Every Love Starts With Lust

Oh yes it does. Unless we choose to lie to ourselves, we would admit that we don’t just fall in pure unadulterated love with someone the moment we meet them. There has to be an initial tug, something that made that person attractive to us, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a sexual thing whereby we fall for a physical feature or attribute. Lust is not always sexually inclined. But there is no such thing as a romantic love that is forged without a reason. People often shy away when asked why they love the other person, because we assume that if there is a reason to it, then it’s not love. Well here is a news flash, if there is no reason, then it’s not love either. Love does not float on water, there has to be an anchor. Also love does not exist on thin air, the essence of love is such that it has to have a foothold on something. It’s like a plant, it doesn’t grow out of zephyr.

Here is an illustration to drive home my point, a young woman who has come of age has 3 serious prospects, all these men are well to do in their own rights, and have sincere intentions toward her. Out of these 3 men she chooses one to settle down with. We would probably infer that she loves him or fell in love with him, but how could we possibly imagine there was no reason for that? That she made a pure choice, devoid of ulterior intentions. There is no way the man she picked is not the most appealing to her based on some calculations on her part. There’s got to be a very good reason or a bad one why she chose him. Love does not spring up from nothingness. Whether we conceive of love as an emotion or we conceive of it as a choice, it is always connected to some other element.

Yes, love is arguably the greatest force on earth, but it’s a force fueled by humans. Bearing in mind that humans are not flawless, by extention even our best motives are reproachable. Therefore, our exhibition/display of love can in no way be devoid of blemish. Let me complicate this further. What part of the human anatomy is capable of loving? Our heart! Ever heard the phrase I feel it in my heart? Our heart is that part of our (genetic) makeup where we feel things, something. It is the seat of our emotions, thoughts, feeling, desires and motives. Everything we do comes from that little triangular looking thing called the heart. I once wrote in a blog post that our heart is our life and when that little mesh of muscles and vessels stops beating, the whole body shuts down, life as it were comes to a grinding halt, which means instant demise. So our hearts control everything, particularly love.

Every human being has a unique makeup that makes him/her different from the next person on the earth’s surface. I am referring mainly to genetics, inherited traits, but there are other attributes resulting from culture, experience, taste and etcetera, that differentiates one person from the next. This is one of the reasons why what other people find attractive may be unattractive to us. One man’s maid is another man’s queen, different strokes for different folks, or so they say. There are universal human traits that are generally accepted as being ideal, which is why such things as pageants exist. These women are considered beautiful by universal standards. But recently, there has been a wave of change whereby the human race is stretching the idea/imagination of what is the “ideal”. So it is safe to seek recourse to the old phrase that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

My point is that the person we choose fits like a glove our unique criteria and this is why we are in a relationship with that person and not another. Our heart chose to gravitate towards that person. But the heart does not act unilaterally! As in without a cause. We had at best be psychopathic, if we did anything without a rationale! Even psychopaths have reasons for what they do, however crazy the reasons may be. If we love without a reason then it’s senseless/nonsensical. Some may say love is not supposed to make sense, but then, it could be anybody and not that particular person. So why him or her? We all love to think there is something special about our relationship and that what we have with that person cannot be recreated with another. The very thought that he or she can feel or be that same way with another person drives us crazy! And it should. Because what we have with our partner should be unique. That is one of the beauty of romantic love. But that beauty cannot be achieved without a reason! If we love without a basis, it’s just as easy to hate without one. But if there is a foundation, there is a starting point with which to contextualize what we feel or the choice we make. For instance, if a problem ensues that could break the relationship, then that love is traceable. Similarly, if it’s a fairy-tale kind of love, there is a guideline, some form of recipe that explains why it’s that way. There is a purpose behind everything, so how come we expect love to be different?

There are diverse reasons why we choose who we choose, why we choose the way we choose, why we choose at all. We often deny this of course, because if we are being honest with ourselves, we know our love starts with lust. No one goes to their spouse and says, I chose you because you’re so hot or because you had a good job or because you can pay the bills or because you’re intelligent. We may have no problem admitting falling in love with someone if the attraction was more presentable, if for example, their intelligence or spirituality attracted us. But opening up becomes tougher if what attracted us was more materialistic. But even if it makes us vulnerable, we owe it to that person to tell them the truth. Let the other person know why we gravitated towards them. This helps us establish a basis for our shared lives together. Then we can move past it to the next level, where love becomes a choice. A choice then becomes deeper than lust. A choice becomes deeper than a reason. A choice becomes unconditional.

Yes, there was a reason, but now it’s beyond a reason. It’s a combination of things that cannot be easily penned down. It takes trust, it takes vulnerability, it takes openness to go from that level of lust to pure love. Unconditional, unadulterated love begins after we have done away with lust. But if we won’t even be honest to each other, how can we move past lust?

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