say a parents love for a child is greater than any other type of live- probably (and hopefully - there are abusive parents out there) it would be because who else has ever given so much? I know plenty of people who give completely to their children - and beyond that. I know off hand at least a few friends who have actually said they know that their mothers not only gave to them, but sacrificed for them. Again, not that any child even asked for that. It just is. This giving. This love.

If true giving is other oriented, what are the elements that giving is composed of?

Care, Responsibility, Respect, and Knowledge. None of these qualities are trite or by rote. They require thought, diligence, nurturing. They have to be articualted. They have to be worked on, developed. Because they are chosen.

All of this sounds about as sexy as that moment when you both realize you have to stop to go find a condom. Shit.

We get involved with someone and at least in my circle it tends to be - go out to a bar, hook up, suddenly spend a lot of time with each other, and either it ends, or you move in with each other... and then it ends. On to the next, chalk it up to practice, another notch on the belt. But what has it really done? Maybe things end well, and now you have just another friend who you once had sex with. Maybe that was worth it all. But maybe things get ugly, and one is angry and hurt, and the other is bitter and resentful. People put more walls up, they have even more blocks than they did from their last 50 odd partners in regards to trusting. How messed up can someone get in the game of "love?" For something that is essential to our lives and our well beings, how in the hell can we choose to be passive about it?