Falling in Love

I believe that everyone has heard the phrase that the only constant in life is change. Given the complexity of our lives, falling in love or desiring things is inevitable. Depending upon our age we keep falling for one thing or the other. Maybe from a toy in our childhood to a cycle in our early teenage. The idea of love is so fundamental to humans that it is built in our biological self to keep desiring one thing or the other, it is the guiding factor that gives us a sense of purpose. There are two types of things we try to get in our lives, firstly, things for sustenance, and secondly things that give us enjoyment, things that we attach our personalities to. Sustenance is inevitable and it remains the same no matter where we live, or when we lived (which century). But the other things are totally determined by the environment we grew up in, the ideas that got stuck in our minds. Love and desire are one of the most important factors that differentiate us from every other organism on the planet. I'm not saying that other animals don't love their offspring but that happens at a very rudimentary level. Human seeks connection beyond survival and a shared gene pool. 

When we say the word Love, the first thing that pops in our mind is romantic love and sadly most among us have hardly any conception of this beautiful word beyond romantic, friendly, and parental love. For so many decades, TV shows and movies have taught us that the only thing we should seek out in life as we grow older is romantic love. I'm not against the idea of romantic love, but let's be honest with ourselves,  how fulfilled do we actually feel even after finding our romantic partner? The reason behind this incompleteness is that we have kept ourselves away from discovering the true meaning of the word. If one truly wants to understand the idea and importance of it, they should go and read greek philosophy. But for the time being, let me try to explain in simpler terms. So, there are 8 types of love and each one defines a separate need and facet of our life. The first one is called Eros or erotic love, this gives us the ability to present our best version to our partner; it also includes a lot of elements of eroticism and giving up our own self to someone else. The next one is called Agape, it is the communion of the divine and our imperfect being. It is of a very forgiving and accepting nature. The love with the family and parents is called Storge, and this arises from the sense of debt and gratitude towards the people who laid the foundation of our current selves. It can also be from parent to child and that is much more selfless in its nature. The next one is called Philia and it really shapes our perception as it is the love between friends. This one gives us a great opportunity to be really open and is the least demanding of all. The next is called Philatuia, it is the love for self. Everyone one of us has heard the term be yourself, but my question is how do we do it? How do we appreciate our own selves? The path to doing that is to engage in self-reflection on a regular basis. If one cracks this, there is no need to look anywhere else in the world. This is the one from which all other kinds of love and desire grow. The next is called Ludus, it comes from the playfulness & flirtation, one might ask at this point what is the need for this one. This gives us confidence and an idea about our likeability factor in a relatively unknown environment. The next one is called Phileo, this is the love shared between the people who share common interests with us. This is very platonic and exists in order to enjoy a particular thing or activity with someone. And finally, we have Pragma, this is the bond formed with someone who has seen our ups and downs for a very long time, in one sense they have lived a whole lot of our experiences as well. Going into detail about each type of love is not my goal here but I would like to pick two very special kinds out of these 8 types of love and they are called Agape and Philatuia. 

My question to everyone reading this article is why Agape and Philatuia are important? And even when people talk about these, they are presented in a very superficial manner. The need for the divine is so natural that even atheists can't deny it. Anything that one finds pure and sanctimonious is divine. For believers, this might be god and for non-believers, it might be something like music. The need to have divinity in our life so freakingly important that without it there can't be any peace in our lives. Divine is a perfect version of one's self manifesting in different ways that help us to make decisions in our current life from a moral standpoint. Okay let me take this argument a little further, when we look up in the sky and see all the stars or when we see a great waterfall, why do we start feeling overwhelmed by the peace and connectedness with the entire cosmos. Logically there should be nothing peaceful and divine about the stars, but everyone has felt that sense of awe at least once in their lives while looking at the stars. Why do we start asking ourselves all the existential questions when we see a beautiful sky or a great waterfall. What is there in us, that seeks the meaning out of these seemingly meaningless things. I literally don't have words to describe this, this is the best thing we as a human can achieve in our lives, to feel something that is far and beyond ourselves and yet encompassing everything under it. Anyone who thinks religion is a foolish thing, they don't know shit about themselves. There are poisonous things in religion but it encompasses the very idea of what it is to be human and what humans can be and feel in their ultimate reality. Agape is tough to experience and the only way it will happen often is if we start working on our Philatuia. We need to first fall in love with the idea of falling in love with an idea. There is nothing purer, exhilarating, joyful, liberating, and satisfying than falling in love with an idea. It is our ability to have ideas about selves that makes us human. The very existence of us is divine and if one can find that in their lives, there is a no bigger and more joyful discovery. 

At last, I will end with one of my personal stories. Recently, I was working in my office while listening to a lecture on "The Perception Problem" by Dr. Jordan Peterson, and a moment came when I started crying during the lecture. For a moment he showed me how great I'm as a human (not in an egocentric way), how I'm the very universe on my own, and what a pleasure it is to be able to see an entire universe in my mind. Through his words, I was able to look into my mind and understand the depth of my existence for a moment. I could literally see all the stars and galaxies and wonder about being the true witness consciousness. I don't have words to describe what Dr. Peterson brings to the table, he has completely changed my perception of so many things, the things I've learned from him are so valuable and complex that on my own it would have taken me many lifetimes to even hold a grasp on the ideas he talks about it. A few of his lecture has shaken me to the core and I have barely heard anyone who even comes close to his intellect level. For me, he has become the embodiment of what ideas can do to our lives and there is no greater joy than falling in love with that idea of what it is actually to be a human and divine.