Love is the manifested blend of Art and Philosophy

From “We shall stay together Forever. . .”, to “Get out of my life. . .”

 From “I cannot live without you. . .”, to “Never show me your face again. .

What makes a relationship travel from one end to the other? What drives the two individuals involved in love to part their ways painfully?

When two people stay together in happy times, why can’t they stand together in the hardest times to stay together?

The general reasons are misunderstandings, over possessiveness, friends, family, circumstances, cultural restrictions, loyalty and so on. The relationships that break up for the above reasons do not last more than a span of 3 years. There are a few cases that last more than 3 years but break up for the same reasons too. 

Well, the above reasons are superficial. The actual reason is profoundly philosophical. The relationship culture prevalent today, dominated by insecurity and hypocrisy, is a manifestation of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of young minds in pursuit of life. With the amount of moral and intellectual corruption of today’s world, an individual’s perceptibility to fully know, understand and experience life to its potential is destroyed to an extent that happiness has become alienated, that suffering has become a natural state of life. The internal reasons for that corruption cannot be included in this discussion about love. I shall write a separate explanation later. 

RELATIONSHIP – A MEANINGLESS TAG

Relationship, a familiar term that stays with us from the early teens till late adulthood. Break up is another term that follows. The well-known but evaded truth about today’s relationship culture is: “A teenage guy or one in early adulthood desires a beautiful girl for his gratification of sexual pleasure, similarly, a girl needs a guy who can give her relief from boring family situations and friends, sometimes emotional support in dramatic situations.”

A simple equation with mutual dependence and a good business deal. This business deal is beautifully named as Love. The final but false objective of this deal is Marriage. 

The initial steps of beginning a relationship are well known and need no citation here. Beginnings are beautiful and exciting as the experience is new to the individuals involved and original faces are yet to be explored. A relationship usually begins with a commitment in weeks. The point to be concerned here is the psychological root of motive in making such a decision. 

An important question that reveals the root of the motive is, “How can one individual conclude to live with another individual for a lifetime in a span of 2 or 3 months?”

The reason for early commitment is insecurity. If the guy reveals his physical necessity too early, the girl refuses and there is a chance of losing her. If the girl accepts a physical relationship without security, she would lose her character. Commitment here acts as a sugarcoating for the objectives which they semi-consciously sweep under the carpet. Hence, commitment is the beginning of every successful failure love story. It is the climax of every beautiful love story. After the commitment, every fundamental pleasure both can give each other is explored in the process of meetings, gifts, romance, parties, emotional dialogues. All this happens in a euphoric state and time flies with beautiful moments. 

Later in the course begins the drama of possessiveness, insecurity, monitoring everything from What’s app last seen to Instagram followers, to past proposals to personal decisions, every little aspect of the other individual’s life is monitored in the disguise of care. Insecurity is the only reason for conflicts in a relationship. Neither of the two will try to make a conscious analysis of their insecurities. This evasion of insecurities leads to false promises and slowly hypocrisy and boredom leaps in. This is the time where the individuals lose interest in each other and try to drag their love and the tag called Relationship holds them together. Finally, one wrong text message, a small misunderstanding, a friend’s wrong advise brings everything to an end and break up is the final result with a lot of emotional drama. Break up is the most difficult stage for the individuals involved. It is a roller-coaster ride of a mixture of pain, memories, quest for reassurance, guilt and contempt. 

 This is the most common course of a relationship. All through the course, there is attraction, excitement, there are euphoric emotions, nicknames, lifetime promises, dependence, dominant insecurity, boredom and finally guilt and contempt. But there lacks one central ingredient which is the base for Love. 

When a friend of mine told me about the conflict in her relationship, I asked her one question. “What are you people to each other without the tag of Relationship or Commitment between you? What is your partner to you as an individual and what are you to him as an individual?”

There was no straight answer.

Because, there was everything that could build a relationship, but one element that could build Love was absent. Respect. A profound mutual respect for Life.

 It is easy for a man to utter, “I will be there for you till the end” holding his partner in his arms. Because the euphoric state acts as the driver. To utter the same line in the face of conflict determines the honesty of any relationship. 

Ever wondered why either of the individuals blames the other individual or tries to make the other feel guilty during break up? 

Because the whole span of the relationship has been an act of possession and a reversal of  

“The Law of Casualty” and the emotional chaos is the direct consequence of it.

THE LAW OF CASUALTY

The Law of Casualty is the ‘Law of Cause and Effect’. Nature permits no breach in the order of cause and effect. There can be no effect possible without cause and effect cannot generate cause. 

Love is not a means to an end. When love is used as a means of gratification of sexual desire or any other end, the consequence is guilt and contempt. That guilt and contempt are real. They are a direct result of one’s conscious evasion of truth.

Guilt is the result of giving a lifetime commitment by evading one’s judgement of practical aspects of life.

If you ever listened to a person uttering about his or her partner being unworthy of his or her love after a long relationship, here is the answer. 

How can one person become worthy of another person’s emotional desire or wish? 

Your emotional desire for the other person is the result of your perception of the person’s attributes, an effect of the other person being worthy of your desire. Your emotional desire cannot cause the person to become worthy of your desire. This is the reversal of the law of casualty.

The reason why insecurity becomes a dominant element in love is lack of self-value. 

Love is a celebration of self-value, a celebration of the fact that one is worthy of being desired for what he or she is. Self-esteem is the result of facing existence and life with an independent judgement of one’s mind. Self-esteem is the essence of love.

Insecurity is the result of seeking self-value for what one is not, seeking self-esteem from one’s inability to deal with existence. When an individual seeks self-value from the other individual, then it is merely faking one’s existence. A man cannot survive by faking his value. 

The act of seeking self-value from that which is not ‘self’s not a mere reversal, but a negation of the law of casualty. 

Making an emotional commitment as the base for continuing a relationship is another case. 

The aspect of an individual sharing his or her life with another individual is a decision that requires a profound understanding of one’s judgement, a scrupulous intellectual focus, time to analyze each other’s character attributes, intellectual state, a judgement of life values from simple moral choices to dealing complex conflicts and the nature of the pursuit of life. A fundamental understanding of such aspects takes at least 2 years of travelling together. If mutual respect is the result of such an understanding, the commitment will be a natural effect. But commitment cannot be the cause for togetherness.

Such is the role of the law of casualty in Love. If love feels burdensome or break up has given you unbearable guilt and contempt, check your premises, you might have tried to reverse the law.

If a relationship does not grow beyond foolish insecurities and possessiveness, and gives pain and contempt instead of joy and exaltation, trying to redeem Love by emotions is not the solution, but to check one’s intellectual premises, to check one’s fundamental view of life, one’s understanding of the concept of Love, one’s objective in pursuit of Love.

LOVE – AN EXPRESSION OF PHILOSOPHY

To say I Love You, one must know first how to say the I.

-Ayn Rand

To understand Love, one must first understand Life. 

Metaphysically Life is an independent entity. It is a self-sustaining process that takes place in co-ordination with Nature and Existence. It is self-sufficient and negates dependence on other living entity for its sustenance. Dependence on Nature is set by Nature, dependence on other living entity is a negation of Nature. A Tree does not depend on another tree for its survival and sustenance, an animal does not depend on another animal for hunting. Similarly, a man cannot depend on another man in any way for his physical and emotional sustenance, dependence is a negation of the nature of life.  

Man is an integration of body, consciousness, mind. It is the integrated function of these three elements that result in an experience of Life. It is the through perceptibility of a man’s consciousness and the integration of those percepts into rational terms by a man’s mind that a man develops his knowledge of existence, experiences emotions and lives his life. 

Metaphysically, every human emotion is a response to the mind’s perception of existence, of entities, of actions. No human emotion can be causeless. A man’s perception of an entity when integrated by his conscious mind generates a response in the human body, which is felt or experienced as an effect. Naturally, a human being seeks joy, pleasure, happiness. To experience them, he must know and understand what gives him joy or pleasure and then he must act. In the process of acting man faces Nature, Existence and forms a view of himself and existence. It is one’s fundamental view of existence, of oneself and of one’s way of facing existence that determines the character, the soul of an individual, which is a complex sum of his sub-conscious philosophy.

Lover is the reflection of one’s outlook of Art and representation of one’s Philosophy

Respect, Admiration, Love is a profound emotional response that arises in an individual as a response to the fundamental view of existence or the character of another individual. When respect for another individual’s character is integrated with a profound romantic-sexual desire, it is called Love. Love is not, what one calls, a matter of the heart. It is not a primary or superficial, independent emotion. Love is one of the most profound values of a Man’s life through which he experiences the exaltation of his spirit. It is an integration of two greatest values of Man’s life and his nature – Philosophy and Art. Perhaps, no other aspect of man’s existence requires philosophy and art so desperately. With his philosophy, Man makes his fundamental life choices and pursues the course of his life. With Art, Man builds his character and shapes the style of his soul. The exaltation of his soul is the final reward of his Philosophy and Art as an integrated sum.

The ultimate manifestation of love is Sex. The nature of the act has a profound effect on a man’s soul. As an act of expression of Philosophy, the result is an exaltation of man’s spirit, a sense of pride for life and Existence. As an expression of an unknown and causeless desire, the result is guilt, contempt for oneself and existence. Love is one of the highest values of man’s life through which he experiences an exaltation of his spirit which is the highest reward and expression of love for existence. 

Conclusion

To experience love, in a profound from as such, one should first have a profound respect for one’s life, one’s living spirit, that spirit which longs for exaltation as its only state of existence.