Tuesday, December 17, 2013

What is Being In-love Part I

“What is love?” was the driving question left unanswered in my heart following divorce well over thirty years ago. The question was so powerful it set me off on a quest, a journey that morphed into a full-scale search for meaning. That journey has opened my eyes, healed my heart, introduced me to the nature of reality, and led me to understand that the concept of love, used as a verb, is the root cause of all life.

I’m going to discuss the subject of being in-love as I came to understand it during my life. (This topic is an important part of the unfolding book I’m working on tentatively entitled The Above Average Man. You can follow the under-construction outline on my website:
http://www.marshallchamberlain.com.)

In the beginning—looking for the answer to the question—I almost immediately realized I didn’t have a clue what love was. That logically led to facing the fact that I hadn’t ever been in-love, and it left me riddled in guilt and consumed with remorse and self-pity.

In my situation, I’d just been rejected out of hand without any harbingers. The first “knee jerk” reaction was to shore up my shattered self-worth. I wanted confirmation that women could be attracted to me. And I wanted to know how being in-love felt. Did the feeling last? What did you have to do to maintain its vibrancy?

This led to a plethora of encounters—while at the same time delving into books by the experts and gurus. The books gave me an intellectual understanding of the love concept and its “sub-varieties.” (See very simply written, short books by John Powell.) The encounters allowed me to seriously examine my feelings as I went along and brought me closer to comprehension through experiencing some of what romantic love wasn’t: it wasn’t just physical and it wasn’t infatuation—which usually doesn’t last but is great while it’s around. It’s particularly pleasant when you’ve already experienced it at least once and have an idea of what to expect. On the other hand, it can be the beginning of being in-love.

The ensuing years on the journey to find meaning have given me a progressively deeper appreciation of what love is by introducing me to my true spiritual nature; this included the importance of fulfillment through worthy purposes—a necessary life goal and the essence of self-love. An understanding of what being in-love is was an accruing consequence of the journey.

My next blog post will take you on a short excursion into how I see the process of “being in love” taking place—the necessary ingredients that can produce that special relationship—all in the sincere hope of provoking personal insight beneficial to readers.

For those interested in fiction thrillers, the status of coming adventure-thrillers and other books under construction can be found on my website: www.marshallchamberlain.com.

Chao for Now,
Marshall

No comments:

Post a Comment