Loving Another

"Love ceases to be a demon only when it ceases to be a god." - M. Denis de Rougemont

I wholeheartedly agree with the maxim that "it is not good for a man to be alone." We are, as people, meant to fulfill each other's inherent needs for companionship. The denial of this fact, like the manufacturing of illusionary feelings that we are "blessed" or "gifted" with being single or celibate, also denies the need we have to find someone to love. Frankly, the denial of this need makes us unstable and insecure. As Carl Jung said, "what you resist persists." As such, we should first simply acknowledge our need of this love in our lives.

No doubt most people believe truly corrupted love is sex without love or commitment. This makes perfect sense, but it must also be said that truly romantic love is not present in such activity. True love dominates sexual desire, refining and reorganizing our thoughts and behavior. By itself, sex desires something. If sex persists without love, then we tend to fall in love with the "loving", not the person herself, based on what we get out of it. Love, on the other hand, desires the object of love, the beloved herself, someone in particular.

Love makes a man not just want any woman, but one particular woman. Furthermore, he does not want the pleasure he gets from her, but her in authentic form. This is not a calculated decision, or a product of will power, it is a simple pre-occupation with her that develops. He did not choose her, nor did she him, based on comparing other women to her. In fact, his needs here are entirely a distraction from appreciating her as admirable in herself. Very simply, he is quite intoxicated by her, without giving any regard to his pain or pleasure. She is undeniably separate from him, like the beauty present in a colorful sunset, but he cannot (and would not dare) take it with him.

It is so important to keep the separateness or otherness of those loving relationships at the forefront of our minds. Because if we were to allow our pre-occupation with the beloved to take control, it would soon become an obsession, and then a burden for the lover and the beloved. In fact, I have found that such a process ends up with the worst sort of selfish behavior, where I would not care about the beloved at all, except that she were to make me feel complete and met my needs for intimacy. Such a thought turns her from what was once specifically beautiful and valuable into even less than a woman. She would become any woman, nothing special, and there to make me feel better. Granted, it is wonderful that she can do things that mean much to me, but we must resist loving those things more than her herself. We must maintain gratefulness rather than expectations.

That, in fact, is how I want to be loved and not loved as well. I want to be loved as a special, unique, and independently wealthy poor man who is, in and of himself, full of worth and potential. I want to be loved truly, as I myself am, with appreciation for what I do and freedom to grow up from my mistakes. But specifically, I want to be loved as another, from only one other, who is incredibly grateful for me.