the art of loving someone long-term (part 2)
finding answers [on love, day 4/10]
[part 1 can be found here]
It is a near-universal longing to find a love that is exciting, nourishing and everlasting. We seem to have some idea of what it is we want from an enduring partnership, but I noticed that such relationships seem rare. How does one become deserving of, and subsequently continue to nurture, such a love?
“When you give someone flowers, you arrange them beforehand, don’t you? But young people who love each other fling themselves to each other in the impatience and haste of their passion, and they don’t notice at all what a lack of mutual esteem lies in this disordered giving of themselves…” — Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties
When you give someone flowers, you arrange them beforehand, don’t you? I really like this line because it reminds me that loving is thoughtful. Intentional. Considered. Sure, passion and lust can stem from love. But passion and lust are not love. To love without having considered what the act of loving asks of you is to love disorderedly. This line also hints at what is required of us, to love someone long-term. Below is another quote that follows, in the same book:
“To take love seriously and to bear and to learn it like a task, this it is that young people need. Like so much else, people have also misunderstood the place of love in life, they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure were more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, just because it is the extreme happiness, can be nothing else but work. So whoever loves must try to act as if he had a great work: he must be much alone and go into himself and collect himself and hold fast to himself; he must work; he must become something!” — Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties
To take love seriously and to bear and to learn it like a task. To read about love as serious business, as a task that requires deep study, is so refreshing. It is also freeing. Think about it. We weren’t born knowing how to love ourselves, much less love someone else. Some of us even grew up with the horrible misconception that abuse and disrespect = love. Some of us consumed media that romanticised harmful tropes, and ended up wasting years looking for the wrong thing, making excuses for the wrong people, and then paying for it all. A caveat — love is serious, but that doesn’t mean that it is a struggle.
They have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure were more blissful than work. When I was younger, I longed for love because I imagined it to be all about warm fuzzies and companionship and happiness. But this joy, I later learned, had to be earned. The lovely fluffiness of love disappears during periods of stagnation and indifference. And just watch how quickly passion dies in the absence of maturity. Moreover, without an established sense of safety and trust, ‘play and pleasure’ simply become a pipe dream.
Love, just because it is the extreme happiness, can be nothing else but work. The antidote to all of this? Work. To love someone long-term and to put ourselves in a position to receive the same, is to be keenly aware of the maturity, responsibility and compassion that the act of loving demands of us.
I think the work required of loving someone long-term would also entail a practice of surrender. A surrender to the heartbreaks and disappointments that will inevitably arise along the way. One of the most difficult aspects of the work may be the need to, upon discovering someone precious to you, contend with the heart-wrenching possibility of losing them. To love someone long-term is therefore to engage with the lifelong task of handing our hearts over on a platter to forces out of our control. But in doing so, we can also receive the highest and richest rewards that life has to offer: hope, fulfillment, and the ‘extreme happiness’ that Rilke alluded to.
✿
And so, that is day 4/10: the art of loving someone long-term (part 2). Happy Lunar New Year to everyone who celebrates it :) I had a really great time catching up with loved ones over pineapple tarts and steamboat. See you soon for day 5/10!
warmest,
shiying