Love Notes: Love and the Myths of Love

(photo source)

a few days before valentine's day, i thought on posting something from my h4 cle lessons about love, particularly those taken from m. scott peck's book "the road less travelled."

M. Scott Peck defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Perhaps it is important thing to note that he does not define love according to what it is like (or characteristics of it), but rather according to the purpose it serves.

The Myth of Falling in Love - Man naturally wants to “Fall in love”
“Just as reality intrudes upon the two-year-old’s fantasy of omnipotence so does reality intrude upon the fantastic unity of the couple who have fallen in love. Sooner or later, in response to the problems of daily living… One by one, gradually or suddenly, the ego boundaries snap back into place; gradually or suddenly, they fall out of love.”

Falling in love is a myth holds that love is something that takes over us, much like that “mad passion” described by Pope Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est. Remember from Benedict XVI, Love is not something that just takes over us. We must work for it to happen. Moreover, Love is not a feeling because it is not an uncontrollable emotion, but rather a choice as exercised by our freedom that leads to personal growth.

Although falling in love is not yet real love, it is very similar to true love because of the experience of ego boundaries. When we fall in love, the boundaries of our ego are temporarily suspended. In authentic love, the boundaries are extended to include the other. Exercising real love gets us closer and closer to the “ecstasy” of transcending our ego boundaries.

The experience of falling in love must also move towards the experience of choosing to love. We may not control the experience of falling in love, but we are free, and responsible, for continuing to love.

Love is AGAIN both eros and agape: According to M. Scott Peck, the process of love involves stretching and thinning our ego boundaries to include the other. In other words, we are trying to expand our ego (a process that seems to be self-enlarging, i.e. eros). However, in doing so, we are paradoxically giving up the ego we once had. We have to sacrifice certain things in order for our ego boundaries to give. This is where agape comes in.

We can also begin to see parallelisms with our understanding of happiness and suffering from the previous lesson. The joy of growth and the happiness we derive from the fullness of our being should enable us to transcend the suffering of having to sacrifice and suffer for the growth of others.

tomorrow: myths of love