The Emotions That Rule Me, Part 3

Love is a funny thing, at least for me. The strength of love in me is not at all a constant thing. It ebbs and flows, sometimes filling me, and sometimes it seems altogether vacant from my person. My heart, it would seem, comes in a variable size.
There are times when I am so filled with love it almost chokes me. I want to love everyone. I want everyone to know that I love them. I get this foggy feeling in my head and my eyes wet, and I believe, really believe, that if we all just had a little more love in us then hate, rage, loneliness, war, fear, and greed would all fade like yesterday's bruises. We'd all just need to take care of each other, we'd all empathize with one another, we'd all just...love each other.
But then there are the times when I love no one, not even myself. I push away. I resent. I boil. People's kindest words are meaningless and almost ironically stupid to me. I wonder what happened to the love I used to feel in me.
I know other people have these ranges too. Whether their love fluctuates like mine is another question altogether. But I imagine it does. Love is a hard thing to feel all the time.
By no stretch of the imagination do I think this is a topic I am the first to cover. Love has been with us since the beginning. Love is, quite possibly, the unique trait of humanity that lifts us above any other species. Sure, members of other species can be affectionate to one another, or even miss them when they are gone. I've seen my parents dog sulk about their house for days when my dad goes on hunting trips without her.
But uniquely, we have the power to turn on and off huge reserves of love for perfect strangers.


I wonder if love (and many other emotions) falls under the rule I learned in high school tennis: practice like you want to perform. Doesn't it make sense that if a person, especially a person like me who does not love especially easy, practices loving a bunch, then the act of love-practice will eventually lead to actual loving? The idea seems sound, and just logical enough that I could attempt it. And wouldn't I be blessed if at the end of this experiment I found myself in a state where I perpetually was filled with love, for everyone? Think of the good I could do, with my mind so oriented.
But my mind recoils from such an idea. Why is it that I so enjoy the feeling of love, either received or given, but yet I also cherish the ability to cleanly and tidily not love someone? What makes me want to retain that right? Why would I possibly want to not love?
Perhaps the reason is that love is a scary thing when you cannot control it. What do you do with yourself if you love your enemy? If someone wrongs you, but you love them...how do you simultaneously hate them? How can you enjoy schadenfreude if you love someone that suffers? How can you hold a deliciously overlong grudge, if you love someone?

It seems to me, that if I practice hard, and learn to love all the time, I may have to give up on evil. That is a heavy price to pay for happiness.


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