The Many Faces of Love

FOREWORD: Many a story I’ve heard and read about Love these past few days, prior and post the widely-celebrated V-day. This is to express my take on the matter — sort of a rejoinder that love does not ONLY possess a romantic face but an array of faces to put on depending on the occasion. 

There are moments when we would like very much to help someone we love deeply and we just can’t seem to do a thing. Either circumstances prevent us from drawing closer or else the person has shut off to any gesture of solidarity and support.

So, all we have left is love. In those moments when everything is useless, we can still love – without expecting anything in return, any exchanges or thanks.If we can manage to act in this way, love begins to transform the world around us. An adage once said, “Time does not change men. Will power does not change men. Love changes men.”

Three days had passed since V-day. Some people truly made good use of the occasion to strengthen relationships, some to reconnect, some to break free and some to heal. Love has been many faces to many people. Love transforms, love heals. But at times love builds mortal traps and ends up destroying the person who has decided to surrender completely. What strange sentiment is this that deep down is the only reason for us to go on living and struggling and trying to make things better?

It would be foolish of me to try to define it because, like any other human being, all I can do is feel it. Thousands of books have been written about it, plays put on at the theater, films produced, poems scribbled, sculptures carved in wood or marble – and even so, all that the artist can convey is the idea of a feeling, not the feeling itself.

But I have learned that this feeling is present in the small things and manifests itself in the most insignificant of attitudes we take, so we must always have love in mind when we act or fail to act.

Picking up the phone and uttering that affectionate word we have been putting off. Opening the door and showing in someone who needs our help. Accepting a job. Leaving a job. Making that decision that we were putting off for later. Apologizing for a mistake we made that will not leave us in peace. Claiming a right that we have. Playing the music loud when your loved one is far away and lower the volume when he or she is nearby. Knowing how to say “yes” and “no” – because love involves all of man’s energies. Discovering a sport that can be practiced by two. Not following any set of rules and conditionalities, not even those listed in this paragraph – because love calls for creativity.

On the one hand, contradictions are what make love grow. Conflicts are what allow love to remain by our side. Life is too short for us to keep important words, for example, ‘I love you’, locked in our hearts. But do not always expect to hear the same words back. We love because we need to love. Otherwise, love loses all meaning and the sun ceases to shine.

And yet, even when Love does not appear, we remain open to its presence. Sometimes, when loneliness seems about to crush everything, the only way to resist is to keep on loving. Our great goal in life is to love. The rest is silence.

We need to love. Even when it leads us to the land where the lakes are made of tears; for tears speak for themselves. And when we feel that we have cried all we needed to cry, they still continue to flow. And just when we believe that our life is destined to be a long walk through the Valley of Sorrows, the tears suddenly vanish. Because we managed to keep our heart open, despite the pain. Because we realized that the person who left us did not take the sun with them or leave darkness in their place. They simply left, and with every farewell comes a hidden hope.

As it was always said, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

And here is where, I, once again, leave Love to your bidding my dear friends.