Unmasked Love.

Yesterday N. managed to summarise his philosophy of life in one concise sentence: “chicks and money, that’s what life is all about”. “What about love?” I sputtered indignantly. “Love,” he continued dryly, “is nothing else than a physiological phenomenon that seeks maximum reproduction and thus guarantees the survival of the human race.”

I shudder at hearing such theories, which N. did not work out on his own, but copied from Nietzsche. Nietzsche, father of Western doomsday thinking, who portrays man as a naturally power-hungry being incapable of performing a purely altruistic act. Hearing this makes me unwell.

Is love then a cunning trick of Mother Nature, a functional fake emotion that lures man to bed, horniness in a romantic wrapping? Can love be described merely as a chemical substance that activates the reproductive part of the brain? My whole being protests – love is more than the banality of instinctual copulation! If love could be defined like this, so much love would be spread in the red light district every day.

Nietzsche and N. overlook a number of crucial issues. The wrinkled widower’s love for his four-legged friend. The love of a grateful mother for her adopted Ethiopian orphan. The skier’s love for the power of snow-capped peaks. The violinist’s love for the vibrations emerging from the strings. The fallen officer’s love for his homeland. The mathematician’s love for the rationality of things, the believer’s love for their irrationality. The narcissist’s love for the reflection that stares back at him.

You see, love has many faces and does not always aim for procreation. It is something that transcends physical reality, yet is in the middle of it. It’s a feeling in the soul, a voice in the head. It’s something that can make you tremble with happiness or crunch with bitterness. It’s all-encompassing, but cannot be truly understood. It’s something everyone is looking for and will eventually find. Now, or ever.