No far-and-wide search is to be attempted for one of the most unfailing interactions between two seemingly contrasting concepts to be discovered; Love and Pain lay an unbeatable claim to such an interaction as anyone that has had this experience bears witness to it; it is impossible to love without experiencing the rigours of occasional doubt, jealousy, frustration, long wait for the much-sought after response, effort of proving worthy, making up when relationships are at a low ebb and generally every hardship incident to keeping up with the standards and circumstances of a love relationship; the sheer reason-dictated question of how it is possible for a feeling like love which triggers off the greatest joy to engineer inescapable hardship and pain, can be answered by realizing that it is exactly because Love spawns the most exhilarating joy and most relieving feelings that we are all extremely susceptible to anything compromising that highly valued state and we are ready to go on an all-out bid to fend off such menaces; it is the most valued and treasured conditions like Love that necessitate the most impregnable lines of defense against anything putting such conditions at stake, even to the cost of other highly treasured conditions, like our career, property, health and on occasions, even our own life.
The more important and irreplaceable the state in danger, the more we all suffer in our bid to avoid its loss; the more we realize how unique for our love the person we love is, the stronger the pain we feel if the danger of losing them looms high and the more willing we are to risk everything to keep that person in our life.
However, Love has nothing to do with possession or control; Love is treating the person we love on a par with ourselves or even as someone of a higher calibre; Love is a lot more about giving than taking, about self-denying and sacrificing with a view to rendering our partner happy; and of course, Love in its two-way traffic should always be marked with the ability to back off to avoid further friction and above all to grant forgiveness. To put it poetically, Love tiptoes at a featherweight step along the rope holding us aloft from life miseries, feeding on the joys it breeds and the pain accompanying the effort to keep its footing stable, always confident it will reach at the other end, regardless of the perils and ravages in its way, leaving behind the petrified vista of loneliness and stepping into one of shared Bliss and Peace where each moment serves as the well-deserved wages of our successful efforts to reach that Haven.
Dr. Steven V. Roy Dr. of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, Great Britain, permanent Member of the General Council of the University of Glasgow and of the International Academy of Social Sciences, Florida, USA, Vice President of the World Philosophical Forum
