My kids have reached the point where they are asking about infinity. Within the last week, I have had discussions with each of them, about living forever with one, and about an infinite universe with the other.
You really can’t imagine infinity, any more than you can imagine God. But you can feel love, and love fills up all that emptiness.
I will add as a footnote that this word “love” has been mangled beyond recognition. It has been twisted and pulled and pushed, triangulated, managed, abused. People “love” football. They “love” Doritos. There was a “summer of love” (with lots of humping, and no few number of pregnancies, but no stability, and nothing enduringly good created). We call it “falling in love” when our innate need for procreation finds a compatible hormonal mix across the gender aisle–or even within the same gender section.
Love to me is alternating solitude with communion. You cannot love if you cannot create, and in my view you cannot create unless you are capable of existing as a stand alone human being, something which necessarily means the capacity for solitude, which simply means that you an agent, a sovereign entity, responsible for yourself, even when you are with others. You are not leaning. A group of people like this will sometimes becomes more than the sum of the parts. They will at times feel an energy of connection. This is love.
To be clear, love is not desperate. It is not clinging. It is not “needing” someone. To say that you need someone is not to love them, but to demand they love you. This is not love.
Have to roll. I always cringe using this word, even though it does have its place. I have seen it abused so often, and wanted to speak a bit on it.