Snowflakes

Facebook post from PS:

Si lleva cadenas y candados...realmente es amor?

If you wear chains and padlocks... really is it love?

AV: tal vez ésa es sólo la parte fetichista Translation: Maybe that's just the fetish part ;)

Starthrower But there is some powerful binding force of love?

AAS: No. Amor es libre, sano, sin ataduras Translation: No. Love is free, healthy, no strings attached

Starthrower: AV but what is it that holds two people together who love each other?

AV: I think that when you really enjoy somebody, you end up with no free time for anyone else.

PS: If it ain't free, it ain't love.

AV: Tell that to the earth's rotating axis.

PS: I did, she told me we're cool and we're all going to fall off some day anyway...so enjoy the ride.

Starthrower: AV Process of elimination? : /

AV: no one gets eliminated, they just go somewhere else

Starthrower: Maybe I meant process of default... or of preference. Maybe the binding force is simply that this is one's favorite person to be together with? "Me, I'm the one you chose, out of all the people, you wanted me the most..."

Starthrower ...but somehow I still think there's more to it!

*****

...and now I am thinking how love is something undefinable, unique each time. And that so many spiritual gurus have expounded upon the concept of pure, free love with no strings attached – and that in reality, humans seldom experience love in this way. I'm not even sure that they should.

But we hear these definitions and spend our lives feeling deficient at and in love – just as our culture and religions make us feel deficient at every other aspect of being human. We end up trying to apply pure spiritual “free” love to basic earthy human relationships, because we're convinced we need to achieve pure love but we still don't want to sacrifice the human experience.

Better to acknowledge that we experience emotion. The emotion that we experience surrounding our relationships with others can be very powerful, intense and sometimes confusing. It can also sometimes be painful but pain is simply another emotion. We are always free to choose to either experience it as such, or to move on, or to avoid it altogether.

Those philosophical gurus may sound great but almost all of them lived their lives alone – or at least without an obvious enduring partner. Not something that most humans aspire to. Not something that humans seem designed for... though admittedly humans don't seem designed for permanent or even long-term monogamous relationships either. But being human is a playground for exploring all the different nuances of love. Have at it.