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When growing up, we are told that "love makes the world go around." By age twenty at the latest, the real story emerges. Rather than love, we rudely find out that "money makes the world go around." For the next half century or more, we are then forced to pursue money through careers to survive. Instead of celebrating the lives of others with humor, a smile, poetry - joys emanating from love, most of our time is spent thinking and talking about how to manage money and getting by at the office or school. One day becomes indistinguishable from another. Years begin to blur due to an absence of creativity, and decades disappear under the burdens of routine.
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Possessive love still rules the world. According to the dictates of possessive love, a person may express romantic love to only one person at a time in speech or in action. From childhood, we are socialized into possessive love. Out of fear, few question the order.
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What if possessive love is not normative for human beings? What if most people, who enter possessive love relationships (especially marriage), are actually cheating on their true nature - a nature that wishes to love many people over what is a very short lifetime? Throughout much of Scandinavia (Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark) today, many people have bypassed marriage and opted for cohabitation (living together). This, however, is hardly a new phenomenon. In his meticulously researched book "The Lower Sort:" Philadelphia's Laboring People, 1750-1800 (1994), social historian Billy G. Smith uncovered the realities of love in an eighteenth century colonial city. While the sons and daughters of well-off or moderately well-off merchants were able to afford marriage, much of working population was impecunious, transient and unable to marry. Far more than previously believed, a significant number of women lived with lovers, had children out of wedlock and ended marriages by divorce.
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As our societies continue to evolve through experience and education, cohabitation and free love (love without singular commitments) may become widespread in the future.
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At the moment, however, the fear to express love in its many forms remains the order of the day. Our discourse often resembles something manufactured by a human resource department -which is neither human nor draws on upon the truest, most beautiful resource in the world - our hearts. When this prevalent fear of love dissipates, the world will then - and only then - be able to call itself civilized.
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A Persian Heart of Love
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For one Persian poet of centuries past, love was the meaning of life and the only authentic conduit between human beings. In the fourteenth century, Khwaja Shamsu d-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi (popularly known as Hafez, c. 1325-1389), was born in modern-day Iran. His short romantic poems are revered all over the world for their simplicity, beauty and expressions of the heart. He not only made a significant contribution to Islamic civilization but also laid the basis for all civilizations across time and space in world history.
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To celebrate National Poetry Month in the United States (April) and to suggest that life ought to be lived as a poetry of peace and love - by all, for all and between all, two poems by Hafez have been reproduced below in translation.
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The Subject Tonight Is Love
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The subject tonight is love
And for tomorrow night as well,
As a matter of fact
I know of no better topic
For us to discuss
Until we all
Die!
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It Felt Love
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How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
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And give to this world
All its
Beauty?
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It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being
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Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened
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Photo: The tomb of Hafez in Shiraz, Iran
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To read an article on the decline of marriage in Scandinavia entitled "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia" (2 February 2004) in The Weekly Standard (USA), please click onto the following link: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp
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J Roquen