On love

Well everything in my life has been pointing towards a certain topic for me to write on. I tried to evade it, drown out the clues in my life, but the world was screaming "Leila! You need to think a little more carefully about love!" So I tried and I'll document my attempts for you, but with the disclaimer that they are pathetic grasps at what has made itself apparent as all to elusive for me to get a grip on. But here we are, thinking about love like people do.

Love's first call came from within. I was listening to a song that I hadn't heard in a while, but was one that was on repeat during an occasion of my own falling in love. All these feelings came back, they came back so easily! It made me wonder which came first, the love I felt or the music? Maybe I had created the perfect conditions for me to fall in love, the right music, a distinct openness in attitude, a feeling of romanticism about the season... The more I thought about it the more it made sense, the idea that we just tend to trick ourselves into falling in love became more real to me. And so started my pessimistic analysis.

The other night I found myself wandering a foreign location looking for love and I that's what I found - but in a different form than of that of the person for whom I searched. I found an exhibition on the subject, an art gallery on love. People were writing their ideas about what love meant on little pieces of paper and clothes pining it to wires. The answers were romantic, religious, or comical. My friend asked me to write something deep down, she said to just write what I learned from reading philosophy. I couldn't write anything, which come to think of it is probably the best representation of what I've learned. I've been there, crying while reading Sartre post first fight with an old love. Reading about mutual objectification didn't quell my need for Romanticism at the time, but now... only these few years later... is that all it takes to break a spirit? Standing there, pen in hand, thinking of what to write I thought back to Sartre, I thought back to my tears, and I thought "I was so naive."

This is where I am today. I'm faced with the most abstract of concepts because I believe love can't be defined by what it is, but why it is. I think that the problem of "why" is an issue because most people wouldn't like their answers. Love doesn't spontaneously erupt as a perfect feeling towards another person, it's always mediated by circumstance. Even further, I wonder if there's anything to the word at all. It's a silly word! After experiencing new love one often reflects on a past affair by saying, "Ah I had no idea what love was then!" Why not? Were those feelings not just as real as these new (but soon to be outmoded) ones?

Tonight I watched El Secreto de sus Ojos, which turned out to be the impetus for me writing this blog tonight. It connected two things: memory and love. I began to think that the two aren't so different after all. Love is always in hindsight and our memories are always re-constructed. The present feeling of "love" isn't really love at all. It's the feeling good about yourself being needed or needing someone else. It's an admiration, an amusement, but it's not greater than the moment. Love only becomes greater than the sum of its parts in retrospect and the past is always a little sweeter because we're able to re-write it.

But don't get me wrong, just because love is fake doesn't mean that it isn't real.

I still dream about it, but life can be hard and it's almost always lonely so we create what we need to.