On Love

      
            I have been thinking lately upon the subject of love. Not romantic love alone, but any kind of love: love you might feel for another person, or for a story that reaches into your soul, or for a cause that you support, or for an idea that you conceived in the dead of night as you tried to sleep. In particular, I've been musing upon the relation of love to pain, and pain to creativity.
            C.S. Lewis once wrote the following:

            "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

        The idea that love brings pain is not a novel one; most people have discovered this for themselves. But I think that love does not only bring pain. I think that love is a kind of pain in itself, and perhaps it is the only kind of pain. I think that love is the desire for a deeper connection with a person or thing than is humanly possible. It is never enough to rest in the existence of a thing that we love. We must always be trying to interact with that thing, to somehow become a part of it or make it a part of us. But there will never be a connection deep enough to satisfy. When we love something, we are constantly working for it, even if the goal has already been reached. For example, when you love someone, you don't stop trying to please and care for that person after you've found out that your love is returned. On the contrary, you try harder than ever. 
          If this desire for a perfect connection is love, then it is easy to understand why the most creative minds are often the most pained. People create because they are in love. They are in love with ideas which they want to bring to life. The trouble is that this desire is so, so strong that it will never be satisfied. First of all, reality can never live up to imagination, because the former is limited while the latter is limitless. Therefore, the creator will more than likely not be able to produce with his feeble human powers the magnificent idea that dwells inside him. Second, even if this creator does manage to produce exactly what he was thinking of, the people who have the power to distribute or display the creator's idea will more than likely require a few changes to be made. That is, if it the idea is even accepted at all. Third, supposing that the creation miraculously manages to reach the outside world without alteration, it will certainly face either indifference or criticism from other others. But even in the very rare case that the stars align, and none of these misfortunes occur, and the idea is expertly executed and becomes famous and well-loved, this will still be insufficient. The level of unity that the creator is trying to attain with his beloved idea can never be reached.
         Perhaps I speak from personal experience here. Perhaps this is not a general definition of love, but only love as I feel it. I cannot help but think there must be some truth to it, however, because I have never encountered a person who is willing to rest in the existence of a thing he or she loves. If people loved in this way, I think that no one would ever do anything worth doing. What would be the point, if we were able to be completely satisfied by the mere existence of things? Why should an artist paint the images in his head, if he is content to think of them? Why should a scientist try to publish her research, if she is content that her theories are correct? Why should lovers want to marry, if they are content to have met each other?
         I am not really certain what I mean by all of this. These are merely some things I have been pondering, and you can take them or leave them as you please. I suppose I would like to encourage all of you who love something very much to keep loving it, and keep pursuing it. People often like to laugh at those who love something, because they view this as a weakness. They will tell you that the things you love are silly, that it is foolish to invest yourself in things that aren't real or profitable, that you should never give your heart to someone else until you are certain that they love you back. They will make fun of the things you love, because they think it is funny to watch you get upset over it. They will make you feel foolish for doing what is most natural and most human and most noble. But if you follow their advice, what is left of life? What is there worth living for? Money? Cheap comforts? Recreation?

        I leave you with an excerpt from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. This occurs as a passionate architect is overseeing the construction of one of his designs:

       "An open car drove by, fleeing into the country. The car was overfilled with people bound for a picnic. There was a jumble of bright sweaters, and scarfs fluttering in the wind; a jumble of voices shrieking without purpose over the roar of the motor, and overstressed hiccoughs of laughter; a girl sat sidewise, her legs flung over the side of the car; she wore a man's straw hat slipping down to her nose and she yanked savagely at the strings of a ukelele, ejecting raucous sounds, yelling, "Hey!" These people were enjoying a day of their existence; they were shrieking to the sky their release from the work and the burdens of the days behind them; they had worked and carried the burdens in order to reach a goal-- and this was their goal.
       "He looked at the car as it streaked past. He thought that there was a difference, some important difference, between the consciousness of this day in him and in them. He thought that he should try to grasp it. But he forgot. He was looking at a truck panting up the hill, loaded with a glittering mound of granite."