Is Love a Thing?

"(T)he opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” ― Elie Wiesel

William Shakespeare's plays struggle with conscience as many of his characters queried how they should respond to conflict. As we watch these humans search for truth within their lives-- it's mostly about how they should live, what do they owe to their family, their town and to themselves. He was not indifferent.

How did he maintain the passion to keep writing the twenty eight plays we know of. Why did he spend so much of his life writing? Was it a love of life or love of theatre?

“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken".

We are just creatures who have evolved on a planet that provides life with air, water and food for our survival but not guarantees for our happiness.

Lao Tzu wrote  “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” 

For a newborn baby to survive the trauma of birth, she needs love.  The imprint of a mother in the first minutes of birth. Vibrations of belonging.

Belonging to what? Her tribe? We could call that love, the need for protection and food. You may be thinking that is a selfish need to survive. Love is what you give not what you take.

So what if I was adored for my art or music, my style or clothes or wealth? What if I was worshipped as a great leader? That requires fear and obedience not love, although some may believe it.

I love some pieces of music, some plays, poems and paintings - although I have nothing to do the people who created them.

There is a difference in my life since I married and gave birth to children, and met my grandchildren.

When I first held the first grand-child in my arms, wanting to stay there forever, I asked the universe how could it be? This bond when I had not suffered the labour pains or the tension of seeing my son or daughter anxiously waiting for the birth.

After the birth of my third child, holding her in my arms while she suckled at my breast, I remember the feeling (not a thought but a sense that my skin knew) I had achieved all I needed to and would be satisfied to die when the time comes.

After living well for another twenty years, I knew that love supported me between troubles and triumphs, and that something connected everything I had lived through, and everything that was given by support from my husband, children, friends, co-workers, health professionals, teachers and ancestors has given me the place where I belong. 

In the eyes of those who care about the quality of life there is something invisible yet strong as the mycelium highways beneath the grass and stones of this earth. Like my neural substrate I know what sustains and what destroys me. 

My world is made up of things and senses of things. I know what it feels like to be part of a project where my life is not valued and I can leave those times freely.  I also understand there are people who stay even after they have been diminished because the connecting strings can be brought together again.

Feelings can be cut and mended but feelings are always present in some way or other. They guide us and help us when we listen to them. If someone tells you you're too sensitive or that your feelings must be overcome, it's because a world of things and rules no longer support the truths of our lives.

If someone tells you to be professional you must ignore your feelings, you are working in a toxic environment. Your senses must hide and you create false narratives even though you try to control your relationship to your world as best you can.

But depression, anxiety, anger and tears are your body's response to the sub-conscious rejection of situations that are not good for beings who survived because they are sensitive.

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” 

― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey