I’ve always struggled to understand the meaning of the word Love. My first understanding of the word was through movies, which necessarily meant romantic attraction. I also experienced parental love growing up – the feeling of being protected, nurtured and cuddled by my parents.
Earlier generations, especially the Christians, elevated love as nurture through the iconography of the Mother and the child. Moreso perhaps, to a Christian, love would be something more abstract – such as the love of God, or love as sacrifice symbolised by the image of the crucifixion. Our culture, on the other hand, has elevated romantic love to perhaps the pinnacle of human emotions. But there is also the love for objects, things and activities. We freely say, “I love Chinese food”, or “I love to read and dance” or “I love my country”.
With such a diversity of definitions, most of us aren’t clear as to what love is. We think we know it. We certainly feel it. But we scarcely understand it. Much pain in personal relationships arise from our confusion of what it means to love. We can begin to discern various forms of love by looking at two movements of our mind and emotions. One movement is an inward movement, it is a bringing of the thing towards ourselves and the other is an outward movement, it is an expression of the self to the world. Let’s look at some examples.
“I love Chinese food” – this is a bringing of the object towards ourselves. But when we say, “I love cooking Chinese food” – it goes beyond the mere consumption of the food. Now, one has to involve oneself fully to cook well. And as long as it isn’t a chore, we experience joy when we cook, eat and share the meal with our close ones.
Another example might be, “I love classical music”. The listening can be passive, that is, music playing in the headphones when one is doing other things. The active or the outward movement is when we can play the piano or the clarinet. But, intent listening that involves the use of the emotions and the intellect can also qualify as active. For instance when a listener can tell the difference between, Karajan’s Beethoven’s 5th of 1964 and 1972 – is also an active, expressive activity. Why? Because it involves the effort in understanding, in analysing, in deep listening – all in all – it is a bringing of oneself to the activity. It demands attention and focus.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the book Flow: The classic work on how to achieve happiness, differentiates between these two movements by using the terms pleasure and enjoyment. Pleasure being passively involved in something, whereas enjoyment being an active involvement in the activity. He puts it beautifully:
Experiences that give pleasure can also give enjoyment, but the two sensations are quite different. For instance, everybody takes pleasure in eating. To enjoy food, however, is more difficult. A gourmet enjoys eating, as does anyone who pays enough attention to a meal so as to discriminate the various sensations provided by it. As this example suggests, we can experience pleasure without any investment of psychic energy, whereas enjoyment happens only as a result of unusual investments of attention. A person can feel pleasure without any effort, if the appropriate centers of the brain are electrically stimulated, or as a result of the chemical stimulation of drugs. But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow. Chapter 3.
We therefore see, that it is the quality of our involvement that determines whether we partake in life passively or actively. When we learn to express our creativity, our energies into our hobbies, profession, home, friendships and our intimate relationships – those activities and relationships begin to flourish. Which brings us to the crux of what so many of us struggle today – intimate relationships.
Intimate relationships like all relationships, and indeed, like all activities, requires effort, work and sacrifice. The difference though is that most of us think that love ought to be easy. I’ve heard so many people talk of soulmates and love entails effortlessness. There is some truth to this – the greater the similarity of values and habits – the easier it is to get along. But we also see challenges in relationships where both partners are strikingly similar. Whoever the partner may be, relationships involve work. Erich Fromm puts it well:
Not that people think that love is not important. They are starved for it; they watch endless numbers of films about happy and unhappy love stories, they listen to hundreds of trashy songs about love – yet hardly anyone thinks that there is anything that needs to be learned about love. This peculiar attitude is based on several premises which either singly or combined tend to uphold it. Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love (emphasis mine).
Erich Fromm. The Art of Loving. Chapter 1.
Learning how to develop one’s capacity to love involves a reorientation of one’s priorities and attention. To do this, one must begin to recognise love as something that needs to be worked on, as a skill that I need to expend energy to achieve – akin to developing a skill. Csikszentmihalyi again:
Every relationship requires a reorienting of attention, a repositioning of goals. When two people begin to go out together, they must accept certain constraints that each person alone did not have: schedules have to be coordinated, plans modified. Even something as simple as a dinner date imposes compromises as to time, place, type of food, and so on… When two people choose to focus their attention on each other, both will have to change their habits; as a result, the pattern of their consciousness will also have to change. Getting married requires a radical and permanent reorientation of attentional habits.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow. Chapter 8.
The problem is that, to most people, work sounds boring and anti-romantic. But if we can begin to take relationships as an opportunity to learn, to grow, to discover the other – then all that work is not work at all – but play. Just as the cook who loves Chinese food, lovingly washes, cuts and prepares the vegetables, sautee them and do all that is necessary to make the dish, the person in the relationship enjoys the activities in planning, changing, adjusting and accommodating the other. The goal is not to achieve a perfect equilibrium but the goal is in the enjoyment of the process itself. These activities, that are enjoyed unto themselves, are called intrinsically motivated activities. In contrast, when one does it to achieve a state of idealized perfection, or to show the world that we are a perfect couple, this becomes an extrinsically motivated activity. Meister Eckhart puts it beautifully when he says,
“We should not think that holiness is based on what we do, but rather on what we are; for it is not our works which sanctify us, but we who sanctify our works (emphasis mine).”
Meister Eckhart. Talks of Instruction. Chapter 6.
So, perhaps then, love is the bringing of oneself to the other and not the grabbing of the other to fit our perception. We bring enjoyment (sanctify) into our relationships and not the other way around. This bringing of oneself to the relationship, in my own experience, has two fundamental components.
Acceptance, which means seeing that this person has been brought here by God, or by Nature and its processes. Therefore fighting against some of their traits and habits is useless. This is a bringing of one’s non-contemptuous attention to the other. It is a holding of the other, as they are, in one’s awareness.
Naturally, this doesn’t mean that we do not request them to change some of their troubling habits, or have expectations that they will treat us well. But always recognising their inherent self-worth to be better humans. It is belief in their inherent potential for change, and for self-expression. Acceptance is not resignation, for that is a passive stance – “I don’t care what you do or who you are. Live and let live”. This is a withdrawal of love, of attention and of involvement from the other person, and is often the beginning of the end of love. True acceptance is a depersonalisation of the other’s actions and reactions. We often get personally offended when the other says or does something that is rude or goes against our values. Acceptance is seeing that these actions came from who they are – here and now. And that they are imperfect souls. And extending a hand to them out of kindness to help them grow and become a better person.
The second component is Loving Expression – the pouring of oneself, one’s creative energies into the other. This can take the form of having a strong urge to help them with their lives, caring for them, planning for them, co-creating a vision together, or bringing physical affection to them. There is great joy in this expression, and one desperately wants to unburden oneself – just like a cow moos in desperation until it is milked. Erich Fromm again:
Love is an activity, not a passive affect. It is a”standing in”, not a “falling for”… Love is primarily giving, not receiving.
For a productive character, giving has an entirely different meaning. Giving is the highest expression of potency. In this very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.Erich Fromm. The Art of Loving. Chapter 1.
But what is it that one gives? Gifts? Praise? Affection? Money? Fromm seems to suggest that the greatest act of giving is the giving of oneself.
The most important sphere of giving, however, is not that of material things, but lies in the specifically human realm. What does one person give to another? He gives of himself, of the most precious he has, he gives of his life. This does not necessarily mean that he sacrifices his life for the other—but that he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness – of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in him. In thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person, he enhances the other’s sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness.
Erich Fromm. The Art of Loving. Chapter 1.
But how does one give oneself? What is needed to give fully to the other? Primarily it requires psychological worth or self esteem. To understand this we can look at Nathaniel Brandon’s classic work, ‘The Six Pillars of Self Esteem’. He says,
If I enjoy a fundamental sense of efficacy and worth, and experience myself as lovable, then I have a foundation for appreciation and loving others. The relationship of love feels natural; benevolence and caring feels natural (emphasis mine). I have something to give; I am not trapped in feelings of deficiency; I have a kind of emotional “surplus” that I can channel into loving. And happiness does not make me feel anxious… But if I lack respect for and enjoyment of who I am, I have very little to give – except my unfulfilled needs. In my emotional impoverishment, I tend to see other people essentially as sources of approval or disapproval. I do not appreciate them for who they are in their own right. I see only what they can or cannot do for me. I am not looking for people whom I can admire and with whom I can share the excitement and adventure of life. I am looking for people who will not condemn me – and perhaps will be impressed by my persona. My ability to love remains undeveloped. This is one of the reasons why attempts at relationships so often fail – not because the vision of passionate or romantic love is intrinsically irrational, but because the self-esteem needed to support it is absent.
Nathaniel Branden. The Six Pillars of Self Esteem. Chapter 1.
To love requires some amount of self worth. Lack of self worth means that the relationship is forever stuck in an accuse-defend dynamic. Both partners are insecure to start with and are using the other to bring out their insecurities – almost like an external mirror to their internal selves. Thus a person with low self-esteem ends up sabotaging the relationship. Brandon again,
Or, if I pick someone with whom happiness might be possible, I subvert the relationship by demanding excessive reassurances, by venting irrational possessiveness, by making catastrophes of small frictions, by seeking to control through subservience or domination, by finding ways to reject my partner before my partner can reject me.
Nathaniel Branden. The Six Pillars of Self Esteem. Chapter 1.
This sabotage is really a mechanism of the fragile ego where it tries to recompense itself from the feelings of insecurity. A person who’s sense of self is not well developed may be functional and even successful in society’s terms – money, possessions, status and cherished awards and life experiences – but the cracks in their personality begins to appear when they are alone. Solitude seems to be scary. They require a constant stream of people, events, experiences and situations to keep these feelings from resurfacing. They could also have compulsive and irrational behaviours that often do self-harm – overindulgence in food, sex, drink and drugs. And the indulgence in risky behaviors. It isn’t that they aren’t intellectually aware that these habits are causing harm to them, but they are compelled to indulge in them as a form of escape from their own self. Self-love is really self-acceptance. This requires a deprogramming of the expectations of our parents, people close to us and the pressures of society to conform to its standards. Love therefore is only possible when a person can stand alone in their shining selfhood – not in an act of rebellion against society – but in wanting to fully inhabit one’s deepest soul. Anthony Storr in his wonderful book ‘Solitude: A Return to the Self’ says this, building on Donald Winnicott’s work:
Winnicott suggests that the capacity to be alone in adult life originates with the infant’s experience of being alone in the presence of the mother…
Winnicott says, “I am trying to justify the paradox that the capacity to be alone is based on the experience of being alone in the presence of someone, and that without a sufficiency of this experience, the capacity to be alone cannot develop… It is only when alone (that is to say in the presence of someone) that the infant can discover his personal life.”Anthony Storr. Solitude: A Return to the Self. Chapter 2.
And this points to the need of a secure attachment with a parent figure in childhood. Some anxious or avoidant people find it difficult to be alone – in the sense of being connected to their own experience of being themselves. And this has implications of self-worth, self-fulfillment and self-realisation. Storr once again:
But Winnicott goes further. He suggests that the capacity to be alone, first in the presence of the mother, and then in her absence, is also related to the individual’s capacity to get in touch with, and make manifest, his own true inner feelings. It is only when the child has experienced a contented, relaxed sense of being alone with, and then without the mother, that he can be sure of being able to discover what he really needs or wants, irrespective of what others may expect to foist upon him.
The capacity to be alone thus becomes linked with self-discovery and self-realisation; with becoming aware of one’s deepest needs, feelings, and impulses.
Anthony Storr. Solitude: A Return to the Self. Chapter 2.
But a childhood scared with poor parenting need not become a prognosis for a life where self-worth and therefore love, becomes impossible. Attachment psychology research suggests that while our early childhood experiences are formative, they need not be determinative of how our life plays out (Waters et.al.). Most human beings have a natural inclination towards growth and self knowledge. It requires work – but it can be achieved. While finding and attaching securely to someone in adult life can be possible, it is difficult. Not all partners have the forbearance to help their partner grow. A potential and perhaps less studied alternative is spending increasing time in solitude. As we become comfortable being alone with ourselves – despite our flaws, our sense of home and self-worth improves. This means that we are less likely to impose the impossible burden on our partners to accept us, fulfill us and make us whole. We then meet the other on equal terms and not as a primary giver of security and self-worth. The value of volitional solitude in helping us change our inveterate behaviours and patterns is highlighted by Storr here:
The capacity to be alone is a valuable resource when changes of mental attitude are required. After major alterations in circumstances, fundamental reappraisal of the significance and meaning of existence may be needed….
Mourning is one example of a long drawn out mental process leading to an eventual change of attitude. Instead of regarding life as necessarily bound up with, or even constituted by, the existence of an intimate relationship with the deceased person, the mourner comes to see matters differently. The mourner may or may not form new, intimate ties; but whether he or she does so or not, the mourner usually comes to realize that the significance of life is not entirely constituted by personal relationships; that the life of a person without intimate relationships also has meaning (emphasis mine).Anthony Storr. Solitude: A Return to the Self. Chapter 3.
Therefore volitional solitude is necessary for us to get in touch with our innermost feelings, capacities and desires. It is also needed when we go through an emotionally charged event such as the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, financial loss, or a serious health ailment. It helps us accept difficult feelings, integrate them and validate that our sense of self remains the same, if not enhanced by that event. This forms the basis for a successful re-engaging with the world. Or in short, one needs to know how to be alone in order to know how to be with others.
With that secure sense of self, we wish to give, to share – or in short love. Love then becomes an expression of the self to and with the other. But as they say, you need two to tango. A relationship where only one partner carries the weight of this self-transformation soon loses meaning – not necessarily because of an unfairness, but because the will to co-create the relationship, by growing, by discovering, be challenging each other is absent.
But if a couple can base their relationship on that shared exploration of the self, the potential of the relationship becomes enormous. Then, the relationship may be difficult, but is always grounded in the compassionate challenge to become better. That is a loving relationship worth aspiring for.
Journey of a thousand words 