Loving Like an Animal

Some concepts don't need defining, but we valiantly beat our heads against walls in an attempt to make some semblance of a 'rule' about them. Oftentimes, we resort to crude examples to get our point across: 'Sadness' is represented by the loss of a close parent, 'greed' is represented by an unscrupulous lawyer or businessman, and 'anger' is represented by the blind rage felt after a betrayal. Instances of these emotions arise that come so close to our expectations that they almost define the word. But of the indefinable, love remains the quintessential mystery of our existence.

People use the word 'love' like toilet paper. In a single day, a person could 'love their mate', go to the store and 'love a new product', head to a restaurant and 'love a meal', before getting cut off on the road and 'love the way people drive'. These are four distinct emotions (maybe three if you combine the love of a meal and a product) that fall under the all-encompassing grip of the word 'love'. How bizarre it must be for any extraterrestrials living on this planet to encounter this word! As soon as they might ask someone for what it means, they get an example or definition that is but a chip of ice from an otherwise enormous iceberg.

Love, as a concept, is indefinable. But there are many unknowns in life that we maintain a tenuous grip on. Definition seeks to put a 'conceptual finger' on that which it is attempting to define. Put a finger on love, and you will be trying to grab a cloud (or will become very very rich if successful). Another method of defining seeks not to pin, but to contain using a 'conceptual vice'. By taking the extreme points on either side and using some knowledge of how the trend works, one can extrapolate the rest of the graph or figure. Scientists and mathematicians often use this technique to determine unknown data or figure out unusual trends. Love, as a concept, evades both of these definition techniques with the kind of deft agility that frustrates anyone attempting to define it.

To this point I've neglected to mention our brethren in nature. At one point, the human world scoffed at the idea of love occurring in non-human realms. This indefinable concept was so special, so sacred, that simple beasts could not comprehend the rich caveats and perilous pitfalls of love. How ironic is it that humanity's relatively high intellect has not yielded any closer definitions of the word. Removing zealots and skeptics, 'love' is a more universal concept today, not the sole propriety of human creatures.

The pursuit of love by humans is an unspoken war. In the primal early years of life, a human baby may know little more than the desire for food, sleep, and 'love'. As that child grows, the rules change. Picture the quintessential kindergarten classroom. The nature of love rarely becomes as apparent as the moment when the parents finally step away from a child as if to say goodbye. Some children, enraptured by the lure of new toys and strange faces, toddle off to adventure without another thought. Others burst into agonized tears as if a piece of their life force were being dragged away from them. We assign these children an element of 'clingy-ness', shaking our collective heads and tut-tuting them as if their unwillingness to part from their parents were the sign of some inability to adjust to society. What we don't see with our omniscient perspective is that the magnitude of change for the child is the allegorical equivalent of reversing gravity. The nature of the love between the parents and the child forcefully rearranges by the separation, and that is a world in itself to the young.

Granted, no child can remain attached at the hip forever and survive in this construction we humans have as a society. But when the rules changed, something of love was lost and learned. People talk about 'true love', a phrase so trite and antiquated that invoking it screams cliché. For this precious treasure, people have performed incomprehensible acts that further lead to the indefinable nature of the word. Does 'true love' exist? It's a question answered only by the individual. But what does exist is 'natural love', and that love is much deeper than any human conceptualization can allow.

Natural love. It is a force so powerful, so intense that it can bend the laws of nature with a single rearing of its head. Life, both human and non-human, often boils down to 'survival of the fittest'. Our liberal society and emphasis on equality does everything it can to avoid following this rule, but it happens regardless. The animal kingdom lives and dies by this rule. Those who are fittest eat when they are hungry until their bellies are full. Those who are fittest reproduce by defeating others who would mate in their species. Those who are fittest survive the challenges that threaten to end their natural life at any moment. It's a magnificently intricate game of 'king of the hill', fought with a steadfast fiber that says 'there can be only one' – until natural love arises.

Natural love is the kind of force that makes a lioness charge a herd of Cape buffalo in defense of her cubs. Natural love is the kind of power that leads a sparrow to scavenge food for its chicks. Natural love is the entity that changes the survival fiber from 'there can be only one' to 'there can be only us'. To witness natural love is to see nature's fury focused. To feel it is to swell with momentary invincibility, endowed for the single purpose of protecting that which you naturally love. It is the kind of love that is not acceptable in human society; it is far too powerful for our higher minds to process. It's a kind of love non-humans practice with apparent blissful ignorance.

How sweet it would be to love like an animal. A love so thick that you could pour it, so hard you can't penetrate it, so filling that you need no food. But natural love cannot, and in fact, must not last. Though it bends the rules of nature, it must not break them. To survive and grow, we must face challenges. To know love, we must know the other emotions associated with striving to be the fittest.

The human animal is capable of natural love. It miraculously arises at unpredictable times before quickly retreating to the natural world. Together, humans managed to control nature around them by overwhelming its defenses with numbers and speed. But the fight against human nature -- the inner human animal – can only be fought on private battlegrounds. There, nature can hold its ground. As long as nature has a stronghold, humans can experience the power of this emotion. Thank goodness. With it, we gain the potential to perform real feats of magic, and bend our self-created world with the strength of our natural love.