Falling in love

Love is Not a Feeling. What? You exclaim, of course, love is a feeling. Yes, those are the physiological manifestations when one has the sensation of ‘falling in love.’ Falling in love and love are two different phenomena. Falling in love can be either a flash of emotions or a first step towards genuine love.

Falling in love is a strong instinctive attraction to a person. If it is mutual and both people work at their relationship; one day that euphoric experience called, ‘falling in love,’ can grow into genuine love.

Genuine love implies commitment and exercise of wisdom. The concern and commitment to another’s spiritual and emotional growth is the purest form of love. Genuine love transcends the matter of cathexis. It is easier—indeed, it is exhilarating—to love with cathexis and the euphoric feeling of love. However, it is possible to love without cathexis and without loving feelings, and it is in the fulfillment of this possibility that genuine and transcendent love is distinguished from simple cathexis. Genuine love is volitional rather than euphorically emotional. It can be difficult and painful to search for evidence of love in one’s actions, but because true love is an act of will that transcends ephemeral feelings of love or cathexis, it can be said, “Love is as love does.” Love and non-love, as good and evil, are objective and not purely subjective phenomena.