“I am mastering my love for you and
turning it inwards as a constituent element of myself.”
This declaration
(of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir) left me speechless when I first
discovered it. It seemed to me a deeply profound statement on the nature of
love, and still does.
Love is demanding,
it hits all the soft spots—both pleasurable and irritable. It causes me to
doubt my belief in it, despite the certainty that love is all there is.
It also delights
in rubbing my nose in my own bullshit—the limits to which I play well with
others.
And yet, I always
find myself compelled in the direction of love, despite the imperfect
execution.
Why the hell
not?
Rilke famously
pointed out that love is the work, for which all other work, is mere preparation.
Well said. Meaning, it seems to me, that playing well together requires a
little insight and effort.
Learning to love
is simultaneously an effort which puts us in touch with the throbbing warmth of
our own radiant core as much as that of our lover.
There are no guarantees
of course—other than the assurance, one way or another, that we will be
transformed.
I wouldn’t have
it any other way—mastering my love for another such that, turning it inwards,
it becomes a constituent element of myself—there is no more beautiful thing in
the world than that.
