Love

LoveSF

#essay, #poem, #love, #bible, #believe, #upbringings

‘…it requires that one distinguishes and separates within the diversity, and that one chooses the single object of one’s gratitude and one’s affection. Very endoxal idea that to love is to choose, to eliminate, and thus to destroy “the remainder” + assimilation of the multiplicity of desires to indecision and, from there, to softness, to the “limp” = vitalist idea: what lives is only alive if it destroys what is around itself. Roland Barthes

According to this, love is a sensation that involves choice. This means that love is something reserved to a certain particularity and it has to do with individuality. In this way love can be determined as something egoistic and selfish. Remarkable is the fact that love is always slightly differently understood in Christianity. However, the way Christianity expresses love can be conceived as questionable, imaginary, and even magical. Since love is something you can’t touch, but something you feel, this certainly makes room for relative interpretation of what love is.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 bible

‘4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’

In contrast to the interpretation of love being a choice, the bible interprets love as something general and humble. In the passage above, the bible also brings the interpretation of love as being something safe. In this general way of speaking about love, the bible suggest that love should represent the exclusion of discrimination. But how real is this? Since, the bible also talks about how God abominates some people.

Leviticus 18:22 bible

‘22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: It is an abomination.’

However, the bible wants you to believe that everyone can be loved by God. Rather than just give an interpretation of what love is, there

is also negation of some things that deviate from its true meaning. What is noticeable is that there is no negation to love being the equivalent to fear. Because the bible wants people to fear God at the same time as love him. So, you should fear and love God at the same time. And since God is our heavenly father there is no problem in inflicting fear at the same time as we are loving our children. And for generations we thought that there is nothing wrong with that, since it’s God’s will.

1 John 4:17-19 bible

‘We are forced to the conclusion that the fear of God is not only okay but a necessary part of our lives. Our question instead must focus on; how does the love of God work? along with the fear of God. We must hold back from stating that the love and fear of God are mutually exclusive; both are necessary. They work hand in hand. Having one does not mean not having the other.’

I was raised to think that love and fear walk hand in hand.

I chose him based on fear.

I chose him based on a biblical ideology of love.

And his coercion to sex was always justified because I seemed to like it, since, it always ended in ecstasy for me too. I misconstrued the meaning of intimacy for forced sexual experiences. To me, love always had something to do with fear. To fear and love God the bible says. To fear someone is to love someone. My parents always inflicted fear on me. It’s now a pattern embedded in my belief and in my choice of whom to love. I couldn’t understand why I always ended up with the same malignant lover. A lover that doesn’t care for what I feel. Can I call that even a lover? The meaning of love is relatable to your upbringing. Love is a psychological experience. You can learn a specific definition from the dictionary. Love is an intense feeling of deep affection. Love is a great interest and pleasure in something. But in the end your upbringing will determine how you feel and search for love. To me, love is fear. The fear of being caught when I do something he doesn’t like.

‘The utopian feeling of sleeping as a couple could be desired as an absolute act of love and, whatever its realization is, as a golden fantasy. Why: sleep thoroughly woven of trust. To sleep: mobilization of trust. Cf. to sleep on both ears {dormir sur ses deux oreilles}: on the ear of the

other and one’s own, to sleep with one ear open. To sleep together-utopically-implies that the fear of one’s image being surprised is abolished: little matter that I be seen while sleeping --’.> Albertine’s sleep, observed by the Narrator:34, act of falling in love (of love-pas sion), not of love, because the gaze sets oneself apart.’ (Roland Barthes)

You go to sleep thinking that the person lying next to you will protect you. Even though you fear that person and you won’t notice, since you have been taught that you should submit.

Ephesians 5:22-33 bible

‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.’

There is a distortion of the significance of protection and safety from your partner.

‘To sleep together-utopically-implies that the fear of one’s image being surprised is abolished.’

On the contrary, you will wake scared every time you see your husband. But that is love right?

‘…what we love with the choicest, the most rare, the most delicate, the most tender love, what in us asks to be put beyond comparison, we would discover it at one point, abruptly, by chance, under the ostentatious form of a public farce; it’s the most painful turn the amorous path can take.’ Roland Barthes

But you still believe that love is pain and you keep on loving.

The Neutrals- Roland Barthes Bible.