This isn't what you think. This isn't a sappy post about finding the love of my life and this certainly isn't a post about how to identify true love in your own life. This is a post about Truth, with a capital T.
I looked him in the eyes and asked him if he has ever been in love. He said fortunately yes and then asked me the same. I responded with a deep yes. He then asked what it meant to me. I didn't have to think about my response. The answer came from a place of direct experience and internal knowingness, while acknowledging that it isn't something words can accurately express. Love isn't really comprehensible with human made vocabulary. It is inexplicable. And potentially for a good reason. If we could explain it, we would take the mysterious beauty right out of it. We would quite possibly too easily discover the meaning of life. We would stop searching for answers and lose our human created drive. Understanding doesn't happen through thought in the underworld. It happens through feeling, through intuition. True love isn't a quality or a trait. And there is no confusion about whether the feeling is real or not, even after the relationship with a lover ends. It is truth with a capital T. It just feels right and true. It's unconditional. You never really understand that until you've experienced it because again, our minds cannot understand what can only be felt.
Tony Robbins describes the 6 basic human needs as paradoxes. Certainty and Uncertainty, Significance and Love, & Growth and Contribution. Interestingly the two that rise to the top in most people are Significance and Love. He states that you can tell which one you value more by viewing your response when something disheartening happens. Do you get angry or sad? If you get angry, you tend to value significance more. If you get sad, you tend to value love more. After diving into the feminine and the masculine for so long, I have come to understand this paradox a bit more. I used to see myself in the Significance category, mission driven and purposeful at the core of my needs. I have changed this tune a bit. I now see anger as a protector for sadness and a guard against pain and at the end of it all, what I actually desire in life over anything else is love and connection. I truly believe the meaning of life lies here. I highly value significance and usefulness in this world but without love, the "why" behind the "what" disappears.
This world is something we as humans can't explain. Our existence is a mystery at this moment in time. Love is also quite the mystery. Why are we here? Why don't we have universal love? The answer to both could quite possibly be one in the same. We could scientifically break down the answer and come to a logical conclusion or even engineer this experience OR we could experience it naturally and directly and discover it through pleasantly unexpected surprise. Unknowingness shouldn't scare you. Love is both beautiful and painful. Our existence is both beautiful and painful. But it sure is worth it.