Love

In honor of Valentine's Day this weekend I thought I'd write about love. I've written about love before but in the past I've pretty much worked on its definition and limitations. That's one way to discuss love, but it's certainly not the most romantic way to discuss love. I mean, if you told someone you loved them using the definitions and limitations I've discussed previously it would go something like this:

"I have a strong disinterested feeling of affection in which you are end in yourself, resulting in my nearly constant contemplation of your welfare. Additionally, I desire to be in your company with greater frequency--far greater frequency than anyone else I associate with."

I'm pretty sure if you told a girl that she'd be weak in the knees and say something like:

"I reciprocate your feelings and return them in kind. Furthermore, I appreciate your candor and precision in expressing your feelings. I posit that we determine ways of synchronizing our lives, and do so under covenant, so that we might grow together in our feelings and raise a family under the blessed rays of said covenant."

Okay, that's it, I'm gonna write a romantic comedy.

Alright, this post will avoid the analytic approach I've taken in the past (and that leads to the above conversation (and my being accused of overthinking)). This post will use an approach philosophers often ingore: phenomenology.

Phenomenology is the branch of philosophy that studies the experience of something. Phenomenology doesn't try to explain things as they are irrespective of human experience, phenomenology tries to explain things through human experience. Both phenomenology and the more objective aspects of philosophy teach us about a thing, but they come at it in completely different ways. Today, we'll use the phenomenological (and likely more romantic) approach.

So, what will this approach entail? Well, in order to explain love in this way I'll have to describe my experience of love, and then, from that, try to say what love is. So, that's how I'll have to go about this post. This is a lot harder, and infinitely more personal, but I'll see what I can do.

(note: this approach is often less comprehensive because I can only deal with instances of the thing (in this case love) while traditional analytic philosophy finds general rules that apply in multiple cases....so if I miss anything just remember that's part of the game. It's not my intent to get everything, just paint a picture of an experience).

Love (in my experience).

Initially when you're in love you feel a general feeling of excitement. Everything in your life seems new and bright. You think things like "A long time ago when I was a kid I used to enjoy flying kites. I'd love to share that with her....I know! I'm going to take her to fly a kite!" When you're in love you just want to take everything in your life and do it all over again, because everything is sweeter and new when you do it with the person you love. (this is why most dates are often very childish activities.)

Your mind is sort of chained to an idea of the person. This is the whole "I can't stop thinking about you" aspect of love. When you love someone it seems like every idea, everything you see and experience seems to tie into that person. You see a bench in a park and it reminds you of sitting together with the person you love and the conversation you had there. You see a brand of hot chocolate and you think of the time you played out in the snow and then came home and made hot chocolate together. Everything in your life in some way comes back to the idea of that person, and strangely, this doesn't get old.

You want to do kind things for them. Your happiest moments come when you are able to show the person you love how you feel through some action. Even things you usually hate (like proof reading a paper or fixing a computer problem) seem enjoyable, because that person is the reason for the action, and your love for them makes nearly any action where they are the end a pleasant one.

When you're around them your heart rate increases. You feel slightly jittery. Sometimes you wonder if you might have a heart disorder. At other times you're so excited when you're around them that you lose your appetite, and then you wonder if you might have an eating disorder...basically, you're just so energized by the idea of them that your vegetative functions such as heart rate, breathing....even sleep, all start to go out of whack. This is why Dr. Seuss said the following:

"you know when you're in love when you can't sleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."

When you love someone (at least in a good way) your thoughts become elevated. You want to be a better person so that you can be a better person for the person you love. You are a little kinder, a little softer, you are a little more patient. At first you're just these things toward the person you love, but in time you realize how good those feelings are and you begin to treat other people in similar ways.

When you're in love you do dumb things, but they don't seem dumb. You say things that are just flat out dumb, but they find them endearing, then they say something you would scoff in anyone else and for some reason that idea is strangely appealing. Everything they say to you and you say to them is interpreted in the softest and kindest light; in this one aspect of your life the other person always interprets your actions as fundamentally good.

Anyway, that's a snapshot of the phenomena of love. I'm sure I left things out, but that wasn't my intent really, I just wanted to describe the experience. What is interesting is that describing the experience shows how in so many ways the experience transcends the substance from which it comes.

Oh, class is over, I'll finish this later.

Alright, back. Anyway, what you notice here is that the experience of love often changes and heightens the qualities that make up our experience. In short, love makes a regular experience a great one, it makes a weakness endearing etc.

So, taking the phenomenological approach we now need to figure out what to do with the information we've gained from studying experience. Here's what I've come up with.

I think the main lesson to be learned from the phenomenological approach is that we shouldn't plan, we shouldn't make lists. When it comes to people we should really measure the experience. Now, of course there are some qualities that should be deal breakers, but overall, it seems like two good people shouldn't have too much to worry about in compatibility. I know I have made some mistakes in this area. I originally dated almost scientifically. I would go on dates and pay attention to qualities I liked, I would note qualities I disliked, and I created the perfect girl in my head....I had a mental list of what she would be like, and what it would be like to meet her.

What has thrown me for a loop has been the times when I've met someone that was nothing like my list, when I've met someone completely different from what I thought I wanted...but the experience was good. Many times I would question the compatibility. I would think "if she doesn't have this quality it won't last." Or I'd think "if she can't do this well won't I get bored with her." I think these might be the wrong concerns. If the phenomenological approach teaches us anything about love its that love is greater than the sum of its parts (I would say synergistic but I really hate that word). So, if you judge whether you should love someone by a list of qualities you're judging the wrong thing, because the experience will be more than the items on your list. So, if you try to find love by a list your method is flawed, pure and simple.

It's important to have an idea of what you want, and look in those areas for someone to love. But ultimately, you should be willing to abandon that list (in all the small areas...if you enjoy being around a murderer you might want to abandon that good experience (and leave town)). This is a scary thing to do for some because it's a tremendous risk to love someone, and to take that risk without the benefit of logic guiding the decision. But this is an area where logic isn't very effective (the lists we make are logical premises, if the premises (lists) are abandoned, you have no argument....and no logic).

So, my advice is to measure the experience. If someone's company makes you happier seek out their company. If someone makes you feel inferior or bad avoid their company. Throw out your ideas of how things should be and stop and think about how things actually are. If someone makes you happy and they are a good person that should be enough.

This is why its so frustrating to explain to some people why I'm not attracted to someone. I often talk with my parents and they say "what about that girl that likes you, why don't you like her?" And then I tell them that I don't like being around her. Then they say "but she has this quality and this quality and she does this, and she's pretty, why don't you like her?" And I just have to shrug and say"the experience is bad." This is the corollary of what I wrote earlier: if the experience can be better than the sum of its parts...sometimes the experience is also less than the sum of its parts.

Anyway, that's what I take from all this. I just had this realization recently. I think I've looked for the wrong thing for a long time. I would meet a girl and think about 10 years down the road. Id ask myself if she was smart enough, whether we'd have smart kids, whether she'd be a good mother etc. And while these things are important, they can't substitute for the experience, that has to be the thing that ultimately determines the decision. If the experience is good, most other things will fall into place. And when you think too much about everything going right, you often ruin the experience (as I so often do) and cause things to not go right. So, I guess the end message here is that in matters of love, trust how you feel, and act on those feelings. Embrace the good feelings and explore them. Don't second guess because of some particular quality you never expected in someone. Just go for it and see how things fall...because if the relationship is good, and the person is good, everything else can work out.

Well, that's all I got. I hope everyone has a wonderful day, a great weekend, and that they find someone they care about to spend this time of year with.

With love,
Danny/Dan/Daniel/DC....whatever

p.s. What's happened? I've actually embraced Valentine's Day. Never thought the day would come.