An idea of love
To see every star in the universe in someone's eyes is infatuation, but to look in someone's eyes until you see those stars; that is love.
Love is now an industry, it is a currency of diamonds, flashy clothes and thrown back hair. It's represented everywhere in media, and it seems to be all things to all people. The strangest thing about love in the modern context, however, is that our obsession with it is matched only in intensity by our complete lack of understanding of what it is
Gone are the days of the crude and theory-driven utopias of left-wing politics. A new utopia, one far more seductive, has captured the collective societal imagination: the utopian idea of love.
That love is often portrayed as some mysterious force, something that drags people together. It's romantic, sleek, modern and exciting. It makes us all feel special. We think we’re made for another person, some perfect match or soul mate that will understand us perfectly, that we’re designed to fit with. And once we find that perfect match, we will have found heaven on earth; all our hedonistic dreams will be fulfilled.
This is all wrong. Soul mates don’t exist, we’re not predestined for someone, no one is perfect. Love is not utopia, utopias do not exist.
Love is almost universally mislabelled and misunderstood. It's seen as a feeling, an extreme form of infatuation. In fact this idea of love is so deep rooted I have been told that eating a great deal of chocolate causes the release of the same chemicals that love does, and so all that you need to feel love is to break into the Cadbury factory and devour all its produce. Love, however, is so much more than just a feeling, or just a rush of hormones. Love is something only Humans can really feel, because it is a choice; it is something we do.
To base a relationship on who your heart flutters most at when they walk by, is to doom yourself to perpetual heartbreak. That feeling will always fade, it is by its nature temporary. To see every star in the universe in someone's eyes is infatuation, but to look in someone's eyes until you see those stars; that is love.
Love is when you choose to stick with someone, no matter what and in spite of the rest of the world forever; and it is one of the most beautiful things that a person can experience.
It is depressing to think that we have no guarantee of love, and no guarantee we will possess it for any length of time- ultimately I think this is where the collective obsession of love comes from. It comes from its deep insecurity. But that is the price we pay for our own rationality, the free will of mankind is our greatest tragedy, and the greatest source of our own pain; but I would still have it no other way.
