2. LOVE: Romantic Love

After I had done a little investigation into "Puppy Love", I considered "Romantic Love" in yet another invigilation session.

I understand it as "Love" between mature-aged individuals who have had prior romantic experiences before. Once again, this is for conceptual and working simplicity.

Love, I find, takes on a greater tinge of selfishness once we hit a more mature age and look upon our partner to be able to fulfill some basic requirements.

Then what is the End goal of being involved in a romantic relationship, I ask? Since this informs the requirements that we have of our partners.

For many, it would be marriage. For some, it would be fun. For others, it would be to achieve a sense of self-worth. All of these end-goals do not sound overtly selfish in a sense. That was what I felt initially as well, until I applied myself more.

Then I realize a very crucial question, "Would we love if we do not receive?"

When we demand something/ require something of our partners, we basically objectify our partners. They become not a subject who possesses a unique will but an object that is the medium to which we receive certain requirements. They become an object, something which you enact your will upon.

This comes from a very ego-centric standpoint, as a subject (with prior judgment, motivations and bias), whereby you enact your will to acquire love as an object from your partner as an object.

So love becomes objectified as well. When in essence, it is meant to be a reciprocal and spontaneous set of neutral actions between people.

Love, when properly understood, is in itself selfless and self-emptying by nature.

It was then that I realized that the only pure form of love was selfless love. And that romantic love as many people experience it has a long way to go.

How then do we achieve purer love within the earthly constraints of romantic love?

The very first most contingent realization that we must come to is that we should not achieve a sense of self-worth and security through romantic love.

The full comprehension of ourselves as subject is the healthiest experimentation that we can give ourselves. And this must go through self-discovery and self-consciousness. Only from the basic position of a self-confident subject can we hope to overcome the subject-object dialectism of the world and all its encompassing experiences.

When we remain in a position as a diminished subject who has to survive by relying on a partner as an object to fill in the part of our missing subjectivity, then we are not truly loving our partner as a subject but rather as an object/ tool. And secondly, we are blocking our progression to become more fuller entities.

Acceptance of our partners as subjects also means that we should not enact our wills upon them to the extent that we diminish their wills and in the worst case situations, we render them into objects again.

What about the changing of our partners' bad habits? If these habits are self-hurting in nature then it would exist as an irrational act of will. Thus coupled with the motivational point of your desired will to correct the particular self-hurting will as a "Free-agent", it would make justifiable sense to aid in the elimination of such bad habits.

But this only exists justifiable to a extent. We as subjects should avoid enacting our wills up to the point that it does not diminish our partner's will.

Thus ultimately, acceptance of our partners as subjects exists at the purest/highest level of reciprocal action/acceptance and neutral judgement. With acceptance then comes appreciation and with appreciation of our partners as subject with unique wills, we in turn learn more about the subject-object dialectism and appreciate our finitude better as a subject.

So far, we have "self-confidence", "acceptance" and "appreciation" which all work in combination to a better understanding and overcoming of the subject-object dialectism and towards selfless love.

Now I am ready to move onto an investigation on my desired position.

How do we love with the "Hypersensitivity" of "Puppy Love" but from the position of "I-in-not-I"?