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"To the Moon and Back"

A Young Man's Meditations on Romantic Love

By J Mitchell LagarasPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
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I want to say before I get into anything substantial that I'm young. I'm not professionally qualified to write much of what I write. I'm not an expert. I'm not a genius, and I don't claim to be some wise philosopher. I've got a lot to learn, and I accept that I know very little. That being said, let's begin.

I was in love. I was so madly in love. I was in love beyond rational thought. I told myself that I would be with this person through thick and thin. I would stay up until the thin hours of the morning so I could talk to her when I was living abroad. I would constantly remind her to what point she was beautiful, talented and wonderful. She was everything to me. We talked about marriage, we talked about children. I told her I loved her to the moon and back. I was happy, we were happy.

However, at one point in all of this I took a step back and realised to what extent this relationship was eating me alive. I was losing sleep, I was always worrying about her. She became all that occupied my mind, she was the only person I would call from back home. "But you love her! Don't forget that you love her!" These were the only words attaching our relationship to the flimsy, eroding thread holding it in place.

For many reasons, our relationship suffered its bitter, pitiful demise. I eventually came to discover a revelation which took me a while to comprehend, in spite of its simplicity. I was in love with having someone I could call my own. Someone that I could be with who shared similar interests with me. I was in love with the idea of being in love. Once I accepted what had happened, I started asking myself questions that should have posed before the relationship should even have started. "What is love? Am I smart enough understand it? Am I wise enough to know what it feels like? Am I ready to support myself and another in a true loving relationship?"

This introduction doesn't serve as a few paragraphs telling you to feel sorry for me. In fact, I'm quite happy and relieved I'm no longer in together with this person. Ever since the end of our relationship, I've been trying to comprehend love. I'm not saying I do, I clearly don't. I've still got a lot to learn about life, love, and the mysteries thereof. Even still, I have done my research, and I've discovered some truths that the public at times doesn’t seem ready to accept. Here's what I believe.

The Problem With Love

Or rather, "What we as a public perceive as love from our social input/medial intake." This is the love we hear on the radio, the love we see in the series we absorb daily as a culture. The love we witness build up and break down our peers on social media. This is the love we think we understand.

Dopamine can be triggered and rush to the brain due to a very wide variety of reasons. One of these is physical attraction. When we see something we like, we want to see more of it. It's human nature, it's biology. This is how we work. A large percent of the time, if one person is attracted in anyway to someone and the other person reciprocates the same feeling, the two confuse the dopamine rushing to their brains with potential to start a long lasting relationship, and they quickly throw themselves into one. Eventually your brain will get used to the dopamine and it'll want more, in higher doses. Finally, a time will come where the dopamine will stop flowing through, and you'll be left with a person who's going through the same cycle. Will you be able to support a relationship, or even want to be in it when the attractiveness "runs out?" People don't realise that one of the main reasons people "fall out of love" is because they were never in love, so when they finally see that their relationship isn't what it used to be, they can't understand why. This leads to confusion, and ultimately hurt when the two end their relationship. What could have been a great friendship is now a ruined relationship, and now the two don't even acknowledge each other's existence.

Social media is reconfiguring our brains to crave the idea of being in love, throwing in situations where, if we don't like what we see, it's as easy as a few swipes to the right to find someone sufficiently pleasing to start something. It's things like this that result in cheating, and abrupt leaving. If you aren't deemed physically appealing anymore to someone, they are going to move on.

Then what is love?

It depends on who you ask and what you believe. I'm not trying to change minds, just to open them and make them wary. In a very radical sense, one could argue that romantic love is a mental illness. Of course, when I say romantic love, I mean that which I've described above, this “popular love.” I believe that the strongest form of love is friendship. This is why a lot of people make it a point to "marry their best friend," as some may say it. If friendship is the highest quality of true romantic love, one's ideal mate would be one's best friend. I also don't believe romantic love has anything to do with sex. In the same sense, the romantic love I described has nothing to do with marriage. Wildly misunderstood philosopher Nietzsche stated confidently that “it is not the lack of love but the lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."

Other Related Issues

I have gotten myself into a few arguments surrounding love and choosing a career.

As a young adult, I naturally find myself in environments surrounded by young adults, and at this age people start to think about their academic and professional future, and they put a lot of pressure on themselves about it, which is reasonable, it's a big decision. I also see people everywhere complaining that they are too young to be forced into a career, that people aren't mature enough to move into the working world in their teens. However, I see the same people convince themselves that they've discovered the true meaning of love as well as found their soulmate. I'm not saying they haven't. I will say it's unlikely, but my argument isn't whether or not they're truly ready for love at this point in their lives. My argument is if one is wise enough/knows themselves well enough/ready to give themselves to another person in a true loving relationship, they are also wise enough/know themselves well enough/ready to choose a career. There is no in between, nor "one or the other." If you're ready to love, you're ready work.

To Wrap Up

I realise this post is quite wordy. I also realise that to some this may appear controversial, and I encourage criticism. Maybe I’m wrong about all this, I don’t know. I haven’t lived a very long life. You can believe what you want, as I do. That's the beauty of belief. Please know that the goal of this post isn't to offend or to intimidate. As I said earlier, I don't intend to change any minds, just to open them.

Thank you for your time.

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About the Creator

J Mitchell Lagaras

Musician and polyglot. Passionate learner, aspiring thinker.

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