Love pertained to herein is that for a significant other. Romantic love, if you will.
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What is love?
Ask the typical science guy and you'll get that nerdy answer regarding biological fluids and chemicals that result from attraction with the ultimate goal of procreating, you know, as the scripture said, "GFAM." (I guess that's where science and faith intersect.) But since you're asking me, I'd say it's the state of one's life, while being an independent phenomenon initially but not totally, when you experience and feel and think about all those matters and non-matters that are circumscribed within -----------
Ah, fuck it. I don't know. I can't even assemble the thought into intelligible strings of words that would make me sound credible. But what I can say is this: whatever love is, it keeps me awake at night, thinking and unthinking of what is, replaying moments of what was, creating moments of what will be (or what isn't) - hoping these moments come true at least in the night's dreams.
Love doesn't make sense. It demands to be felt, to be considered, to be essential, even when you don't fully grasp what it is. It also doesn't make sense when you somehow do grasp what it is but you believe that experiencing it at a particular point in time is unreasonable. It's unreasonable when in the midst of the experience, your reasonable self kicks in and you ask yourself something like this:
"I don't even know her that much. I haven't spent time with her that much. I haven't learned most of her quirks and favorites and dislikes. Nor have I understood her silent words and gestures and when they visit. I even lag behind in seeing much more of her perfections and imperfections. But what the heck is this?!"
It's unreasonable; totally irrational. Undesirable for the rational man.
But love makes sense too amidst all of this. For the wise man, it is a natural part of life. For him, it makes sense as much as the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun makes sense to him. It makes sense as much as why rivers flow the way they flow and waterfalls have water that, indeed, falls. And it is much more than curiosity or an apparent short-lived experience.
Curiosity ceases the moment you get answers. Love lasts. And for a rationally curious man, when the answer desired by curiosity is deemed of less value than the effort to get the answer, even when curiosity is not satisfied, he lets go. In love, the equation gets distorted. Actually, gets decimated. There's no longer a cost-benefit consideration. Otherwise, if there is, then that wouldn't be love but business, some work. For loving another is not demanding from the other what you believe you ought to receive. You are two independent individuals choosing to stay together and make each other feel significant.
And in love, man doesn't really let go, even when he said he did. It'll be forever with him until he ceases to think, to feel, to exist. Was there any man who have truly loved and who was not changed by this love forever? This is why it's not an apparent short-lived experience.
I guess that's what love is. That incredibly intimate and personal experience and state that you feel when you're engaging in it, whatever it is. And one can never really coherently and definitely answer what it is no matter how many sleepless nights have passed.
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Why even bother loving?
I have to be honest and agree with the choice of words for this question. Love is a bother, that is, when you look at it circumscribed from a very limited point-of-view, like looking at it through a microscope. See, when you think of work and all the things you need to do for the sake of your career, and you factor in love, it's a bother. It will, inevitably, take away time you could use to be productive in the sense of accomplishing work. But when you expand your view, say you think of life as a whole - that some 80 years (on average) you'll spend in this gravity-suspended mass of brown, green, and blue - you won't be seeing it as a bother, but as necessary as breathing. You see, you work to live and not live to work. (Says some wise Chinese guy because it totally has that Confucius feel.)
I bother to love her because it inspires. It ignites my creativity, my passions. It touches my whole being and guides me to become a better person - to think deeply of her and how my actions ultimately affect her. Heck, it even improves the manner by which I execute work.
Yes, there is pain and that could be a bother. It is true that loving is risking. But you'll never get the fullness of what it offers when you don't risk feeling pain and discomfort from time to time. (Add awkwardness in that mix too.) To love then becomes a calculated decision to take the risk. And look, when you fail and feel pain, you are given a chance to channel the pain into an opportunity to become a better person. This opportunity opens up to you because you've given everything and you live in the moment, that is, you drink the very essence of living. For when you don't risk, you risk to regret. And when you regret, you'll forever be stuck in the limbo that is what if.
But that's just the part where you do the choosing. How about that part where you don't?
Well, you bother to love because it bothers you unceasingly when you don't.
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How can you say you love another person?
When the person matters to you a lot.
Matter occupies space and has mass. Add love, and it's a lot of matter. Therefore, you love another person when the person occupies space and has mass, a lot.
Occupies space
I can say I love another when she occupies an incredible amount of space in my head. And when she occupies space in my soul. When she resides in that hole in your soul and reassures you that everything's going to be fine, definitely she matters.
Mass
And when she occupies the space beside you and you feel the force, because Force = Mass * Acceleration. Acceleration in this case being the ever-present gravity. And she's gravity because her effect on you is ever-present.
A lot
And you a-lot so much time thinking of her.
What a wordplay
Cut the wordplay and know this. You know you love another person when you even bother to make a wordplay describing her. You know you love her when you know it's corny but proceed anyway just to make her smile. You know you love her when much of the hours you're awake is spent thinking of what she's probably doing and if she's fine and if she would ever feel the same way about you. You know you love her when you're much more awake than asleep. You know you love her when your attraction isn't reduced with the imperfections you see, but you get attracted even more for these very imperfections. You know you love her when what others say and feel don't matter as much as how you truly feel for her. You know you love her when you're usual independent and cool self is trying to adjust and find a new equation where she is part of your independent and cool (lol) life. But an equation that doesn't impose a particular part/role. That whatever she chooses to be, which you don't know, is fine with your independent and cool life.
You know you love her when you know that she's the variable constant of your life.
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Any words for the one whom you love?
Honey ('cause according to Gizmodo, 'honey' doesn't expire and all this English-ing just made me want to suddenly use this term of endearment), Babe ('cause you're as adorable as a baby, as sweet as a child), I'm not sure about a lot of things in this life, but I'm sure about this. You're loved.
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