Love

I am in love. Well, at least I think I am. The object of my affection is a person, more specifically a female. She is wonderful in every way to me, with her striking features, her fiery personality and her distinct refusal to be made into what other people want her to be really gets me. However, emotion has been the ruined many a person. Take the Abdication of Edward VIII: that happened through his love for Wallace Simpson, and his resulting actions left his reputation stained for his whole life. Another example would be in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where the two protagonists meet a tragic ending because they followed their emotional urges over reason and logic. Likewise, in the film Titanic, the character who Leonardo Di Caprio plays dies because he sacrifices himself so the character Kate Winslet plays can live, but if he had followed his reasoning capacities he would have thrown her off that floating piece of wood and saved himself. My point is, love can be detrimental to your career prospects, social life and possibly endanger your life. So I want to assess a simple question in this article: is falling in love actually good? And depending on the result, should I act on my feelings?

On the face of it, love is perceived as an idyllic emotion. It unites individuals in ways nothing else can. It is the source of support, care, kindness, generosity, compassion and many other prized attributes. It encourages people to bond in a way words fail to capture, that can be conceptualised and experienced but not explained, and produces such a good state of affairs that it is a natural desire of almost all people to fall in love. It inspires a friendship which is so deep it is as if the people involved are one person, with their problems and worries solved together. It is truly marvelous.

Yet much hurt comes from love. If you look at literature from the very earliest of times, images of love destroying and ruining people is everywhere. Famously, King Arthur was cheated on by his wife Guinevere, who had many intimate encounters with Arthur's right hand man Lancelot. This was the beginning of the end for Arthur, with his luck running out soon after. Love can be easily manipulated, controlled, twisted, and abused by all parties, and it is striking how many people fail to recognise this, despite soaps, films, books, plays, and even blog articles pointing it out. The trust involved can be easily broken, and that is not something someone should have to go through.

Perhaps this topic needs to be taken from a different approach. Consider the implications of evolution in this debate. Ultimately, passing on our genes is one of the fundamental aspects of animal life, a lot of our actions and thoughts are driven by this desire to procreate. Whether this is good or bad is a separate issue, I just believe that being in love will increase your in chances of doing this, for you will have a stronger motive and a greater appeal to the potential mate, for they know you actually care about doing this as opposed to just wanting her as a physical object. So love can be beneficial in a long term sense.

To be honest, I don't think it really matter what I think about love, I am in love either way. Emotions are powerful things, and I think accepting the fact that you have them is a good thing. Whether I shall act on it is a different matter: love and exams don't go well together, and I don't think the girl I have feelings for likes me just as much. But I guess it will all help me learn for later life.

A quote from Leonard Cohen summarises for me the idea of love very well, with a metaphor so beautiful it is just wonderful contemplating it. 'You want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind and you think that she may crush you, as she's touched your perfect body, with her mind.'