Essay on Love

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Wrote this a day or so ago. I figure it may be encouraging for at least someone out there:

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I believe that lovin' is for fools. For what kind of rational person would wish to partake in such an emotion-consuming irrational activity? Yet despite this, I think it takes a fool to find happiness in life. In that regard, perhaps we are all fools. It is foolish to form a pact of ultimate submission to someone. It is foolish to want to live your life for someone else. It is foolish to want to run kites for someone for the rest of your life and return it beaten and battered. Only in love is there ultimately loyalty. Only in love will we willingly go into monetary debt so someone else may succeed in academia. Only in love will we even go as far as eat dirt if the one we love requests us to do so. Only in love do we bury our thoughts and feelings for a moments time to let the other enjoy their moment of glory or happiness.

But maybe its only the fools in life who are happy.

Through hiccups in life, friends, and love, I believe that when one loves someone they become idealistic. Idealistic in that they choose to retain perfect loyalty to the best of their ability. They retain hope and never stop dreaming, for one facet in Corinthians says that it always hopes. Always.

And so despite such hiccups. Despite those who are broken. Who I hurt. Who have hurt me. Because I love, I will hope and dream. And as long as I believe and love God, I will never let cynicism kill the idealism which resides inside of me. If he is unfailing and perfect (or at least our ideas of those ideas) then it is safe to always hope and dream.

"Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist -- someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations." - Peter Senge

Perhaps Peter Senge is correct. However, maybe the divergence is that an idealist in love tries to hold no expectations, for expectations may breed entitlement, and love has no room for entitlement. In that love is an idealistic entity which hopes for everything, but expects absolutely nothing. Even if one does make the error of expecting something, redemption is always there.

So perhaps love is the ultimate essence of irrational idealism (Is that repetitious?) A desire to pour all into one. Expect none. And hope for all. You gamble everything for everything with the high likelihood of loosing everything. As Kierkegaard put it: "Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all."

Perhaps that is why it's irrational; perhaps that is why it's idealistic. That's why it always dreams and hopes. Because it remains unscathed. Even when cynicism and reality spits at it in the face, it remains firm to hopes and dreams. Even to the point of death.

So I will always walk in love. Always walk in hope and dreams and aspirations. And I will walk in contentment with myself and cling on to the everlasting and unchanging source which is none other than God himself. Sure I will fall at some point. But I know that too shall pass. A step forward is a step forward. No matter how slow, short, or staggered. It is still forward and growth and learning is always present. Until God takes this cup away from me, I shall retain this ideal.

I always loved what Hassan agha wrote to Amir in The Kite Runner:

"I have been dreaming a lot lately, Amir agha. Some of them are nightmares, like hanged corpses rotting in soccer fields with bloodred grass. I wake up from those short of breath and sweaty. Mostly, though, I dream of good things, and praise Allah for that. I dream that Rahim Khan sahib will be well. I dream that my son will grow up to be a good person, a free person, and an important person. I dream that lawla flowers will bloom in the streets of Kabul again and rubab music will play in the samovar houses and kites will fly in the skies. And I dream that someday you will return to Kabul to revisit the land of our childhood. If you do, you will find an old faithful friend waiting for you.

May Allah be with you always.

-Hassan"

[rocklobster]

Great essay, smartypants. And I agree with everything you say.

[ich1990]

Very interesting point of view. I have to say that I have always envied stupidly happy people: Dostoevsky's Idiot, Endo's Fool, and their real life counterparts. Some, it seems, are utterly blessed with naivety.

I think, however, that you have drawn the line at exactly the right place. The Bible asks us to be idiots, but not because we don't know any better. This is the difference between the Christian and the fool. We are supposed to know what people are doing to us (or are going to do to us), yet love them anyway. We are to be unreasonable by choice. I like how The Boy vs. The Cynic puts it.

Mathew 10:16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."

I have always found it moving that God knew full well that creating us would cause Him and His creations incredible suffering, yet He made us anyway. Love always trusts, always hopes, always endures.