Why do we love?

“Oh, will wonders ever cease? blessed be the mystery of Love” - Sufjan Stevens

Love is outrageously romanticized for a while now. But hey, who am I to talk? It sells. Be it movies, songs, TV shows and even video games, we just fall for them all by tapping into our yearning to be fantasized by someone. But we all know there is more to it. Love could be an expression of being grateful for that person to exist in our life, for what they stood for, for what they are now and for what they are becoming. It took a while for me to come up with that and I am definitely wrong. Love is difficult to explain. So much so that, I don’t even know if it can be described as an immaterial thing that exists, or a feeling that is meant to be felt or an expression to be displayed. Maybe it is all or none of those. We become more than what we think of ourselves to be, when embraced by love.

And it's not just about romantic love. An unconditional love between a parent and a child or a pet and an owner, a lost love between individuals who parted ways, a youthful love between teenagers, a tough love between a coach and a prodigy, a platonic love between best friends and we could go on. One way or the other it helps us to connect with them and form relationships. We form trust and security with them. We experience life with them. We allow them to be a little more of themselves around us. I mean isn’t that the goal? To just exist and not be ashamed of it? But what if they don't exist anymore?

We grieve for people who are not with us in our world. Actually they are nothing more than just a bunch of memory neurons firing inside our brains. There is a quote from a TV show I watched a few years back - “What is grief, if not love persevering.” which is now staying rent free inside my brain ever since then. I don’t think it needs to be explained more precisely than that. It is just love with no place to go. This gives a wonderful meaning to that person’s life and reassures that they were loved and people felt grateful for them during their time.

But we don’t love just about everyone and that’s ok. There are instances where we love a particular trait or maybe even a moment of a person even if not the person itself. Let us try it out. Think of some random acquaintance and try to find something you love about them. It could be a colleague that you don't work with often, a neighbor you barely hang out with, or some stranger you probably will never see again -  anybody that you are not actually close to. It could be something they did, the way they reacted, their laugh etc., Why is that? How does it benefit you? It is very insignificant and/or you may never see that person again but you loved a part of them anyway. It is just a micro-love and that’s it. It's that simple and it is just there in fleeting moments and simple interactions. It helps you appreciate those little random moments that make the most of your life and life just feels easier that way. But looking from a different perspective, we can see that love goes even beyond the living.

We can love just some stuff around us. Just look around you right now. Take a moment and see the things around you. You most likely have a few things with you that you love and you love it being there with you. It could be very useful that you can't live without, have a special meaning, a memory or it might be a gift from someone you hold dear. We pay attention to things we love. Somehow keeping them around us makes us appreciate our environment and gives a meaning to the place we find ourselves to be. Isn't it so beautiful that a soulless thing has acquired a greater meaning just because it is being loved by you? There might be even more versions of love I probably missed out on. But there is one more thing I wanted to talk about before I close things off.

This thing - no wait a minute, that's not right - This Person has been with you in ups and downs of your life. They have supported you and, also more often than not, degraded you during hard times. They have cheered you up to the sky and booed you down to the ground when you accomplish those amazing things in your life. They have cried with you, laughed with you and at you, got your back at times and stabbed your back sometimes, and above all, they know everything and all versions of you. And, that person is (drumroll, please)... you!

Now, if you think you are capable of loving a person who is alive or is just inside your brain as a memory, if you think you can love a random moment with a random person even if you don’t really care for them, hell if you think you can just love things around you, then why not give yourself a meaning? Why not allow yourself to be you? Why not appreciate those little things and fleeting moments about you? Why not be grateful for your past without hopelessly trying to rewrite it? And last but certainly not the least, Why not just love you and all versions of you? We went through various aspects of love, from romantic and familial to platonic and even inanimate objects and if these many things deserve to be loved by you, then I believe you deserve that love too. And as always, thanks for reading.