Love is not a feeling

Love is not a feeling. What? You exclaim, of course, love is a feeling. I feel it in my chest, stomach and my body tingles at times. Yes, those are the physiological manifestations when one has the feeling of ‘falling in love’.

Falling in love and falling in love are two different phenomena. Falling in love can be a flash of emotions or a first step towards genuine love. “Love is misunderstood as an emotion, it is a state of consciousness, a way of being in the world, a way of seeing oneself and others.” -David R. Hawkins

Falling in love is a strong instinctive attraction towards a person. If it is mutual and both people work on their relationship; one day that euphoric experience called ‘falling in love’ may turn into genuine love.

The phenomenon of falling in love is the call of one’s own desire to belong, to cathect, but the object is instinctively chosen according to our ideals, dreams, etc., even if one does not realize it. Normally we fall in love with the appearance of the person, the way they walk, the way they talk. Sometimes we impute to our love object some mystical illusion, ideal qualities and the more we know the person the less we fall in love with him. That’s when the feeling of love disappears even faster than it appeared.

The more two people know each other, the more comfortable they feel; less sharp, bright and exciting is the experience of falling in love. Some couples continue their relationships and get married; some fall apart. It’s reasonable to say that more clothes in the closet and one more toothbrush in the bathroom is the end of the infatuation phase, but it can also be the beginning of genuine love.

The euphoric feelings we call ‘love’ is the emotion that accompanies the investiture experience. Investiture is the process by which an object becomes important to a person. Once invested, the object, often called ‘love object’, is invested with our energy as if it were part of oneself, and this relationship between oneself and the invested object is called investment. One’s investiture can be fleeting and momentary. Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom. When one is concerned about someone’s spiritual and emotional growth, he knows that a lack of commitment is likely to be detrimental and that commitment to that person is probably necessary for one to express his concern effectively. Concern and commitment to the spiritual and emotional growth of another person is the purest form of love. It is for this reason that commitment is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship: friends, significant others, husband/wife.

Genuine love transcends the matter of investiture. When love exists, it does so with or without cathexis and with or without loving feelings, those bursts of butterflies in the stomach, body tingling, etc.

It is easier – in fact, it is exhilarating – to love with cathexis and the euphoric feeling of love. However, it is possible to love without cathexis and without loving feelings, and it is in the fulfillment of this possibility that genuine and transcendent love is distinguished from simple cathexis. Genuine love is volitional rather than euphorically emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of ‘a decision to love’. This person has made a commitment to ‘be loving’, whether loving feelings are present or not.

It can be difficult and painful to look for evidence of love in one’s actions, but because true love is an act of will that transcends fleeting feelings of love or investiture, one can say, “Love is like love.” Love and lack of love, like good and evil, are objective phenomena and not purely subjective.