Mart-deBlog

Everyone knows that people who fall in love have less time for their friends. It is very natural and a true friend would never complain. But I've come to think this is only a symptom of something that runs much deeper and which I think can cause the ruination of your life.

Let us put it stereotypically. When we seriously fall in love, the everyday world turns pale and reality loses some of its intensity. In a way the normal values in your life (your best friends and family, but also other things you might care for, such as chocolate, music, sports) is drained by the love for your partner. In other words, the other person consumes all the value that you normally attribute to the various aspects of your life. It is as if your lover is a black hole catcging away the light of your day. And we wish it no other way. Don't we want to be swept off our feet? To lose ourselves in our lover?

But isn't there a sense in which the world is sacrificed to the love?

Of course it might all sound a little extreme. But beware, we cannot see it happening when we are in the middle of it. We notice that we have a little less time for friends, and the sunrise is nothing compared to the eyes of our lover, but we think it is all relative and we still care for friends and still enjoy the sunrise just as we did before. But how much of this is genuine? How much of this is mere habit, we know so well who we are and thus what we like. It is so easy to care out of habit, for the form of it. How often does not our self-image prescribe what we are suppose to like and what to dislike? This becomes clear when these things fall away from us while we are in love. Old friends are lost but our mind is not open to discover new personalities. The television replaces old hobbies. What happens is simply that what is empty of value does not leave an open space -or does not shift your interests when it vanishes. Only your love can move you.

To continue the tragedy. When one falls madly in the all-consuming love, the world can be lost to a point of no return. A vacuum of emptiness surrounds the lovers. This emptiness can cage couples, when the love grows corrupt and there is only darkness surrounding it with nowhere to go. This nothingness in the world is basically the same as indifference. As the fanatic lover of God does not care for the victims of a holy war. And we all know it, it is exactly the emptiness one feels when ending an intense relationship, when the value of life is depleted. I myself once felt the growing emptiness in my life while being deeply in love with someone. This paradoxical experience drove me crazy while inside myself I blamed my girl for devouring the world. I could not sacrifice my world.

And then come the questions. Is there a way out? Does the world consume the hermit's love in the same manner? Is there a way to love the world next to your lover? Is it not necessary to have contrast? Can you see white spots on a white wall? If you love everything equally, should not that be called indifference instead of love? And if you just love the other to a degree, does that not defy the whole idea of love? If the world keeps its values, are you then really in love?

Is love always destructive?