LOVE

“We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.”

-Albert Einstein

In the beginning, the Universe was created. This single act is often hailed as the most pointless and self-important anomaly of all time. Indeed, ‘time’ itself only exists as a result of the Universe being created and thus, by the very nature of it, the creation of said Universe is the very deed which allowed such a monstrously purposeless thing as a ‘universe’ to exist in the first place.

Regardless of this, here we are: Irrational, self-obsessed smidgeons of life with a bizarre fixation upon discovering the meaning of our, otherwise meaningless, existence. Yet, if it weren’t for one miniscule occurrence, we would have realized the futility of our pursuit many centuries ago. This occurrence takes the form of something which we have come to call ‘emotions’ – socio-environmentally stimulated responses in the prefrontal cortex of our brains, which we have the greatest difficulty describing and understanding.

One emotion in particular has caused us both irreparable damage and irrefutable joy. Yet, in what is possibly the most ironic act in all of human history, we decided that this behemoth of a sentiment should come to be known simply by the short and undescriptive name: Love.

But the strange thing about this ‘love’, and probably the reason we humans find it so fascinating, is the almost magical qualities it possesses – the profound uncertainty of it. Unlike anger, love is not invoked when one encounters insolent people who vandalise the earth with their mere existence, but rather is inspired upon a chance meeting of two pairs of curious eyes. Unlike desire, love is not constrained to the physical, but instead extends through the meta-physical and far into the realm of spirituality.

But, undeniably, the most extraordinary trait of love is the feeling it gives to someone who has fallen in love with another. In an instant, the mere smile of a young woman can induce in a man such sensations of fire and ice that the laws of thermodynamics are cast aside and utter ecstasy simply penetrates to the very core of every atom in his being. The single flick of her hair can, with its utter flamboyancy, split those very atoms in half and unleash a thunderstorm of nuclear frenzy inside him – bursting out as profuse perspiration and the formidable quivering knees.

And now we can truly see the dilemma of our existence for what it is: how could this infinitely large Universe – so pointless and void of passion – be the sole home of a thing as meaningful as love? But, once considered, how could it not? Indeed there is nothing more human than to disregard the rules, and this is exactly what we do. The Universe (by any design) has no self-sustaining purpose, it exists, simply, because it does. Yet our insignificant brains have chosen to invent a meaning for it: the purpose of life is, in our minds, to bring purpose to life. This is surely the sorcery of love at play, for this postulate through the eyes of any but a human would seem delusional.

So, if this is in fact so and we are merely delusional, then what has been the value of this mental voyage through time and space? We have traversed from the infinity of the inter-galactic, to the immeasurability of the atomic realm, all to conclude that love makes us crazy, and that because of this fact, we are but human.

Then we must simply conclude that love is the entity which ties together all people – from the atheists and the Marxists to the hermits and the philosophers. Love has baffled us for thousands of years, and despite being the focus of an incalculable number of poems, novels, songs and plays, despite being churned over in the minds of every single sentient being since its conception, it remains both mysterious and utterly incomprehensible. Love comprises the fabric of all prose and reckoning, intricately woven on a minute scale and vast enough to engulf the entirety of space, time and purpose, and yet still render something as inane as our existence entirely whole, filling it with an air of orgastic mystery. It serves not only to inspire, but it unites us all – as the living, as the introspective and, most importantly, as tireless actors in this unending play of humanity.