What Is Love?

I came across this http://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-priebe/2016/06/we-dont-always-end-up-with-the-loves-of-our-lives-and-thats-okay/ and found it relatable to me, or at least used to. I remember thinking of someone as the love of my life but couldn't end up with, and still cannot. The only difference is now I am not sure if the person is truly the love of my life. I may now have fallen in love with someone else and this new significant other of mine is probably the love of my life, or not. No one can ever know.

The article eloquently describes how it feels to have found the love of life but end up separated, and how it's okay.

Because lately I've undergone a certain problem in regards with love, and I consulted it with three friends, so I shared the link to them in our Whatsapp group. I didn't expect any kind of response, and yet I wondered how they would respond to the article.

Instead of saying "it is so true" or "I know how it feels", they replied me:

"But, what is love?"
"True... What is love?"

Having talked a lot about love and falling in love, having read a lot of stories about love and broken hearts, also having learned so much about how the spiritual figures teach of love, I was supposed to answer it easily.

But I didn't.

Then just like 21st century's kids, I googled "what is love?" (I used my windows phone, so it's more like I bing-ed it).

At the same time, as a typical science-geek, my mind also recalled the elevation level of the composition of neurotransmitters when someone falls in love. Dopamine, Endorphin, Serotonin, and Oxytocin. To scientifically and simply put, falling in love is nothing but neurological effect, probably pathological since it's going to impact the adrenaline and cortisol as well causing one sweats, one's heart races beating against its throne in chest, and one's mouth goes dry.

Then I started to remember the character Annelies in Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer who fell in love right away with Minke, just by one kiss on her cheek. He was stranger, and quite creepy to suddenly kiss a girl on her cheek he just met for the first time and said he liked her. And yet, Annelies was desperately in love with him.

Although I read the novel thoroughly, I still don't get why love just struck her like that.

I read the article again, hoping to find a clue about what love is, and also read the comments, still I failed to grasp the meaning of that word. I didn't come back empty-handed, however. One out of myriad comments intrigued me:

I still didn't have the answer with me, of what love is. Then I remembered Dewi Lestari's short story talked about love and God titled "Semangkuk Acar Untuk Tuhan dan Cinta" (A Bowl of Pickles for God and Love).

She said it is an experience but explanation, a journey but destination; it is a question that's not fated to have its own any kinds of answer. In the end, Dewi Lestari, a current popular new generation of Indonesian literary novelist, doesn't even have the answer.

A great Sufi poet, Rumi, once said, "Choose Love, Love! Without the sweet life of Love, living is a burden — as you have seen."

But then again, what is love?

Does affection toward someone you're fond of mean love? Is when you care about families called as love? Can we say friendship is love as well?

Few weeks ago I finished reading a novel by Elif Shafak, Forty Rules of Love. It's a novel telling about a profound meaningful friendship between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz. The novel explains a lot about love and how we are supposed to perceive God and religion. To me, it's a very contemplative and pivotal novel. Here are few quotes about love from the novel, mostly delivered by Shams, the mystic Sufi:

"Just as clay needs to go through intense heat to become strong, Love can only be perfected in pain."

"The quest for Love changes us. There is no seeker among those who search for Love who has not matured on the way. The moment you start looking for Love, you start to change within and without."

"Is there a way to grasp what love means without becoming a lover first? Love cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all."

"Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough."

After all of those, I still cannot comprehend what love is. Why do I stick with someone in the name of love? Why do I suffer and grieve when we get separated? Why do I yearn for my beloved one's presence? Why, even though we love each other, we anyway hurt each other so much? Why do people have to part ways while they're so deeply in love?

When I don't know the answer to all of those questions, how can I know about the love of my life? How do I know whether someone is the love of my life? How much of difference will joy and heartbreaking be sculpted unto me between dating person A and person B, losing person A and person B?

Love has been something that comes and goes around as long as forever, perhaps even since before prehistoric civilization. It drives us crazy, suicidal, and may as well cause conflict and war. It makes us ecstatic, instantly live the paradise, and probably altruistic. But, what is love?

When I tell someone "I love you" — and I know I really mean it, but what do I actually mean? Does it mean I want to be with and spend the rest of my life with the person? Does it mean I want to do anything as long as I can see the loved one happy?

After all, probably that's just what it is. Love is just love. It doesn't have to have any meaning. It's just a mixed feeling between pain and joy, grief and happiness, gloom and bright. It's an irony of life that's just too abstract only the body can fathom, only the blood can apprehend, and the mind and heart are forever willingly fooled by. Love doesn't set you free, but it gives you a nest instead of cage. Love doesn't conquer all, but it's timeless, and when you feel and live it, you've inconspicuously found eternity within present moment.