Is there a way to explain love? Many people attempt to do so, but often fall short on their explanations. The hardest question in the world to answer is: “What do you love about me?” This question is particularly difficult because as it turns out, we don’t have an answer to this question. To put it simply, we just love, and we are furthermore incapable of describing certain characteristics of another in which we love. This is a funny thing as it turns out because if you’ve ever had a conversation about this with your significant other, you would probably say you can pick out these characteristics that you love most, but in reality this is impossible because we have no way to measure love. We just feel love, and furthermore, we just love.
The feeling of love is unmatched to every emotion. When you feel love for another, it’s almost as if you’re hypnotized or in a trance. Some would argue that the path to true happiness is to love, and if in fact you do not love or cannot love, then you will not pursue true happiness in life. Is this a true statement?
The best explanation of love that I have heard is, “Love is a seed to other growing emotion” - source unknown. What does this mean exactly? Think about it. What is the cause of all our emotions? Love. Love is the cause of all emotions because if we didn’t have love, then we wouldn’t have anger, sadness, or happiness. It may take some time to indulge in this concept, but it must be true. In fact, it must hold that if we didn’t love anything at all, then what are the things that make us happy?
Things make us happy because we love them. Some people love jokes, some love rock climbing, some love adventures. There are many things out there that make us happy because we love them. Think about the last time you were angry at someone. Why were you angry? It may have been from a particular thing that this person did, but why did that make you angry? If love is the seed to other growing emotions, then it must be true that love is the cause of our anger. Do we only get angry with people or things that we love?
Love, the seed to other growing emotions. Love is therefore the origin of all emotion (or the arche for those that know Greek). The origin that drives our emotions to the breaking points. The emotion that is so hard to describe, love, is the origin of emotion. How can it be that the origin of emotion can be something so hard to explain? This is a wicked question and possibly one that will never be answered.