Love is...

The last thing my mother said to me before she went into her final coma was ‘I love you, son.’ ‘I love you too, mum,’ I replied. I knew even at the time that I was saying it to help her go out on a happy note. The fact is, I don’t know what the word means; I never have.

I remember watching the film Love Story, and gasping at Ali McGraw’s famous line ‘Love is never having to say you’re sorry.’ Has there ever been an emptier catchphrase to please an empty-headed audience? It’s surely one of the greatest examples of Hollywood system-speak designed to keep the impressionable securely ensconced in base camp. I went home asking myself the question ‘so what is love?’ I didn’t have an answer.

I’ve said ‘I love you’ to several women during my life, and I was sure I meant it at the time. In retrospect, however, I realise that what I actually meant was ‘I have intense feelings for you.’ Is that enough? I doubt it somehow. I also know that the only time in my life when I experienced genuine panic was when I got a phone call at work telling me that my daughter was missing. Is that enough? Closer, maybe. And I know that I was always prepared to give the nod to the vet when he told me he couldn’t do any more to give my dog or cat a meaningful quality of life. Is that it? I suspect that’s the closest of all, because I’ve always doubted the oft-quoted dictum that ‘greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for others,’ or words to that effect. It seems to me that a greater love is being demonstrated by putting one’s own interests aside and letting the object of affection go because it’s in their interest. It’s why I can’t help feeling massive admiration for the genuine mercy killer.

A question: why do parents love their children so much? Because it’s natural? Well, yes, I’m sure it is. And is it engendered by some genetic imprint? Probably. So are we saying that we love our children because they’re ours? There’s certainly some truth there; so love is selective in that case, and probably includes an element of possessiveness as well. Which brings me to the suspicion that most of the forms of experience we call ‘love’ have an element of selfishness about them. It’s only a four letter word, but it seems to me to be possibly the greatest concept in all the universes, temporal and spiritual. Can it afford to be selfish? Can it afford to be selective? Can it afford to be conditional?

Why only love our own children, and not all children? And if we’re going to do that, why not love all people? Why stop there? Why not love all sentient beings? Is that enough, or should we continue further and love all life, be it sentient or not? And what about all the other elements of existence? Why not love the lot?

It amuses me when people say ‘I love God,’ while being quite prepared to hate the commies, the illegal immigrants, the drug dealers, and even the neighbour’s cat who makes holes in their garden. Surely, if this phenomenon we call God exits, it must be something essentially unknowable but bound up in some way with the concept of the indivisible whole. It strikes me that the only way you can love God is by loving everything.

I have a feeling that I shall never know what love is until and unless I get to that stage. When I do, I’ll sit cross-legged and smile like the grinning Chinese monk resting on the bookcase beside me. Until then I’ll be very circumspect in my use of the word.