What is Love?

“There is only one happiness in life: To love, and be loved.” George Sand

First, love is an action. It requires doing. We all may feel “love” or “loving” but until we put that feeling into practice, until we can hold hands unconsciously, until we can caress for hours, until we can inhale the fragrance of each other the way we enjoy a rose, until we can taste the soft perfect lips of the one we love in our dreams, until there is no difference between a shared smile and a shared orgasm, until being in each other’s presence IS making love, until then, all that exists is the idea of love. Sitting home alone pining, hoping, or waiting is not love or loving. Love requires expression, it needs to be given constantly. Secondly, Love requires someone to accept it. It requires, at least, the opportunity to say, “I love you”.

True Love and Bliss occur when the complete expression of love, and complete acceptance of love, is mutual. Which can be summed up by this line from Van Morrison, “…to love the love that loves to love the love...”. When love becomes True Love, and when Bliss has been experienced, it is necessary to protect it. This is an amazingly rare state of grace. It is so precious that all other considerations, even one’s health, should become secondary. Our survival is critical of course, we need to live first before we can love, we need to love ourselves before we can love others. Mental and physical health is an absolute necessity – but not at the expense of loving. Working hard and saving all your money so you can one day have fun may have some practical value but you could die tomorrow and then, what would all your efforts have gotten you? We all live on earth for whatever length of time we are here – for some the time is short, for others long, for some it is easy, for others it is excruciating, for some it is organized, for others it is spontaneous – but nothing -- not money, not health, not wisdom, not 10,000 friends -- nothing comes close to the ecstasy that happens between two perfect lovers in perfect love. Seeking, finding, and experiencing true and perfect love is the only reason for living. Bliss, I think, is the purpose of our lives. To trade it for anything else, even for life over death, is foolish.

The state of Bliss exists when two people, in the expression of their most honest vulnerable selves, in the giving of their most intimate sensuality, are received and accepted by the other as EXACTLY perfect – as exactly the right combination of look, taste, smell, sound, and touch. Bliss exists when there is no thought of how to be or what to do, no fear of giving, no fear of being taken advantage of, no fear of receiving. Bliss exists when Love is fearless and ego-less – when Love has no pride, no agenda, and no unfulfilled desire. Bliss is no desire at all because with True Love, all needs are met -- naturally and lovingly. True Love is pure passion without desire, pure lust without want. Does this sound odd? Love without desire? But what if desire never matters? Consider how the desire for food diminishes during a gourmet meal. The flavor and experience are what is important – mere hunger becomes irrelevant. What if every moment of everyday were like a gourmet meal? Two lovers nibbling on each other’s passion and joy? Where would need or desire be? – except as reflected in their desire to continue to savor their exquisite dinner forever?

I am not sure how much of a role pheromones play in Love. Chemistry is certainly critical. But whether that “chemistry” comes from the actual chemicals we unconsciously smell, or from a “love at first sight” experience, or from a new evolving friendship, or from a 30 year old dream, or from a cosmic, past life connection, or just from the magic of a smile – something needs to happen to make two people take notice that there is something special between them. Maybe there are hundreds or thousands of different people we could experience love with – if we could only meet them and if we had the time – or maybe we already know someone we could love but we are not in a position to act on our feelings (or we don’t allow ourselves to acknowledge the feelings) -- but I think True Love and Bliss are reserved for a very very small number of couples, and when they finally do experience True Love and Bliss, it will be impossible to ignore, and even harder to forget.

I think we all have crushes throughout our lives -- the key is to figure out which of the many people we may be attracted to over the course of our life is someone we could truly love. And I mean truly Love, not simply “be a couple with and manage a household”. My parents had no bliss, no harmony, no joy, no happiness, very little sensuality, and even less sex, yet they were a functional couple for 40 years. They each had their roles and they played them. If they ever truly “loved” each other, it was lost when the marriage/partnership started, and they ended up not as lovers but as mere neighbors or housemates. Certainly, if we choose to live with the one we love – which, ultimately, it is not a choice but the inevitable result of the desire for continued bliss – it is essential to work out how to live and function and share the responsibilities of living in the real world. But (and this is where my experience fails me) coming to an understanding of each other’s histories, perspectives, and methods for dealing with the real world is hard. It should be as easy as making blissful love together -- but it isn’t. The problem with the real world creeping in is that our reactions to how our lover deals with it are not usually based on objective reality but on our own intransigence and certainty that our methods for dealing with the real world are right, or best, or the only way, or that our lover’s way is somehow pathological ---- which it may be, but that is not the point. The point is that true love equals true and full acceptance of all that our lovers do and don’t do. This is hard but not impossible to achieve -- it just takes a willingness to allow both sorrow and joy into our hearts, the good sense to not judge others, and the strength to have no expectations of your lover. The only thing that can kill true love is the notion that you deserve something more than your lover can give freely and lovingly. “I expect and need this or that” should never be uttered (nor should it have to be uttered) by any mature, loving person to any other – especially not to his or her true love. The real world makes demands on all of us but we should not lay those demands or stresses at the feet of our lover. If they wish to help carry our burden, that is wonderful, but if they can’t do it lovingly and without stress, it is not a reflection of a problem with their love for us, but only a reflection of how they cope with life. It is so sad that two people can be blissful when dealing with each other but can become completely estranged over how the other deals with the outside world. You would think it would be the other way around. You would hope that it wouldn’t matter at all.

Sadly though, for idealists like me, there is a real world -- it permeates everything, scars our souls, and can destroy love in an instant – but it must be dealt with. But we all have different goals and values, and different emotional and intellectual ideals and motivations. How can two people find common ground? One way would be to enter into an arranged marriage at 16, be assigned a role and jobs to perform for the household (gender-based or otherwise) and, as long as each partner did what he or she was expected to do to maintain or increase the standard of living within the house, and as long as how they did this was acceptable to the larger society, the husband and wife could grow in their love and respect for each other. They may someday even grow to experience emotional and sensual harmony, i.e Bliss. But, ironically, two people who fall in love, experience Bliss on a daily basis, and then enter into a household partnership (with the attendant societal expectations and stresses), are inevitably (it seems) doomed to grow apart. Is there a happy medium? Yes. Her name is Madame Zuzu, and she lives in Woodstock and sniffs glue…. But, more importantly, we should ask if there is a happy middle-ground. Where can two people remain blissful in the face of the pressures of building a home together? Is there a place? Yes, it is called a desert island….or, if claustrophobia is a problem, a motorhome will do.

So, have I answered your question? No, I am sure I have not. Then let me put it a different way:

Love, is looking into the eyes of someone you may otherwise be very angry with, and being unable to stop from breaking into a smile. When my presence elicits feelings of joy in someone, and when their presence does the same for me, and when this mutual admiration gets bounced back and forth in waves, each time getting stronger and stronger until the only way to stem the tide is to try to meld our two bodies into one --- this, to me, is Love.

“Love is a teardrop on a smiling lip”