Why Do We Want Love?

Excert from the movie, The Mirror has Two Faces...

So, this is the scene at my sister's wedding, right.  There she is, getting drunk, regretting she ever got married... for the third time, mind you.  Umm, my mother is so jealous, she is sprouting snakes from her hair.  And I am thinking... this is perfect.  We've got three feminine archetypes here: The divine whore... excuse me... Medusa... and me... Who am I?  What archetype?  Trevor?

The Virgin Mary? (class erupts into laughter)

Thanks a lot, Trevor.  No, the faithful handmaiden.  Always the bridesmaid... never the bride.  It does just proves, however, what Jung said all along that myths and archetypes are alive and well and living in my apartment.

As I... as I stood at the altar beside my sister and her husband-to-be... it struck me that this ritual, called a wedding ceremony, is really just the final scene of a fairy tale.  They never tell you what happens after.

They never told you that Cinderella drove the prince crazy with her obsessive need to clean the castle.  That she missed her day job...  No, they don't tell us what happens after because there is no after.  The be-all and end-all of romantic love was... Mike?

Ummm...sex?

Mike... Mike... Mike... you have sex on the brain, Mike...

Marriage.

Marriage.  That's right.  But it wasn't always like that.  Around the 12th century there was a notion known as courtly love, where love had nothing to do with marriage and had nothing to do with sex.  In most cases, it was defined as a passionate relationship between a knight and a lady of the court, who was already married.  And so they could never consummate their love.  In this way, they would have to rise above your ordinary, ah, you know, going to the bathroom in front of each other kind of love.

And they would have to go after something, more divine.  They took sex out of the equation; and what was left was a union of souls.  Now think of this.  Sex was always the fatal love potion.  Look at the literature of the time.  Lancelot and Gweneviere; Tristian and Allso(?).  All consummation could lead to was madness, despair or death.  Clinical experts, scholars and my Aunt Esther are united in the belief that true love has spiritual dimensions, while romantic love is nothing but a lie.  An illusion.  A modern myth.  A soulless manipulation.

And speaking of manipulation... It's like going to the movies, where we see the lovers, on screen, kiss... and the music swells, and we buy it, right?  So when my date takes me home and kisses me good night, if l don't hear full harmonic in my head, I dump him.

Now the question is, why do we buy it?  We buy it because whether it's a myth or a manipulation, let's face it, we all want to fall in love.  Right?  Why?  Because that experience makes us feel completely alive.  Where every sense is heightened, every emotion is magnified, our everyday reality is, is shattered and we are flung into the heavens.  It may only last a moment, an hour, or an afternoon but that doesn't diminish its value.  Because we're left with memories that we treasure for the rest of our lives.

I read an article a while ago, that said, "when we fall in love, we hear Puccini in our heads."  I love that.  I think it's because his music fully expresses our longing for passion in our lives and romantic love.  And while we are listening to La Bóheme or Turandot, or reading Wuthering Heights, or watching Casablanca, a little bit of that love lives in us too.  So, the final question is: Why do people want to fall in love, when it can have such a short shelf life and be devastingly painful?  What do you think?  Stacey?

Completes the propagation of the species?

Uh hmmmmmm...  Randy?

Psychologically we need to connect with somebody?

Could be?  Jill?

Are we culturally preconditioned?

Good answers, but much too intellectual for me.  I think it's because, as some of you may already know... While it does last, it feels fucking great.

(class erupts into more laughter)

Right?

I think the writers had something there when they wrote that scene in the movie.  We are born and we get love from our parents.  It feels good and comforts us.  We need it every day.  As we grow up, we feel other kinds of love and then one day, we meet that one person and that feeling is so different and so unique and so wonderful, we wonder how we lived without it.

Everyone feels love in some degree.  People spend their life looking for it.  Some have killed or died for it.  It makes the world go 'round.  Love continues that feeling inside of us. We get up every morning, craving it. We go to sleep grateful for having it.

When we find that right person, the universe aligns with the cosmic Gods and everything seems perfect and right.

Love is the end all, be all of our existence.  When we die, does it matter how much money we had or how many homes we owned?  No because it is does not matter in the big scheme of things and it is not coming with us.

What matters is how much we loved, how many wonderful and amazing people we had in our lives and how many times did we give our hearts to someone and have their hearts in our hands.  How did you love in your life?  Partially? Completely?  Unconditionally?  Did you give it your all and have no regrets?

One misconception everyone has about love is that once we are given it, it stays and the fairy tale continues.  When it doesn't work that way, you throw it away and look for it again.  Love is hard work.  It takes committment, dedication, loyalty and determination to keep it alive.

Yes, falling in love is by chance but continuing it is hard work and if it goes, right, wrong or indifferent, it's a choice.  You choose to fall out of love.  You choose not to make it work.  You choose to let it go.  You choose to end the fairy tale in the making.

Love is not a fairy tale unless you work at it.  No one is perfect.  In order to understand how to make love work, we have to know the other person's faults, habits, likes/dislikes and their quirks and personality.  After you get that started, you both have to work to merge family and friends into the mix as well.  That is a tall order but it is for love... so isn't it worth it?

So again, the question is... why do we want love?  Because it truly does feel fucking amazing!

What are your thoughts on love?