A QUESTION WITHOUT A WRONG ANSWER
December 22, 2009 -- 3:27 amIt is the very early morning hours and I again realize that sleep and I have not been on friendly terms for many years. It is during these long nights that I find I can solve many of the world's woes. Just kidding about that part, what I really find during these times... when I am more honest with myself than at times when I am more rested and coherent (lol) is that I have more questions than answers.
Late last evening one of my very young granddaughters came down the steps carrying a ball in her hands. At the bottom of the steps is a gate that is there to keep Virgil and Stella from bounding upstairs at will. Hazel announced her presence at the top of the steps (in a loud voice) before coming down. “GRANDPA... YOU DOWN THERE?”
I offered to lift her over the gate but she insisted on climbing over the rail and doing it... “all by mychelf.” I passed ball with her a few times before setting her on my knee and pulling her in close, I intently watched her face, even more than hearing her words as she prattled on, and I found myself smiling... couldn't help it... smiling... just watching her talk. I suppose that event, as well as other happenings helped to lay the foundation for what I am writing about this morning.
In the past I have had teachers who would pose a question which required an answer, and preface their question with the following: “There are no right-or-wrong answers to this question,” and that always seemed rather odd to me. Such a premise is hard for me to accept because I mostly live in a world of absolutes. If, for example, there is a “correct” answer to a question, then all other answers must, by necessity, be “incorrect.” For the most part I still believe that to be true: however, I also am going to pose a question with the teaser... “Now, there are really no right-or-wrong answers to my question.”
On the surface it will probably seem like an easy question to answer, but, probe a little deeper and you will see that there can not be a simplistic answer to this question because the effect (on all of God's creation) is much too complex to allow for an uncomplicated answer. Hollywood cheapens it, both men and women have exploited and abused it; yet, in its purest form it is undeniably wonderful.
For just a little while I am going to leave my more comfortable element of dealing with facts, figures, and absolutes: and I am going to wax philosophical and ask a question that truly has no answer. One of the most famous lines in all of secular literature was penned by Charles Dickens in his classic: A Tale of Two Cities. Anyone who has ever truly experienced what I am going to write about will be able to relate to this opening line... “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” If an opening line in a book is supposed to be the “hook” for a reader, then Dickens set his hook deeply with those few words.
How in the world can experiencing what I am writing about in my blog today be the “very best” and the “very worst” thing that ever happened to you... and, at times, both of those opposing thoughts will be in play simultaneously! Men and women have gladly laid down their lives in pursuit of it, wars have been fought because of it, friendships have been broken in the name of it, almost all movies, books, poems, sonnets, and songs, that have ever been recorded owe their very existence to it... yet it is probably the most misunderstood and impossible to explain truth which exists in the world today. Of course, what I am speaking about is the topic of love: and my imponderable question consists of a mere three words only... “WHAT IS LOVE?”
If you were to ask a biologist my question they will try and analytically break it down for you and explain that “love” is a chemical reaction involving, among other things: estrogen, testosterone, dopamine, norepinephrine, phenylethylamine, oxytocin, serotonin, vasopressin, adrenaline, and Endorphins. Yet, in my humble opinion, all their tests ran on people who are romantically in love does not answer my question... what is love? All that their tests are capable of showing are the “effects” of loving someone, or being in love: but the answer to the question, and the effect of the question itself... are not the same things.
Again, the somatic response of your body to the object of your affection is not the same thing as being able to answer the question itself. Researchers will tell you that those who are in love will, at least physically, all behave the same way. As you think of the person whom you love, if you truly love them, then the chemical process begins in your body and what I wrote about in the above paragraph starts to take place. You will find yourself inadvertently smiling and a feeling of happiness will envelop you... even if all you do is to think of the person whom you love: however, that is only an effect of love, not the answer to the question. Even if you can recite many stories that are known to you of people who gave up everything to be with the one they love... will still not answer the question; “what is love?” Again, all such stories can only show the “outward effect” of love, and not what it is in the first place.
I suppose it only seems important for me to want to know the answer to the question because I would like to think that if I truly understood what something is, then I (as well as all rational people) should be able to have the mastery of it, and not the other way around. In the end though I must admit that I am as mystified about this subject as all who came before me: and I imagine all who will come after me until time will be no more.
Think about it. If you understood love, and knew exactly what it is: and thereby could control it, wouldn't everything become easier? I mean, nobody would “choose” to love someone they couldn't share their life with... would they? Of course no more wars would be fought in the name of it. There would be no more divorces or families breaking up because we would simply “choose” to love those we were with. Also, no more country songs. Consider this truth... aren't all of them written and sang because of unrequited love. That thought in itself... the end of honky-tonk music ought to be reason enough to find an answer to, “what is love?” I wrote that last thought (the end of country music) to some of my relatives who read my blogs and have diminished brain-capacity and because of that sad truth they happen to love that genre of music. (lol)
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” Thank you Mr. Dickens.
I will finish this up this morning by asking a few questions and quoting one of my favorite poems: for the author also asks a question to which there is no answer. Now, my questions: Are you surrounded by those you love and do they feel the same way about you, if so... be grateful. Are you romantically in love and the one whom you love is daily by your side, if so... be very grateful. Do you have the answer to my three word question I posed... “what is love?” If you do, please write to me as I would really like to know.
RELUCTANCE
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
The entire poem by Robert Frost is great, but I am especially enamored by the last question in the last stanza. “... To yield with a grace to reason, and bow and accept the end of a love or a season?” I truly wish I knew how to do that: for life would be so much easier and sleep would not escape my grasp so readily... if only I knew!
You can always email me at clarkmatthews1@aol.com
posted by Robin Johnson @ 8:40 AM
<< Home