What do you talk about when you talk about love?

What do you talk about when you talk about love?

Yes, the title is something from Raymond Carver's famous story. I read it a long time ago. I should read it again, soon. Maybe tomorrow. I will go check it out from the library. Anyway, what I'm going to narrate has something to do with love, but nothing about the story.

As I've said time and time again, women have told me they like me, even love me. And they have asked me if I love them, too. I have rhetorically replied, ah, love, what did you mean when you said you loved me?

-But you knew what I meant!

-No, I didn't. Tell me.

-You're shitting me, right?

-No, I'm not. 

-I meant I miss you when you're not around. You turn me on and I care about your well-being.

-But are you totally unselfish in your dealings with me? Would you help me in whatever way you can, to the utmost of your abilities? Are you going to forgive me over and over again? Would you die for me?

-No, you're asking too much!

-Not really! Freud was wrong in many points and was influenced by the hysteria and sexual repression exhibited by the over-refined Viennese women at the turn of the 20th century, but in my audaciously insane view, I think he hit on the mark when he espoused an opinion that death wish was the flip side of life force, and, more relevant to what we are talking here, the Oedipal complex. You see, in a romantic relationship, there are strong remnants and overtones of parent-child relationships. To really love somebody, one must either love that person as our parent or our own child. To do differently is just to engage in stylized mutually beneficial relationship. True Love is either involving pleasant childhood memories or concerned with transcendental offspring protection. I suspect that Freud hit on unspoken/unacknowledged practice as represented in terms of endearment which have incestuous overtones between husband and wife. Love is always a tension between self love and love for others. The tension melts away if the beloved is now shrouded and vested with either parental or offspring dimensions. Love is about survival and covert propagation of genes. It's stronger and more sublime than sex. 

I'm an authority on love. I know what I am talking about when I talk about love. When you still think too much of yourself and not enough of your beloved, you don't know shit about love. When you are not willing to die for your beloved, that means you are still consumed by self-love and self-preservation and mercantilism, and not fired and blown away by romanticism. A mother is always willing to sacrifice her life for her child. Conversely, a child always loves and protect his parent(s) as much as he can. In a word, love is sacrifice, is giving of oneself. Unless you know something about that, don't come around here and preach to me about love and the flutterings of the heart. 

Thus spoke Wissai

March 20, 2014