On love

Life in society is a business of thriving liars.

Love, we are told, is the best thing that a person may ever experience.

But isn’t love the precise cure for human frailty, stupidity, and weakness?

Love, fundamentally, is relational. It follows the annoying path to (co)dependency and (co)vulnerability, which we, from time to time, read in poetry (that is, “I am weak when I am with you,” “All my defenses are tumbling down,” “I broke out from my shell for you,” “You made my life anew,” and so on, to give a few rhetoric).

Love, from this standpoint and viewpoint, implies its very opposite: independence, self-sufficiency, self-establishment, to state a few, since we view human vulnerability and dependency as if they were a form of weakness and flaw which we effortfully repress whenever we go outside and participate in society.

In Matt Maltese’s song “When you wash your hair,” we read the lyrics addressed by the singer to a woman who washes her hair in the shower room, where she strips off everything that hides her flaws and curves (clothes, perfumes, etc.), hinting that life in society is a business of thriving liars.

To have the few lines of the song:

“You did some things that you forgot / Drinking wine and smoking pot / You tried to be someone you are not // Now the morning sweeps you up / You pull your evening outfit off / You run your shower and lean back your head / I love when you wash your hair.”

Love is a growing concern on the vulnerabilities of a person with a cunning mind on how to address them. Often, we think love grows where prosperity is present and human flaws and inconsistencies are absent. Yet, the more we are needful of another, the more love is intensified, because we are embraced despite our worst predisposition.