I’ve been thinking about love. About the romantic type of love most of us are so eager to encounter. We dream of true and eternal love but have we ever really asked ourselves about the idea of love we hang on to so tightly?
- Who designed it for us and when?
- Who planted it in our mind and to what extent does it determine us?
Parents and the concept of love
The process of creating the idea of love in our mind probably first started with our parents and all they’ve communicated on this subject throughout our childhood. The decision about our future love life was most likely being made during that period and determined by what we’ve observed growing up, which basically meant one of two things: A) we were either after the love our parents had for each other, or B) we were after just the opposite, which is definitely something to start with.
Friends and media giving free advice on love
The next big step towards getting the idea of love right normally happens at school. And when it comes to love and first love experiences teenagers rely on their friends, the media, the internet, movies, music and books. In other words, there are the teenage years we can also refer to as the early learning phase, and there is the adolescence or the test phase where the adolescents learn one very simple fact about love – it’s complicated! By the time young people are ready to give and receive love, they are already severely infected by all they’ve absorbed so far. And that’s just life. But what about books?
The life is tough and concrete, filled with personal experiences that can be deceiving. And what about the books? Are they as deceiving?
Sigmund Freud and how to overthink human sexuality
Take Sigmund Freud as an example. What has he taught us about love? For one, we’ve learned that individual sexual history begins at the moment of birth. Quite an interesting thought, sure, but understanding humans as very sexual beings doesn’t really solve the problem of figuring out love. What it actually does is changing the perspective. Take the interpretation of dreams for example, ever since I’ve first heard of it I couldn’t help but wonder what am I missing? What do my dreams really mean? What is my subconsciousness trying to tell me? My life was suddenly turned into a nightmare! I never figured out what a dream meant, I just kept torturing myself with the questions. So, thank you, Freud, ever so much! And I don’t even want to get you started on the Oedipus complex or the oral, anal and phallus phase! Wow! Are you for real?! How is this not confusing?
Just ask Nietzsche!
Now would probably be the right moment to also mention Nietzsche and his famous Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Ever heard of the “Übermensch”? I personally can’t enjoy reading Nietzsche because I easily get overwhelmed by the infinite darkness and the strong, characteristic pathos in his work that consumes me like it were contagious but even despite all that I do find him quite intriguing. However Thus Spoke Zarathustra displayed all my ideals about love, altruism and gender roles as rather fake and ridiculous. The shred of doubt in my mind made me question things I strongly believed in and it challenged me to look for answers from the whole other perspective. At the end I realized Zarathustra gave me no answers, he gave me only the right questions. Many years later a book called Mit Nietzsche die Langsamkeit entdecken or Discovering boredom with Nietzsche came to my attention. It partially changed the way I felt about Nietzsche. The lack of the consuming darkness made it much more appealing but the feminist in me still goes wild every time I come across something like “Langweile. – Viele Menschen, namentlich Frauen, empfinden die Langeweile nicht, weil sie niemals ordentlich arbeiten gelernt haben.” Meaning, women never get bored because they’ve never really learned to work properly. Nietzsche and I? We weren’t meant to be I guess…
Henry Miller reveals the ugly truth about love
Going further down memory lane I remembered Henry Miller and his two books, namely The World of Sex and Tropic of the Cancer. We’ve had them in our home library long before I was born but by the time I’ve learned how to read they were kept out of reach, if I remember it correctly, which made me wonder why. After I’ve finally read Tropic of the Cancer I kind of got my answer. I suppose this is not the kind of book you start with if you are trying to figure out love for the first time but it is a powerful book that takes you to some very dark places. It may not be Disneyland but it is just as scary and fun at the same time. The question is, do you dare to take the journey and just how far are you ready to go? The story is quite simple actually: A lonely American writer goes to Paris where he meets all different kinds of people. He is poor and practically starving but nevertheless he feels alive and fulfilled while learning about life, sex and love the hard way. The real question is of course why? What motivates him? This is what in The World of Sex Miller says about Tropic of the Cancer: “Jak miris seksa koji ta knjiga širi, zapravo je aroma rađanja: to je neugodno i odurno samo onima koji ne uspjevaju prepoznati značenje seksa.” So basically, what Miller is saying is, if you were by any chance appalled by Tropic of the Cancer, you don’t understand the meaning of sex, which is the eternal mystery. My advice? Read them both, but start with the obscene Tropic of the Cancer first.
Finding the way back with Antoine de Saint-Exupery and The Little Prince
After Freud, Nietzsche and Miller I was in desperate need of something warm and sweet to lift my spirit so I got to think about The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery and just how incredibly unselfishly the Little Prince cherished his vain rose. There is also a very important part on friendship and priorities in life we often forget because of our own selfish needs. What I especially love about this book is its natural and almost spiritual simplicity that can still make me see the world through the eyes of a child, even if only for a brief moment. Maybe that is why I’ve read this book for more than 10 times. I’ve read it for school one Saturday and decided I had to read it again, and again, and again, until there was no time left, the weekend was over and I had to go to school. The Little Prince spells his magic and all of the sudden the whole world looks different. The love of The Little Prince for his rose meant a great deal to me and it taught me patience, admiration and acceptance for one very simple reason – we don’t fall in love with perfection. We fall in love with the whole person. That’s all there is to it.
„Adieu, dit le renard. Voici mon secret. Il est très simple : on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
– L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux, répéta le petit prince, afin de se souvenir.
– C’est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante.
– C’est le temps que j’ai perdu pour ma rose… Fit le petit prince, afin de se souvenir.
– Les hommes ont oublié cette vérité, dit le renard. Mais tu ne dois pas l’oublier. Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé. Tu es responsable de ta rose… »
« Si quelqu’un aime une fleur qui n’existe qu’à un exemplaire dans les millions et les millions d’étoiles, ça suffit pour qu’il soit heureux quand il les regarde. Il se dit : “Ma fleur est là quelque part.…” Mais si le mouton mange la fleur, c’est pour lui comme si, brusquement, toutes les étoiles s’éteignaient ! »
Khalil Gibran defines love as graceful and wise
Moving on with Khalil Gibran and The Prophet. He taught me love isn’t just that warm feeling that makes me smile while having butterflies in my stomach, but so much more. Love requires grace, wisdom, selfishness, dignity, gratefulness… It takes courage to love and it takes love to find the courage, it’s just that simple.
“When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. (…)
But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,
and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
And think not you can direct the course of love,
if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.”
And so were my ideals back!
The ecstatic love of Garcia Lorca
After this spiritual journey with Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Khalil Gibran I thought of Garcia Lorca. His poems are filled with vivid metaphors and erotic irony, the flamenco music and colorful landscapes of exotic Spain, thoughts on life and death… Every poem is just bursting with energy of a young poet and his adoration of the mysterious lover. Reading Garcia Lorca is like imagining fireworks in the open night sky or hearing driving rhythms and picturing a passionate flamenco dancer in ecstasy. His verses release a very strong emotional energy and kind of mysterious, erotic charge that can only be described as the recklessness of youth or maybe as simply feeling alive.
Tu no sabrás nunca,
esfinge de nieve,
lo mucho que yo
te hubiera querido
esas madrugadas
cuando tanto llueve
y en la rama seca
se deshace el nido.
”¿Que es eso que suena
muy lejos?”
“Amor,
el viento en las vidrieras,
¡amor mío!”
A biography of love by Arsen Dedic
As tempting as the ecstasy of young love can be, in the long run we are hoping for a bit more. A poet and a singer Arsen Dedic looked for more and found it. His poems are like pieces of a puzzle that slowly come together until the big picture unveils itself in front of us. In a way his work represents an authentic love biography. Listening to his music could easily be described as observing young love changing and seasoning into something true and lasting, leaving young heart’s illusions, false hopes and broken dreams far behind but without dramatic regrets. This is what I love about his poetry – the calmness, the regret without regret, the ease… I’ve learned to cherish the past with all its delusions and mistakes, with all of its sweet bitterness. It’s such a liberating feeling! This is, amongst other things, probably why in my twenties I’ve never quite understood his poetry. It takes time to understand Arsen Dedic and it also takes time to understand love. What comes to mind are couple of songs such as Tvoje njezne godine, Djevojka za jedan dan, Cistim svoj zivot, Djevojka iz moga kraja, Ne vracaj se starim ljubavima, O mladosti, Otkako te ne volim, Petra, Sve te vodilo k meni, Sve sto znas o meni, Zivot je more… There is so much more in these poems and songs than just Dedic’s amazing voice, more than wonderful verses, rhymes or rhythm. The true nature of love itself may just be hidden in its poetic beauty, waiting to be discovered somewhere between the lines…
The list is endless but what have we learned? Where does the idea of love we rely on actually come from? Is it just a construct, a unique patchwork, a colorful collage of world’s sensations we gather and store in our mind? How very manipulative of the world…