I was at my local coffee haunt today. I witnessed a father give his young son a twenty dollar bill. He watched his son enter the coffee shop, walk up to the register, then order a blended ice drink. The young boy ran back to his father to hug his legs, clearly pleased that he had ordered his own beverage. The father smiled as he returned the hug. In this moment, a definite bond of love was shared.
Here was one example of one type of love relationship. It comes in many forms: familial, marital, parental. All of them seem to have one thing in common: the dyad (two elements or parts).
Would love exist or could it be defined if it wasn’t shared between two elements?
It seems to me that love must have a direction in our world. It is an emotion, a force, a type of link between two distinct things (human or not) that must have a path to go in order for it to exist. If it didn’t have an object to attach itself to then it is absent.
Even though I believe love must have a giver and a recipient in order to exist, I happen to believe that this only applies to our physical world. Outside, somewhere in the celestial, I believe it does exist in a more permanent form. This logic is made plausible when we think about the source of our mind, or our conscience. There is a cause and effect for our emotional behaviors, but there is also a source that we draw from that is not generated by physical nourishment.
We are all part of some effort that places itself into this physical world. Let’s not call it God, Allah, Buddha, All, or The Absolute. Let’s just say that something deep in us is connected to a force outside our physical bodies that makes us aware of a larger giver at times. The giver cannot be defined by mankind but it can be seen and felt.
Love may not exist in the physical world when it has neither a giver nor a recipient, but it’s surely distinguishable on a level connected to a higher part of our beings. We recognize our deeper connection at various times and through various mediums. The hug between a father and a son is surely one of them.
Copyright © Tyler Gant 2009
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