This is the second in a series of three images beginning at: http://secretvespers.com/2009/11/06/perfumed-bird-at-100/. Creatures that do not reproduce might as well live forever; what do you make of the connection between love and death?
Secret Vespers
by Patrick Edwards-Daugherty
Love is the reason we find death sad. If we didn’t love, the thought of death would cause only fear for ourselves, not grief for our deceased loved ones.
One-celled creatures, who reproduce by dividing and thus have no need for love, essentially do live forever. They can die, but never of old age, and when they do die they are survived by millions of genetically identical copies of themselves.
This might be a chicken-or-the-egg sort of thing, but maybe death is the reason we love? People become attached to things when they believe they are impermanent. If people didn’t die, we’d take them for granted.
Part of real love is dying to the selfish self, putting the beloved first and wanting their good. Love is selflessness, though modern philosophy sees it more as satisfaction of “my own needs.” We are told that if the other person doesn’t fill our needs, we are “out of love.” But that is what amoebas do: absorb those they encounter.
In college I had many friends who claimed to be “existentialists”. I always asked them if they loved anyone; and if so, how could they if “nothing means anything”?
Love is what gives human life meaning. And that is stronger than death.
I always understood existentialism as not being a belief that “nothing means anything” but rather it is a battle between our own personal ideals and the ideals of others. If we only believe what society tells us love is, then that kind of love is not real, at least not to who we are. We must instead come up with our own definition of love.
I think the problem here you may be referring to is that, in existentialism, there is no universal “love.” The person you love may have a completely different definition of love.
I’m not sure but I think this is correct… it’s been a while since I’ve learned about existentialism but I like the philosophy behind it. Perhaps I’ll have to do more research.
I myself am not sure of the “official” version of existentialism, but “nothing means anything” is certainly the version my college friends claimed to subscribe to. Of course, everything is temporary in the learning process…so maybe their ideas changed over time. Mine certainly have, but their version of existentialism was exceedingly bleak.
Not a problem. I guess I was looking for some clarification myself.
Two people are willing to die for each other. Is it any wonder that the greatest tragedies are love stories?
Death is the high cost of living. I agree that we would take people for granted if we had immortality. Or maybe that’s just me.
Love and death have a huge link, but I wouldn’t go so far as this. However, I could be proved wrong; look at Romeo and Juliet’s last kiss.
Love is stronger than death, ardour fierce as the grave.
Thanks, flower. I couldn’t remember the rest of it. It’s from the Canticles, I think, but I’m not sure of that, either.
Yes, orinoco womble, I adapted it from Canticles. I’d give you chapter and verse if I didn’t recommend that you read it through again.
I direct your attention to the version recorded by Steeleye Span on the album “Storm Force Ten”, from about 1978 or 79. I believe they called it “Awake, Awake Oh Northern Wind”.
Thanks for this! I can’t find the track online, so I’m just going to buy the album. Looking forward to listening.
I just noticed that your “[love] is stronger than death” coaxed me into a Christian revision of Solomon’s materialism. I drew the inspiration for the other revisions from a poem by a friend. In my friend’s poem, he, like Solomon, has “love is strong as death.”
The original line in the KJV: “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.” (8:6)