Free Thoughts

Life is a complex mechanism. If one thinks of the human body, depending on how much head knowledge on the topic you may possess, you may name at the very least 2 or 3 intricate systems, all part of one single organism. All working in unison, all with a purpose. Yet, even within that marvelous complexity, living is a simple action. In many ways we choose to live, but at its core, we are alive subconsciously. In the same vein, there is a simple-complex analogy about the workings of our emotions. Some may argue that what we feel is no more than impulses within our brain, nothing but electricity running through connectors inside the gray matter. Be it that or not is outside of my authority to say, but I do know that emotions that carry names, such as anguish, love, happiness and the like, are as simple in their core as they are complex in their execution.

If we take the most popular, love, the average adult mind needn't go far to find a veritable library of memories upon which to draw conclusions with. Nevertheless, to take an unbiased view of love, while nigh impossible, may in fact reveal something unknown to even the eldest reading this. At the risk of sounding poetic, who can truly say that love is something that can fit inside a logical equation or that it is bigger than our imagination? Obviously these are rhetorical questions of quality, not quantity. What I may perhaps be getting to is that love may fit snugly within the confines of our understanding or reside squarely set on a shrine far beyond our reach at the other side of a limitless chasm. And even then, given the plurality of what people deem love to be: romance, sacrifice, determination, resolve, attraction, passion; a clear definition cannot possibly be given. Therein lies the complexity of this particular system. However, what I would like to clarify, if I may, is the simplicity of it.

Perhaps in a fit of naivete, or maybe a struggle with denial, I would almost blindly believe that there is a core facet of love from which all other complications arise. If only out of the natural pattern and order of things, perhaps, do I deduce that this exists at all. And yet, I insist that it does. It might not be the best approach but it may shed some light to strip away layers from the whole idea in search of an indivisible center. My first instinct is to remove romance although it may present me as some bitter commentator. Regardless, I would understand love to be far deeper than what most take romance to be. My short life has met me with little experience, but I'm an avid observer and have seen the many motions of others reacting to the motions of romance. I am convinced that love must be stronger, deeper, darker than something that brings two people together only to find them riven within half a month. Not to belittle romance, of course, truly a beautiful thing in its proper place and time, but truly, though romance may be part of love, love is truly a far cry from being nothing more than romance.

So then what is truly left? Ever since I was young I was taught that there were three kinds of love: agape, filial and eros. Eros being romantic love, filial being the love one feels for ones family and agape being the love we have for/from God. So would love then be trine and separate or a whole with three subsets? I would gamble to say it is a whole. Who's to say all three kinds of love cannot spring forth from the same essential source? Ultimately where does that leave us? After digging past the romantic layer, we can be met with either the filial or agape layers and honestly I don't believe it would be far fetched to consider love from God to go beyond what human love can conceive or offer. Truly the love of a mother towards her children surpasses the love of lovers on a merry day or the swelling heart of a father whose boy won the race weigh heavier than that of a woman being asked for her hand in marriage. Again these are situations begging for a quantitative measurement though never being conceded one and as such, my humble opinion is all I can muster to present. But I would like to believe that given a moderate amount of thought, many would agree with me.

Finally, can we say that there is nothing left but God's love? My perspective being that of the Christian faith, that along with my rearing and development, I know this would be a point of careful study and scrutiny and it very well ought to be. Regardless, this is the point to which I have gotten to: at its simplest, the very fount and source of love is none other than God. If one were to believe God's words then it is as simple as this: we love because He first loved us. Far be it from me to try to convince anybody of God's love for us or His sovereignty therein. And so, what does that truly say of love? Given the traits of God, we could say the love we have is limitless and powerful, among too many things to mention in this short analysis.

Conclusively, the simplicity of love lies in the overwhelming sense that it springs forth from our souls fed plainly from the everlasting source. Whether we love our brothers and sisters or lovers and friends or return as much of it as we may to whence it came, we can rest assured that if there is any complication in what we call love then it is simply the human element adding onto a pure essence. The clarity through which we can observe love comes at the price of the conscious disregard for ones own preconceived notions and learned reactions to what it truly is.