Now this is not a piece of creative writing, but I felt I could get the most interesting responses in this forum (apologies for the deception.) What I have arrived at in the past few days of thinking is that there is no such thing as love. I would like you to post your thoughts on my comments, share your own experiences and try to explain to me the love you have felt.
Now I began thinking about ancient cultures, and even modern ‘primitive’ civilizations. In many societies, the concept of love does not exist. Women are treated terribly; never thought of as equals, but simply as a vessel to hold one’s baby. Sex occurs in an animalistic fashion, according to the whims of the man, and often with many different females.
In the West we have postulated this crazy doctrine of love. When you really analyse it, the concept of love falls apart as incoherent and impossible. For example believing that there exists a match for you: ‘the one.’ I mean, how likely is it that you’ll actually find your best match? Of the minuscule portion of the world’s population that you will meet, it is almost impossible that you will ever meet the human with which you will match best. But the idea of another woman out there who is more perfect for you than your wife totally undermines your marriage…so she must be the one…right? Wrong, look at it how it is, you settled for this woman, settled down because you thought you could live together. So we have this notion of a love that transcends all things and that our matches are written in the stars. Religious marriage intertwines this myth with the God myth; now your love is written in the stars and the Ten Commandments! But it is decaying, the whole love myth is beginning to topple (look at divorce rates.) We are animals, with chemical attractions, albeit very complex ones, but this is still the bottom line. Love is just another example of our manic desire to postulate some facet of existence which transcends the temporal; it is another form of revenge against time. Some of the doctrine is not even consistent, for example love at first sight vs. love being more than skin deep.
Help me, and please reply, help me confirm my suspicions, or otherwise tell me love exists and tell me what it is.