Letters of Love and Emotional Truths
I'd like to start off by apologising to my regular readers for the recent pause in my musings but I've been putting most of my effort into my upcoming book, Neuriah (which I announced last time).
I'll have more regular offerings coming over the next few months though, so please don't forget to keep checking in with me ...or you can add me on twitter or facebook for notifications, if you haven't already.
Outside of the world of writing, I'm celebrating my 7th wedding anniversary this month and so I'd like to take a little time to discuss the nature of love because it's very much on my mind.
I feel confident in saying that the impact of love on human expression is unparalleled. Love is something which is so easy for us to feel and yet nearly impossible for us to describe. When the gentle poet speaks of love, they do so knowing that it is something too fluid for their words to ever truly apprehend.
Amidst all of the vagarious qualities of love, I think one attribute stands out and allows it to be a touchstone in our lives;
When we feel it, we know that it is.
Just as Descartes put forward the experience, or knowledge, of thought as the most fundamental of certainties because it is immediately apparent, so it is with love.
When a person is in love, there can be no doubting of it or rationalising it away. A state is in evidence which usurps all other reason. Maybe love is guilty of a little overreach in this regard but its roots are a foundation of certainty, none the less.
As a writer, I believe some of my own finest work has been produced in letters of love to my wife and I don't say that lightly.
So, how do we access the power of such a fundamental truth with words?
Well, obviously there are no rights or wrongs. We have already accepted that love is the kin of truth, so as long as the emotion is expressed and felt by your beloved, then you don't need anyone editing your heart felt sentiments.
However, the cliché of love letters, and the literary expression of love, sets out a format of; Oh, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
This is born of an infant love and a desire to express the feelings which overwhelm our senses when love first takes hold. I believe that this kind of love is the blind kind. Although there is no doubting the truth of your feelings, your body is awash with its own happy chemicals and that will fade in a matter of months. Only after the chemical high of our body chemistry dies down are we left with something useful, insightful and comprehensible.
Once we are no longer transfixed with the feeling itself, then we can see life reflected in it. Good and bad once again come in to focus. We experience the difficulties of life once more and the narrow focus of our obsession gives way to the world beyond it.
Expressing such a love as has had time to mature is much more involved. We have a chance to gain perspective and from that perspective observe the absolute meaning of our lives. We get a compass bearing in a world which, for many of us, lacks direction.
All other emotions and reasoning can be questioned against such a setting. We can look at our anger and jealousy through critical eyes. Or wonder at the limits of our kindness, or the extent of our selfishness, when we feel we can give no more. A new scale can be formed and it is one on which we know the ultimate extent of happiness as we explore the purpose of everything else.
Here's hoping for happy living and loving for everyone.
Endlessly, Perpetually, Something,
L-J
To my wife, Michelle, I would like to say thank-you for everything.
Thank-you for your caring, your beauty, your smile, your guidance, your thoughtfulness, your living, your dancing, your wisdom, your honesty, your intelligence, your support, your watching, your fairness, your belief, your integrity, your truth, your editing and your everything. There are too many words and not enough time to speak them all Beautiful but thank-you for keeping my heart so warm. I love you.
