But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit.
-IV.xi.41-42
ATTENTION: The following is a matter of personal opinion, based off previous observations. This is NOT the end-all-be-all explanation. :) Just keep that in mind.
Love. Wow. What an intense subject. Mostly because I feel like love is very different to every person. Specifically, every relationship. Not even just romantic relationships, but all love.
I do concur. Love IS blind. But not necessarily in a bad way. I think that the cliché, pessimistic interpretation of this quote is: "people who are in love do dumb things." And while it may be true that as soon as a loved one enters your life, suddenly everything in the world seems to center on them...I don't think that's what "love is blind" means.
Rather, I view it more of "love MAKES you blind." To the faults of your lover. When you're in love, the world seems to be perfect...THEY seem to be perfect. You don't recognize all their flaws because--(here is the important part: )--you choose not to. When you're in love, you have the best attitude. You're always on your best behavior. You don't read into the little things that come up because you are so busy focusing on all their...awesomeness!
And sometimes, that goes away. "Why?" you may ask. Well..........hhmmm......I can't speak from experience because I've never been married: but all that I've heard in my 19.75 years of living says that people "fall out of love" because they STOP choosing. Stop thinking that their love is amazing. They start focusing on the negative things, and of course we've all heard a billion times, "That which you focus on will increase."
Side note: This in no way relates to divorce. OR marriage. That's an entire subject of it's own. All I'm saying is that I think love means that you see a person in a good light. Because EVERYONE has flaws. You choose to love someone, even a best friend, because you prefer them. You love them as a whole-person-package. You like the things you DO see. Even the flaws. You look beyond those. To love. Commitment or divorce is a very different thing: we're just talking about love. Deep, raw, love.
Then again, I don't believe it's entirely a choice. I think all of us here have had crushes on people we don't want to...but perhaps that's just the initial attraction?
Perhaps love IS a choice. Perhaps we get what we put in. Perhaps love is seeing someone how God sees them: for Christ loves everyone. Even through all, and I mean ALL, of our flaws. And if He can do it...we can too, right???
What do YOU think??????
I'd love to hear. Thanks for listening. -CMS
Here are my thoughts. First, I don't think this contradicts your psychology analysis later on. Here's my reasoning: it appears as though it is more-so a chemical reaction or process they measure when viewing how the critical thinking area of the brain is clouded by "love." Thus, this "love" is probably more-so infatuation. This would definitely release the chemicals to inhibit thought. Love, on the other hand, IS more of a choice in the long run based on trust and shared experiences.
ReplyDeleteNow, having said that, most of Shakespeare's characters seem to have a really superficial love. That is, infatuation. Even in Portia's case, where it wasn't meet and marry (meet, wait, marry). In her case, the infatuation just festered. To me, there haven't been any real love relationships between a guy and a girl in any of the play we have read thus far. So their infatuation has made them blind. Hopefully they built up their love through time and lasted longer than the Hollywood couples of today. It'd be great if they did end up like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_y9F5St4j0
I really agree with the double meaning that you brought up about love being blind. I think you can definitively get blinded by a not-for-any-reason-crush or infatuation, but also you can "turn a blind eye" when you chose to love someone.
ReplyDeleteKim talked about this in the context of The Tempest. http://stevenskim232.blogspot.com/2012/01/shakespeare-for-smitten.html
I really think her flowchart was a great way of looking at this very thing. When you start to see flaws in someone contrary to the image that you had set up of a person, and chose to accept that and still love them.. well, I believe that this is true love. Therefore it is true that love takes time and effort.