An Argument on Love

I know I am drunk and I know I will regret sending this to you later, but hell, I will say what I want to say. It's my argument on love and what I think of you and all the things we've been talking about. I can only make my confessions now or never and I'm tired of trying to play along with your portrayal of innocence. I know who you are and I know you will understand.

I love. I am addicted to love. I am a rational person, but there is something missing in reason that I can only find in love. While reason is only the product of the mind, love is the unification of the mind, the body, and the soul. Therefore, I am unsatisfied with reason alone; that is why I need to love.

In love, I learn more about myself and my world. Through love, I am able to see the world through the eyes of another human being. What I had not seen before, I am reminded by those who I love. It is the longing for a truth, a partner who will exalt me to a higher realm of the world as a whole. That is love for me. With love in my heart, my senses are no longer in conflict with my reason and the body simply follows. In love, I am able to make myself complete.

I take the step I thought I could never take with love in my heart; I can believe in myself further because I know that it is not only I who believe, but also another thinking, conscious human being, who believes in all that I am. My existence becomes verified; my confidence is legitimized as being more than a feeling - it becomes truth when it is more than myself who believes in it.

How can you be sure without love that you are who you are? You have this new rationalist vision to the world and I don't understand where it is coming from. No matter how much you believe in it and how confident you are of yourself, how can you be sure that your world is the truth on your own? Reason cannot explain all that the senses feel, living in this world. You and I are both only finite, sensory beings. We cannot possibly convince ourselves that our world is true without the use of our senses. When our souls can unify with some other soul who will see the world as you see it, your senses and existence, your world, your reality becomes verified by those of another person. And it is only through love and the unification of the three components which make you who you are that your world can exist outside of you.

Then why don't I act on what I feel, you are probably wondering. Why don't I say, "I want to see everything that is you." Because reason has become such a major component in my existence as well, it is hard for me to override reason purely on the basis of the soul. The senses and the soul are equivalent and reason and the mind are interchangeable. But the mind and the soul are not and reason is most often in great struggle against the senses. Reason tells me that to touch you would be to risk our friendship and to chance our relationship. By logical thinking, my senses are repressed and I cannot speak of my desire to experience all that is you.

Many philosophers of the past seem to have separated the two and chosen reason as the only true means through which to obtain happiness. But I live in a sensory world. The senses may be creating illusions, but for me, it is reality that the senses create. When it is 30ÁF outside and I feel cold, my feeling 'cold' is in fact very real for me. There is no argument in that. When I see you and I see beauty, that is the reality for me. Although it may not be the divine reality of truth, for my existence and for the world I create with my senses, there is nothing more real than your beauty.

Yet, my reason inhibits me from acting on my thoughts. I cannot create a compromise between my senses and my reason and I suffer. Maybe that is why many philosophers have eliminated the senses as being false. To deny the senses is to deny much of the inner struggle that goes on. It is an easy way out. It is easier to live by either pure reason or by pure senses. You cannot possibly deny that when we were living that life, using only our senses to view the world, your life was much easier in terms of internal conflict.

You see, this is where love can come to help you. You say that to learn to reason is a step forward in self-development. I agree with you. We cannot just revert back to the world of sensory pleasures anymore. We' have learned too much to do so. So what now? We have to tune our reason with our senses. We need to find a way to unify both the senses and reason. But in the process of integrating the senses with self development, we are faced with the need to verify, or more like justify, our senses and our world.

Do you see where I am trying to go? Love not only makes you feel that the sensory data you are receiving are in fact valid, but also, it unites the senses and the reason. It's an abstract thing to say that the senses and reason can unite under love. I wish I could give you an example, but I can't. It's an experience and as any mystic will tell you, 'experience cannot be communicated in words; it must be experienced by the individual.' All I can say is that if I were in love with you, you would alleviate the conflict between the senses and the reason. You would be able to take me to the higher realm of the ideas with the wings you will help me grow, as Plato would say. Love will nourish the soul and the mind in perfect unison and I will be able to live as a complete individual. That is why I long for your love.

That ancient philosopher once said something like, 'Love is madness that comes from the divine.' Love has been discussed and investigated since the earliest years of reason. Many people have tried to reason what love is, but that seems like a futile waste of time. Love cannot be reasoned, since reason is only a part of a greater whole which is encompassed in love. I would rather suggest that you use love to reason. Love incorporates the mind of another individual; it is experiencing reason together. Reason no longer becomes solitary with love. What is missing in my reason becomes supplemented by yours.

Where does the body fit into this scheme of the mind and the soul, you are probably wondering. The body is a container- it is the ground in which we experience love and reason. When you feel the closeness of the naked body, the warmth you attain tells you that indeed the senses and the mind have become unified. The body is used to verify that the unification of the soul and the mind has happened. The abstractions are actualized by the movement of the body.

Here is an example. I read in that book I suggested to you, Sophie's World, about a conversation between an astronaut and a brain surgeon. The astronaut said that he was an atheist because he had been to outer space many times and had not run into one angel or seen a glimpse of god. The brain surgeon replies, "Well, that's funny. I believe that I have thoughts, but through my many years of surgery, I have never run into one thought." I leave the interpretations up to you, because I know you don't need me to explain this any further.

Love is such an abstraction until the body is used to actualize it. Love is a divine force that can make you excel. Yes, it is a force, not an object. Forces are not concrete. That is why scientists have developed many machines and experimental procedures to detect, to analyze, to actualize such things as forces. Our body is the machinery available for us to experience love. Without the body, love as a force may be too abstract for any of us to comprehend.

But the body is a tricky thing. While the soul and the mind are strong enough to appreciate you without seeing you, the body is different. Once it experiences warmth, it will desire to experience it again. That is another reason why I fear touching you. Every time I see you and our fingers touch, I fear that you will feel the desire within me to experience all of you. The body cannot be allowed to feel your warmth, because then, it will long for you every time it is not feeling you.

I try to sound like I have this all figured out, but the more I talk, the more I realize that I know very little about love. I just know that I am suffering between reason and desires, senses and logic. I drink to kill reason. I put my full energy to academics to destroy all of my desires. I sway between a hedonist and a celibate nun.