October 18, 2010

  • The Book of Love: A WayBack Post

    The Book of Love

    an essay by Michael F. Nyiri originally prepared 10/27/05 for the blogring The Socrates Cafe

    Love is the diaphanous thread that connects each of our souls to the Universal Mind. It is a fickle and misunderstood concept, maligned and embraced, pondered perhaps too much, and yet dismissed sometimes before it’s time arrives fully in bloom.


    There are myriad “types” of emotions that we humans identify as “love”, some “true”, some “false” and some “mystical” but all tend, in the end analysis, to serve as our connection to each other on some ethereal plane that is almost unknowable or undefinable while we experience it, yet each one of us knows instinctively when we “feel” it.

    Immediately upon hearing about “love”, we either think first about inter-relational love, between two people, familial love, between two members of the same family, or all-encompassing love, between one soul and humanity. We can also love a ‘thing’ or an experience, so “love” becomes an active verb for some relating to a positive feeling received during good times and favored activities.

    All major religions preach “love” even as they attempt to deny and destroy their enemies. In fact, most religions and philosophical processes embrace the idea of love for one’s neighbor and enemy. Love is trumpeted as a cure all to many societal ills. “All you need is love.” “Love your enemies as you would yourself.”


    Yet for all mankind’s attempted embrace of the concept, throughout history, love takes a backseat to her sister hate, perhaps another side of the coin, so to speak, but perhaps just another strong emotional reaction to this slender thread of circumstance that essentially connects each and every one of us.

    A “common man” will respond to idea of love with affection and care. A dictionary definition of the term will state that love is a “strong and deep feeling of affection.” First one has affection for someone or thing, and the next step would be “love” or a “deep affection.” I believe love is more than just an affection no matter how strong. This is what makes love a fickle concept. Love, like beauty, art, and intelligence, exists. It is ingrained in all of us. The degrees to which we claim to feel it or experience it’s charms is what makes us human in our corporeal existence. One more sliver of humanity that defines us.

    When a mother gives birth, she loves her child. That some mothers can suffer post partum depression and even attempt to snuff the child’s life illustrates for us that this flip side of the coin of love and hate can seem tenuous at best. A man can love a woman with all his heart but he can become enraged with jealousy and attempt to hurt and maim that love of his, in the person of his woman, if he believes she is “cheating” on him.

    Familial love is fraught with instances of disownings and denials of the emotion, when two members of the family disagree strongly. For every postitve idea of love, there is an equal and opposite negative, or hate reaction. Any “Book” of “Love” has to understand that the “Physics” of love are undeniably linked, and we probably couldn’t define love without a definition of it’s opposite emotion “hate”.


    Is it hate that causes fights and bickering, and eventual harm among lovers? Or is this love emotion so intertwined, as the oriental idea of yin and yang, with it’s sister hate, that it inspires this opposite reaction in almost all cases, in almost all kinds of people, throughout history?


    Perhaps. Because “love” is our inner string of connection with humanity, combining and separating us, all of our foibles and fallacies concerning the emotion are just as strong and deeply felt. Yes, I believe we can love and hate at the same time. Bleeding the hate, while retaining the love, should be our quest while we exist in this plane.


    In the Universal, attained by our  “souls” after our death, all hate and love, just as past and future, combine and coalesce, and in our “final realization” we finally understand why the dichotomies of corporeal existence are almost given to us, like the gift of a mammoth puzzle, while we walk the Earth.


    As one attains enlightenment, one understands the connection of “love” and is able to “love” his neighbor and his enemy with as much brio as he loves his family and his paramours. This thread is a flimsy one, and is apt to break, and does with ease. But with time and understanding it can also mend as if it were never broken.


    If each soul looks deep into himself, then he will understand that love lies deep within. Love permits each one of us to appreciate our existence, and to interconnect with our fellow man. If we bleed hate from the love experience, our love is infinitely more “pure” and overcoming. We should be able to respond in kind to the sight of newborn child, seemingly innocent of all societal fearmongering and prejudice, whether that child is our own, our neighbor’s, or our enemy’s. He is the same child, filled with love and deep affection, until he is taught the dichotomies of existence by his society.


    Deep within us lies our connection with each other. That connection is best defined by the simple word: “LOVE.”


    I wrote a poem in 1973, when I was 20 years old, in response to a popular single pane newspaper cartoon of the time entitled “Love is…” Each pane would present some “cutesey” phrase, accompanied by naked cherublike “big eyed” kids. I used to cringe when I saw this cartoon in the newspaper, and my poem was an “answer” to the cartoon series.

    “Love is…”
    Poetry by Michael F.Nyiri
    Jan. 3, 1973


    I    Of all the world, or the people in it –
      They said everyone had a mate

    II   The lovebirds sit on their perch
      and sing

    III   What is love? he asked of the woman
      Sixty-five grey hair fur coat
      Love is…found a quote in a newspaper
      What is love? he asked of the girl
      Blonde hair nice figure cheerleader
      Love is…found a quote in a newspaper

    IV   Someone gets famous
      for attempting to define
      That which cannot be defined
      Love is…nothing unless both feel it
      at the same time – radiance seeping
      through to the inner soul – warmth
      telling her that he is there
      forever – and vice versa

      Love is…touch – grasping each other’s
      emotions through the facades they put up –
      feeling for imperfections in the
      soul and not caring superficially

      Love is caring, wanting, expressing,
      movement, losses, quarrels, agreements,
      making up – and breaking up

      Love is a paper both parties have
      to sign

    V   Love is young and old and eternal
      The old men say love is blind
      The young women say it is
      Something old something new
      Something borrowed something blue
      Love is relationships – letters in a
      drawer – names carved on a tree –
      sitting together in the rain – smiling

    VI   Love isn’t a quote in a newspaper
      Love isn’t “cute”
      Love is real and hard and heartbreaking
      Love is lonely and miserable
      Love is waiting for a phone to ring
      for two weeks – waiting for a
      letter to arrive – waiting for a
      kind word – or a premonition
      Love is…unkind sometimes

    VII   Love is…two little children playing in
      the mud
      Love is…the very first kiss
      Love is…sleeping together

      Love is…something that can’t be
      described…
      Love is…
      Period


    The image at the top of this essay is a photocomposite featuring me as the “White Knight” beside my white horse, and is the lead image on my “Lovesearch” website on AllThingsMike. 10/18/10. Although my internet is up and running, a lot of my blogging is done at work in the mornings, and it’s been quite busy at work, so no time to blog. I was catching up on watching some recorded programs, socializing, and working on my first major ‘art video’ this past weekend, and didn’t do any socializing on Xanga. I will similarly probably not be doing any Xangaing this week, but always like to post at least once a week, hence this entry from October 2005. If you’ve never read it, it’s “new” to you. MFN/ppf

Comments (11)

  • What about the argument that love is “just chemicals in our brains”?

    RYC: There’s a picture of the husband up now, you goof :P

  • Love can be active and passionate and burning, primal, that twin of hatred because both exist in fire.
    Love can be steady and smoldering, an iterative choice, a fire to stoke, to tend. Sometimes it is less spontaneous and needs attention. It needs work.

    My boyfriend is a doctor, and he’s been reading, I guess, about how love as we experience it is not an emotion that we can manufacture chemically. We can do the endorphins thing, but it’s not lasting and it’s not the same. It’s enough to make one believe in the divine.

  • I still think Will said it best:

    Let me not to the marriage of true minds

            Admit impediments. Love is not love

    Which alters when it alteration finds,

            Or bends with the remover to remove:

    O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

            That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

    It is the star to every wandering bark,

            Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

    Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

            Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

    Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

            But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

    If this be error and upon me proved,

            I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

                  Sonnet 116

                             William Shakespeare   

                                    (1564 – 1616)

  • Or as the great philosopher J. Geils once said, LOVE STINKS!! YEAH!  YEAH!

    Heheh……..

    The season is rapidly approaching, Mike. I have 7 days of vacation in November to kill one buck and one doe. Unless something REALLY wierd happens, I should be able to do that. I have purchased a 14 megapixel camera to record the event. I might upgrade my camcorder before then too. There will be tons of pictures and video to share. Should be quite an event! One solid week of nothing but hunting baby!

  • Mike what prompted this entry? Is there something we should know? *wink, wink*

  • The subject of love is a very complex one. A good concept of love, I thought, was presented somewhere in first part of best selling book, The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck, MD. Having read that and then hearing the then pastor of my church preach on a similar concept led me to write a poem, “Love is an Active Verb”. The poem is stored (not on computer, unfortunately) somewhere, but right now, can’t lay my hands on it.

    However, there are lines I like from songs that others have written about love. The one I usually quote is from a Clint Black song (I don’t know if he or someone else wrote it) which he recorded with his wife: “Love is not someplace that we fall. It’s something that we do.” 

    Recently, my interest has been revived in “The Rose”, written by Andrea McBroom, recorded by Bette Midler, featured in movie, The Rose.:

     ”Some say love is like a river that drowns the tender reed. Some say love is like a razor that leaves your soul to bleed. Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need. I say love it is a flower, and you it’s only seed.”

    ~~Blessings ‘n Cheers

  • I enjoyed this a lot, Mike.  One part that stuck out to me was your question as to the source of fighting? Love or Hate?  I say in some cases, it’s one.  In others, it’s the other.  I think we tend to fight more with those we love the most, just because of expectations and more openness and vulnerability in those relationships–and you alluded to that in a part of your poem.

    I really liked this part from your poem: ” Love is…touch – grasping each other’s emotions through the facades they put up – feeling for imperfections in the soul and not caring superficially.”  Indeed. So well-expressed!

    Thanks for this, Mike.  It was a good reminder of one of the most important parts of life.

  • Another excellent post from the philosopher and poet but no fool.

  • Love is the only gift that,..once given,..just keeps on giving!!

    “Love means different things to different people.

    To some it’s nothing more than just a myth. 

    For others, it could be an empty chair at mealtime. 

    For most, it’s someone to do sharing with.”

  • Another great post. Also, I want to say that I am sorry for not commenting lately. I’m on Xanga every day and always look at my friends posts, but for some reason I haven’t seen yours. I’ve subscribed now so I will be able to see whenever you have a new post up.

  • Beautiful post there, Mike. 

    I’ve missed reading your posts and your company, but I’m back now, and will make an effort to visit more often. 
    I really enjoyed the poem on love…there’s a lot of truth in it. I also liked the avoidance of love cliches, but I know you have absolutely no problem with that. Especially enjoyed the part about the “defintions” and the children in the mud. Little snippets of imagery like those made the poem less abstract, even though it’s on something as abstract, vague, and difficult as love. 

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