A few thoughts on Love (on any other topic this would be called a rant)

There is a pervasive and fallacious belief in society that love is fleeting, that love is merely a desire or emotion felt at one period of time, subject to change and alteration.  This is a viewpoint I have seen expressed by many people, some very close to me, and I believe it is destructive to the true and beautiful nature of love.

Love is not merely an emotion.  Rather, it is a choice- a conscious commitment to look deeply enough into the soul of another human being, to try and understand their most raw selves, that you begin to see their true nature.  As sung in Les Miserables "To love another person is to see the face of God".  It truly is.  The ability to love is a divine gift bestowed upon feeble, imperfect people in order that we may, through unified efforts, come to know God.

One does not simply stop loving.  If you truly love someone- a sister or brother, a parent, a child, a friend, or a lover- you can't just stop.  Love, while the most fundamental force of mortality, is not the only one.  And love often causes people to do things that seem contrary to modern society's idea of passionate, romanticized love.  An unwed mother who gives up her child for adoption is typically viewed as caring deeply for the infant, so deeply, in fact, that she is willing to make great sacrifices to do what is best for the child.  And the brother who seemingly humiliates his sister to save her from a precarious circumstance is clearly seen to be exercising his brotherly love by protecting her best interests.  And yet, the lover who lets go, for one of the hundreds of good reasons one may have, is villainized.

You never stop loving someone.  The heart isn't a finite amount of space that is taken up by each person for whom we care.  Instead, [insert Michael's logical fallacy here] the more we love, the greater our capacity to love.  The ability to love is less like a substance and more like a muscle- the more it is exercised, the stronger it becomes.  The more people we learn to care for, and the more deeply we learn to care, the more we are blessed with the ability to understand the children of God and to have compassion, empathy, and charity.

Loving is never wrong.  Even when in loving we are hurt, abused, or used, the exercise of our God-given ability to love will never count against us in eternity.  We can do things in the name of love, things that violate commandments and wound the tender souls of those who have so trustingly allowed us access to their hearts, but these are merely attempts to justify inappropriate behavior in the name of virtue.  True love never compromises the virtue, safety, or spiritual well-being of another person.  And true love never ceases, but always grows.

Two Towers

So often I find my world shaking and crumbling. I make mistakes. I feel guilt. I suffer the consequences of those I love making choices that lead to pain. I struggle to assess and reassess how to live and learn. I pour my soul out in words only to discover I've been muted by pain or pride. So I offer myself through warmth and softness, and those too are lost in the rubble of doubt and fear.

And yet, amidst the wreckage, I find that two things stand firm: truth and love. While it may feel as though you drop pebbles into a bottomless well, there is hope. Standards to truth will always arise to clear the fog. Love that is given accumulates to form intangible bonds of strength that eventually become too strong to deny. If you search hard enough, you will always find truth. And if you love long enough, it will always make a difference.

I made a website!

Yes I did!  It's part of my final project for my American Novel class, the first (and last) English class of my undergraduate career!

Want to see? http://4emilyannwarren.wix.com/monomania

I did my project on Monomania, and the obsessiveness evident in our modern society.  I've come to realize in the past few months that a desire to be busy for the sake of busyness is unhealthy.  Too often we throw ourselves into work and study, neglecting all of the other things that we work and study for.

A lot of my writing was about literature, but I want to share a few of the more poignant concluding thoughts of my essay.  Thanks for indulging me- there are few things I love more than sharing ideas!

While dedication, hard work, and passion are important aspects of life in moderation, overemphasizing these qualities can lead to the creation of dangerous cultural norms.  The examples of monomania reflected in literature help create and propagate these ideas, both bringing awareness to the danger and furthering the expectation of obsession.  As argued by Davis, the result of this has become manifest in the way our society has come to view “mental illness as a way of life” (84).  Paul Lafargue, in his fairly obscure work The Right to Be Lazy, denounces compulsive workers as dangerous monomaniacs, victims of a pathology embraced all too quickly by workers (Lafargue).  We have become so obsessed with busyness and progress that we don’t value balance. 

Obsession in the modern world has become a sort of coping mechanism, a way to avoid the “oppressive insignificance of the everyday” (van Zuylen 14).   An idée fixe endows an individual with purpose, infusing life with meaning.  This meaning provides us with emotional coherence and a sense of control (Freud).  In this sense, obsessions give us an illusion of agency while actually ripping it from us.  As Pierre Janet observed, we trade the possibility of domestic, uneventful harmony for hope of a far-reaching and immaterial purpose (Janet). Ultimately, our excess of activity conceals our fear that there is not enough life worth living for.  And so we create causes, things into which we can channel our passion in order to block out the daunting demands of freedom and everyday living. 

Conclusion

Through the creation of a website, Monomania, I have attempted to provoke others to consider this issue.  I hope to help others see that our literature, and thus our culture, is embedded with the underlying assumption that fixation and single-minded dedication are the bedrock of progress.  And, in identifying this assumption, realize that it comes with a cost.  My goal is that we can come to understand that our idolatry of busyness and our “anxious relationship with laziness” are often the result of a “fear of living a life devoid of a grand plan or an organizing principle” (Davis 194).   Perhaps if we stopped measuring our worth by our futile productivity, we can come to believe, as LDS prophet Gordon B. Hinckley taught, “The major work of the world is not done by geniuses. It is done by ordinary people, with balance in their lives, who have learned to work in an extraordinary manner” (Hinckley). Perhaps we can come to revere not those who pursue unnatural specialization, but balance.  We can teach moderation, and assure others that their worth is a reflection of who they are, not what they've done.  And, eventually, seek that elusive balance for ourselves.

A better perspective

I am not the most beautiful girl in the world, but I am pretty.

I am not the best athlete, but I enjoy sports and have a natural competitive drive.

I am not the smartest person at this University, but I have good writing and problem solving skills.

I am not the hardest worker, but I do work hard and try to find time to relax.

I am not the best cook, but I make food for those I love.

I am not always the most careful with finances, but I'm learning how to budget and be frugal.

I will not be the best mother, but I will do the best with what I know.

I am not the best at everything, but I am the best at being me.

And I am enough.  

What I know

Relaxing is vital to survival, sanity, and kindness.

Sulfur in the air causes rain- so apparently fireworks are good for forest fires.

Being happy isn't wrong, it's beautiful.  Enjoy it.

Sillyness is the butter of relationships.  Cuddling and conversation is the bread.

When the situation arises, the right words will come.

Everyone is doing the best with what they know.

Remember compassion and understanding, then add practicality and advice.

God doesn't make mistakes, but he does make miracles.

Sometimes living in the now is okay, it's even good.  

Because it's only when we truly appreciate the moment that we are able to use it to understand the past and learn for the future.

james joyce-ing it up

I've tried not to do this recently, but I'm on my computer and I can type a gabagillion times faster than I could ever write.

Everything is going to explode.  There's nothing new, nothing that's hard again--in fact things are just starting to get easier in a lot of ways.  But all the hard that has been happening lately, all the stuff that I've said is just fine and that I'm strong enough to handle...well, I'm NOT.  And shoving it down into the bottom of the ice cream cone doesn't help anyone, it just makes it harder to get to the chocolate candy at the bottom.  [stupid metaphor, I know.  it doesn't even make sense].  It's just...well, I don't know how to be anyone except the girl that gets things done.  I don't know how to believe that God could love me even if all I did was sit around all day.  But even more importantly, I don't know how to believe that balance is possible.  I feel like a break means I spend the rest of the day being worthless, or that productivity means that I can't take even one break.  It's all or nothing.  Either I stay and be perfect or I run far, far away.  All the studies say you're more productive when you take breaks, but I'm not.  I get distracted and then feel worthless and then can't do what it was I was supposed to be doing in the first place.  So I don't take breaks, I push through until I can't take it anymore and then I break.  I fall apart.  I get so strung up that all I can do is sob.  And then I'm at square one again, rejuvenated enough to move on and get some more stuff done, but never really learning how to be happy and rested.

I know I'll figure this out eventually.  It's just hard to believe when I'm still caught in the cycle.  HOPE.