Aging Capriciously

I doubt that a person ever existed who did not want love.  Love is older than the Greek gods, older than the Bible, older than the universe.  Everyone knows what love is and no one knows what love is.  Everyone wants love but few really know how to give love.  Love may be the most frequently used word in any language.   It is also probably the most frequently misused word in any language.  We search for love and many of us will never find it.  Some of us will find it at a very old age and some will find it while very young.  No amount of arguing will ever stop anyone from searching for love.

I could say that I am cynical on love and that would probably surprise no one who knows me.  However, I do not believe that I am a true skeptic on love.  Many ideas exist but are in the mind of the beholder.  I think love does exist, but love like quality is also in the mind of the beholder.  In quality improvement, we always argued that each person has a different definition of what quality is and what they would define as a quality product.  Love has same common elements that we all believe in but there are aspects of love that are unique to each of us.

Love is a word used in many semantic constructions.  People associate love with sex, marriage, partnership, and other types of relationships between human beings.  It is also common for the word love to be associated with inanimate objects and other animals.  For instance, people say “I love my car” or “I love my dog.”  These uses of the word trivialize the meaning of love.  Romantic novels (think Romeo and Juliet) portray love as undying or “dying” passion but seldom show the hard work required to keep love burning.  TV and movies feature continuous images of love based more on lust rather than what real love is.  Even Jesus the greatest prophet of love did not get the idea of love right.

Jesus gave one example of “true love” but missed the most significant example in his life.  Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” — John 15:13.  Many soldiers have given up their lives to save others in the course of war.  Often these soldiers were friends with the men they died for.  However, to say that they loved them is quite off the mark.  A number of years ago, I dove into a river to save a guy who was being dragged down the St. Croix River by its current.  He did not know how to get out of the current and was fighting it instead of going with it.  I swam out and brought him to shore.  He was very grateful.  I risked my life for this man.  I did not know this man and I certainly did not love him.  Many acts of heroism have been done by people out of a sense of responsibility or compassion, but I would not call these “acts of love.”

I propose that the greatest acts of love are to stand by someone when the world is bent on destroying them and you risk being destroyed along with them.  The love of a mother for a son convicted of a heinous crime is one of these acts.  Jesus’s mother Mary stood by the cross and watched her son die, never deserting his side.  I am sure she suffered insults and criticisms and was blamed for his behavior.  A mother who will feel love for her son or daughter no matter how grievous the crimes they have done is committing an act of love.

A few months ago, the news carried a story about a young man who had been in and out of trouble.  He went into a dinner with a gun, robbed several patrons and was shot in the back as he was leaving.  No charges were brought on the shooter.  As it turned out the gun that he used in the robbery was a water pistol.  The mother was questioned as to her thoughts.  She did not attack her son’s killer, nor did she defend her son’s behavior.  She did wonder if he really needed to be shot in the back as he was leaving.  I was struck by the mother’s sadness and love for her son.  It did not matter that he was a bad kid or that the whole of the media was gleeful about his being shot in the act; his mom’s (like Mary’s) love remained firm.

In my mind, acts like Mary’s and the unknown woman I described are true acts of love.  You will notice that in such cases, love is more than just a word.  It is a series of actions that we associate with the word.  I think it is the actions that help to define the word.  Like the Velveteen Rabbit became real because Christopher Robbins loved it.  Love takes time and does not happen overnight:

“Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit anymore, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn’t mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn’t matter.”  — From the Velveteen Rabbit by  Margery Williams

One of the most common tropes in movies and shows concern what I call the “Two Ships Passing in the Night Love Model.”  Individuals who seem to resonate with each other go about their daily business and never tell the other person how they feel.  This has been a part of so many shows that I have watched that I am losing count.  You sit there and wonder episode after episode if they will ever say anything before it is too late.  It is frustrating as you want them to get together and say, “I love you.”

“Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” —  1 John 3:18

I thought about this problem for a while.  Many would say it was just a writer’s trick to get you to keep coming back for the next episode.  You get hooked on whether or not they will ever consummate their love either physically or emotionally.  It is a rather good hook but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was really art mimicking life.  I have been guilty of the same behavior and many people I know have also been guilty of the same behavior.  We fail to say I love you when it counts the most.  We can say that we love our new shoes or that we love our cat easily enough, but we have a hard time telling friends and relatives that we love them.  We often abbreviate the sentiment with “Love you” or we use the term generically.  “See you later folks, love all of you.”  The simple act of looking someone in the eyes and saying “I love you” is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks that many of us face.

But what is true love anyway?   Is loving a person in the same ballpark as loving your dog or your new shoes?  Would you give up your life for your cat or your shoes?  There are many elements that are part of true Love.  A life without true love is rather sad but more common than many people realize.  How many people do you know who took marriage vows only to divorce within ten years or less?  How many of these people were willing to go to a marriage counselor before they divorced?  How many of them just gave up on the other person before giving them a chance to change or giving themselves a chance to change?   My elements of true love include:

• Facing hard times together
• Fighting constructively and making up
• Loyalty to the other person
• Honoring your commitments to each other
• Saying “I Love You” often
• Forgiving each other verbally and often
• Being willing to sacrifice for the other person
• Thinking of the other person before you think of yourself
• Sharing passion, happiness, sadness, and death together

I am sure that I have missed some important elements of True Love.  Please feel free to add any you can think of in my comments section.

Remember, you really cannot find “True Love.”  So don’t bother searching for it.  You have to create it.