Monochrome
She hung up the phone and I listened as, in a twist of irony, the dial-tone harmonized perfectly with George Winston’s “Living Without You” playing in the background. I listened until the tone stopped and the busy signal took over, beeping a relentless rhythm against my tired eardrums. I wondered if I would ever understand love, why it makes us do what we do, what it should be like, who are models of it, or even something as deceivingly simple as its definition.
The people on the island of Pingelap have a genetic propensity to the extremely rare condition of complete colorblindness. In a lush tropical world exploding with every color in the spectrum, they are left without the ability to perceive anythings other than shades of brightness. In his book Island of the Colorblind, author Oliver Sacks outlines the way the island people describe their world with a vocabulary limited to a world of grays. No matter how vividly these people paint their linguistic pictures, they are still missing an entire dimension of the thing: its colors. I believe humans are the same way with love. No matter how many books, sonnets, poems, and songs we push out into the ether in bursts of lovesick creativity, we still miss entire dimensions of our feeling … we simply can not see.
It would seem that our inherent inability to understand or describe love imbues in it a sense of mystery. The bitter and the ignorant masquerading as wise pretend they understand, saying “love is chemical,” “love is what we think we feel when we are under the influence of a more basic instinct,” or, gnerally, “love is defined as X.” Much like guidelines of morality, love is by its nature, underdetermined. It has to be. Otherwise, we would have some sort of rulebook, and the preposterous idea of “love schools” would be a reality. Love is tough (note that, I didn’t say “defined by” ;).
I don’t understand what love is. I can not see some of its characteristics. My best hope is to, like the people of Pingelap, paint the best I can with a limited palette.
Comments
Nils
You know, I wonder about feelings, emotions and other things that "make us humans" but still when it comes down to it, we are animals like every other living creature on this planet. Are humans special, and if so, what exactly makes humans special, and is thinking that humans are special being selfish or stupid? I don't know, but if anyone does, it's Alex. Alex knows everything.
John
Don't worry Alex, you always have been and always will be a brilliant artist. You just haven't found that something to inspire you, but you will. You always do.
Dan McKeown
To be completely honest with you I am no longer sure that I believe there is such a thing as love. It seems like those we love we really just have become either so comfortable with them we cannot imagine life without them or just have a vested interest in their life. From what I have seen love seems to be a very selfish thing. I have yet to experience anything I would consider love for anyone other than my family. How can you describe love for someone anyhow? It seems like the emotion would be too personal for someone else to understand.
Nils
I have to say that I'm pretty much with Dan on this whole love thing. I think it just might be a self-manifested belief (and driven into us through culture and society) that we need to be with someone. Love is more like compatibility, finding someone that you can stand being around for more than a couple hours at a time, every day.
Mykala
Dan, your comments are both hurtful and infuriating. How can I marry someone who does not even love me? Seriously. The wedding is off.
But on a more serious note… this conversation is very interesting. It reminds me very much of my own beliefs. Love is an action, not a feeling. You choose to love someone that you think is worthy. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it sucks. That's the reality of it. It does exist, just not in the fairytale, romance novel sort of way 99% of the population imagines it should be.
John T F Larson
Even though we cannot really describe what love is, this does not mean it doesn't exist, it simply shows the limits of the english language for describing such abstract ideas. There are some things that exist that we simply are incapable of describing and can only recognize, when we are experiencing it. Any definition of love will sound flat and 2 dimensional, not capable of capturing its essense, much like how a scientific definition of color or music would be flat and meaningless, unless one has experienced them first hand. I think that it is through the experience that we are capable of understanding something as complex as love.
Dan McKeown
Perhaps I should clarify. I do not believe it is hard to define love due to the limiting language that we use, I simply do not believe that love exists as people think it should (if it does at all). If I sound bitter or jaded because of this, well perhaps that is the case but I really have a hard time believing in the whole emotion.
Alexander Micek
John, your comments about the restrictions of language are a definite part of what I was getting at … it's an interesting conundrum. I think Dan disagrees with the idealized flowers, rainbows, and butterflies idea of love … something we fall into and experience bliss forever. A realistic approach never hurt anyone and expecting things to "turn out" rather than "24/7 romance" is a good idea. Like Mykala said, it's a choice, and one must work towards it and for it.