Pain and love always go hand-in-hand, but the bigger question is whether our love is significant because of the pain we feel, or do we feel pain because the love was significant? That sentence, however, sounds very awkward and confusing, so here is an example. Lets say your married and your wife leaves for 6 months for a trip to Florida and you're left alone in your house. You will probably miss her a lot. You could feel that your pain of missing her is because your love for each other is so strong and significant OR you could feel that your love is sufficiently great because of the pain you feel when she leaves.
Love requires you to open your soul to another person, which in turn gives them the ability to hurt you, by say, leaving you or cheating on you. And if you do experience this let down, you will obviously feel pain. Some people may say that the reason you are feeling this pain is because your love was significant. In a serious relationship or marriage, each person puts a lot of effort into the relationship. The relationship also brings you happiness and you experience great things with your loved one. Other people may say that your love was so significant because you are feeling pain now that it is gone. Once the person has hurt you, you feel pain because the love and experiences you shared with each other have disappeared. This suffering that you go through is supposed to illustrate the significance of your relationship.
It is hard for me to decide which side I agree with because of the complexity of love itself, but I would say that I think we feel pain because the love was significant. Love is an extremely powerful emotion, with the ability to consume your thoughts and actions. It can even change your entire mind-set and way of thinking. When you are in love, you also share many special and significant experiences with your partner. Once that feeling and those experiences are ripped from you, you will most definitely feel extreme pain. And if your love had no significance in your life, wouldn't you not feel any pain once it ended? I also feel that if pain makes your love significant, that means pain is always a part of love, and that is untrue for those couples that "live happily ever after."
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I agree with you that pain doesn't make the love, love makes the pain. We don't fall in love with people because they cause us pain. Actually, often the reason we fall in love with people is because they help us get through pain or they make us happy. It isn't until we are already completely in love with the person that they gain the ability to hurt us and cause us pain and there is nothing we can do because we are already in love. So I agree that it is definitely the love that makes the pain significant not the pain that makes the love significant.
ReplyDeleteYour last sentence caught my attention.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know if I agree or disagree. I just find it insightful.
Let's ignore the feasibility of a couple living "happily ever after" and assume that such a couple existed. Let's take Snow White and Prince Charming. What if Prince Charming had to go on a business trip with a Hapsburg prince for a month? Wouldn't Snow White miss him? Wouldn't she be in pain because of it? Wouldn't you argue that she is, simultaneously, very happy to be in such a relationship, despite the circumstances?
What do you make of this? Does it clarify the relation of love to pain?
ReplyDelete"When I saw you, I was afraid of meeting you.
When I met you, I was afraid of kissing you.
When I kissed you, I was afraid to love you.
Now that I love you, I'm afraid of losing you."
--The Voice Of Love, by Silard Somorjay