What is Love?

I have always found the concept of love mysterious. For many years I have tried to find a definition of love that would make sense to me and yet, until recently I have never found any.

Few days back, I was reading a translated version of a poem by Rumi, where he says that “Love is like being in an ocean” and that is the only definition that has made sense to me so far. In fact, the more I think about it the more sense it makes.

Imagine that you are going into water for the first time. Realistically you would not know how to swim, because you have never been in water before. If you only put your feet in the water, or if the water is shallow and the weather is good, then there is a very high chance that it will turn into a good experience. However, if you go too deep, without any support, without any help and all alone, without knowing how to swim. Then there is a very high chance that you could drown and the experience would not be a good one.

It’s the same with love. When we fall for the first time, if we get too invested on our own, without any support then it feels like drowning and can turn traumatic. However, if we have support or are with someone who can teach us how to swim, then the same experience can be one of the most enjoyable feelings in the world.

The second aspect is the dependency. If we go into water leaning on someone who knows how to swim, but we don’t bother to learn swimming on our own, then we can quickly turn into a burden on the person next to us. The same experience that was good in the start, could become tiring and bothersome.

On the other hand, in a comfortable relationship, it is important for both the parties involved to be able to navigate independently. To reach a state of true happiness, it’s important to learn to be happy together, without dependency, just like two people swimming together in the ocean, side by side, yet each making their own strokes.

The last analogy here is about explaining how it feels. Just like it is impossible to explain what water feels like, to someone who has never been in water or has fear of drowning, it is impossible to explain what love is to someone who has had different experiences than you. And, at the end, love is simply what it feels like to you.