Falling In Love

There is no greater feel­ing than falling in love. It is the ever-present theme of sim­ple roman­tic come­dies as well as great epics. We never tire of the pos­si­ble com­bi­na­tions. Movies cater to all tastes on this one — even love sto­ries among the elderly. No mat­ter how young or old — we can still fall in love.

There are clas­sic love tragedies (Romeo and Juliet) and the more sim­ple and pre­dictable “happily-ever-after” ones that fill thou­sands of pages of “dime nov­els” and weekly TV seri­als. More advanced vari­a­tions have to do with the love for one’s pro­fes­sion or call­ing. The high­est ones have to do with a person’s love for a prin­ci­ple or a Divine task.

It is admirable to see cou­ples fall in love and re-fall in love for a life­time; it is even more inspi­ra­tional to see some­one on a quest for truth — for the sheer love of truth itself. You will find them in lab­o­ra­to­ries and in obser­va­to­ries. They are physi­cists, biol­o­gists, geo­physi­cists, and the like. They love what they do. No mat­ter how abstract the pur­suit, they are in love with it. They have to be. There is not enough sheer willpower in any­one to keep that type of dis­ci­pline going.

Love sup­plies end­less ener­gies for any pur­suit. If you love what you do, you will feel dis­ap­pointed when you clock out to go home. Going to work is like falling in love all over again. Of all of the moti­va­tions, desire is the best. From it you feel led. Within it, you feel at one with the uni­verse. If you love what you do and who you are, you are the most blessed.

Every so often, I fall in love with my life — warts and all. This is not a narcissist’s trip, but the real­iza­tion that I (we) share in a Divine image. There is some­thing greater within us than who we merely are. What­ever its nature, it is pri­mar­ily love.