14th of February 2023
~
Dear Reader,
Love is a pretty much complex concept. Love is subject, somewhat subjective.
For an infant to perceive love, his primary caregiver, especially the mother, shall always carry him and give him caress in the middle of the night, perhaps a breastmilk. For a child to feel what love is, the presence of his playmates should be there when he finishes his sleeping schedule, expecting a reward in outdoor play. A teenager emerges in love by having butterflies inside the stomach and perhaps receiving sweet gifts from another person they like. For an adult to know what love is, he must provide for his family and or pay his bills if he lives alone. Practicality is the measurement of love there.
Well, for the old age man to realize love is by retrospecting the happenings during his early life. A perception of care from the primary caregiver, a feeling of accomplishment of being included with the neighborhood friends, a form of emerging into a romantic relationship and sweetness, and being the provider in the family along with a sense of responsibility in his own life, all of these an old man shall retrospect if he genuinely went through different levels of what he experienced as ‘love.’
Have you realized that from all the examples I have stated above, there is always the presence of someone? Exactly. We cannot live alone expressing this ‘love,’ whatever it might be for you. There is always this someone or a group of people, perhaps a nation and generation, we want to share our lives with for a more meaningful mortality journey.
And in retrospection, he shall realize if he lived a life worthy of living that, it is always about someone and not just for ourselves.
Rollo May, an existentialist, described love as a
“Delighting in the presence of the other person and an affirming of [that person’s] value and development as much as one’s own.”
Like May, may we also delight in the presence of other people and care for them as much as we care for ourselves, because a love well shared is a life worth living.
I hope you had a gentle day.
Good night & Grace be upon you, little soul.
Sincerely,
Kryz.
~
Reference:
Rollo May, Existential Psychology. Retrieved from: https://sites.google.com/site/ubmichellebadillo/theories-of-personality/rollo-may-existential-psychology#:~:text=May%20(1953)%20defined%20love%20as,206).