I Believe in Love

Our hearts at birth serve only the mundane purpose of passing oxygen to our blood cells—to pump repeatedly and keep us alive. Their pulse is a rhythm, sometimes captivating, sometimes haphazard when we are scared. The most venerated quality of the heart, though—an inherent aptitude in all who have one—is love. It fills that vessel with energy so magnificent that it gives purpose to things otherwise purposeless.

I believe that love is the most powerful force in the world. It can build a life to the stars, but also be fatal when it’s lost. It’s everything all at once—beautiful, gentle, ugly, and brutal. It’s formidable as well as fragile; it can last forever if it’s nurtured, and it can die overnight if it’s not. Love is what drives people and begs for change. Gandhi loved, as did Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, and Bob Marley. What’s unfortunate about these men is that they weren’t allowed to keep doing so. Their love, however, is a lasting force. It’s one that in itself has not yet died and probably will never die. Love is eternal. It’s what makes this life, however distorted and askew, rectify itself.

We are surrounded by it since before our birth, hopefully. We feel it from our mothers, our fathers, and our other family members. Love reminds us that we are not alone. It’s the act of finding peace with ourselves and the world around us. For me, it’s like springtime for the bears sleeping cozily in their dens, the desperate dash of hatchling turtles towards the sea, and the very first time a bird opens its wings to fly. Love is the glimmer of hope in the darkest caves of adversity—the spark that says ‘yes I can’. Whether it is for my art, my friends, or me, I fill myself with it. Despite everything that I don’t own, it’s something that I will always have, because my capacity to love is endless.

I’m amorous in an outwardly nature as well—I love to love. It brings me great satisfaction not only to feel it in myself, but to see it unearth happiness even in those whose malcontents are deeply rooted. Kindness is an infant form of love that just needs to be allowed to grow. Oftentimes we are too cruel to one another.

A heart exists not just for the one it beats to sustain. They are connected to each other and feel without need of sensory nerves or USB cords. When two unite something extraordinary happens. We tend to call it ‘falling in love’. Some people fall harder than others; personally, I plummet. There’s such beauty in it though, however harried and bruised the fall may leave you. To hear the voice of the one whose heart is intertwined with yours, feel their tender caress or smell their hair, certain exhilaration surfaces. Love, mind you, is random. I’ve never walked into a coffee shop with the mindset of finding my soul mate. Often times you need to stumble before you fall.

Of all my virtues, love is the most important. Since I first learned the meaning of it, passed the abhorrent sensation of losing it and struggling to find it again, love has grown to be a driving force within me. Love has built me, destroyed me, crippled me, and healed me. It’s life in four letters. It’s what I have, will always have, and always seek to find in others. Love simply is the most powerful force in the world.