“To fall in love is to create a religion
that has a fallible god.”
–Jorge Luis Borges
When I saw this
quote it spoke the truth so clearly that I had to share it, particularly as
Valentine’s Day is upon us.
I view
Valentine’s Day with a degree of skepticism for the fact that it is among the
most saccharine of all the holidays in our calendar year and, therefore, the
one that holds the most potential for leading us down the garden path to
disillusion and disappointment.
I am not against
the idea of people celebrating a genuine love for each other on this day, but
the fact that love in modern society is often conceptualized as a one
dimensional, too pink, fluffy and soft sort of entity. Love has two sides, a
light and a dark, just like everything else.
If we do not
honour the dark as well as the light in love, we end up with expectations that
reality cannot sustain. To be human is to be fallible and any legitimate
concept of love must acknowledge and embrace this if it is to be real.
Our partners
will be eternally grateful to us for taking them off the pedestal we often
place them on. For this mental shift has the potential to deepen our experience
of love, to give it roots and greater stability than more sentimental notions
of it can bear.
Sentimentality
has its place of course, but it needs to be enjoyed knowing that love is not
confined to warm, tender feelings.
Love is only
love in my opinion if it is robust, if it is unconditional and has a liberating
effect. Which is to say, that love should have the best interests of all in
mind and lead to psychological warmth, even as it may challenge our personal
worldview, make us uncomfortable and force us to grow in ways we habitually
avoid out of fear.
I guess what I
am saying is that love is more complex and multi-dimensional than this pink and
red-hearted holiday really allows for, and that living in ignorance of this
reality is wildly problematic.
Falling in love
is fun, it feels good, but turning that experience into a religion of sorts, by
likewise turning our lover into an object of worship, is playing Russian
Roulette with the heart—a course of action that most often does not end well.
So love with
awareness. Love enough to let go of any self-interested, subterranean agendas
and just let it be a gift.
And remember,
this is a gift we need to confer on ourselves, not just those surrounding us.
Love passionately. Live deeply. Be real.
