A Theory of Love?

The thing is that we are always captivated by theories and we must wriggle our way out of them. There is no theory about love or about the self, otherwise there would be no way of humans coming up with new forms or even developing different ways of loving in different contexts. That is something we must learn and learn painfully. It also means that if there is a fixed theory, then we fail to do justice not only to the imperfect circumstances in which one might fall in love, given the world and its imperfections, but to also our own imperfections and limitations and the imperfections of those we fall in love with.

And not having a theory means to have the power to explain and evolve the practices of another human. The sort of explanation and evolution again would not be theoretical, although a theory might be involved in its rudimentary stages. Because if there is an advanced theory, then any revision of it will have to be dictated primarily by the stipulation of the theory itself rather than the free choices of those it is trying to explain (but this would not be so in scientific theories, because these free choices aren't involved). What I’m talking about would simply mean that all we have to do is to open our eyes to the special in those who we have managed to come close to, and not to be slaves to our own expectations. Because as long as we our slaves to our own expectations, we will never come out of our solipsistic states, since a mere fulfillment of our expectations would mean that there is no possibility of the freedom of the other, in the sense that the other is free only insofar as they conform to your expectations. Falling short of them would simply mean that there is no leeway for their spontaneity.

Now I’m not saying that one must not have any expectations, but only that one must not have expectations that ought to be fulfilled like the requirements of an analytic statement- that of the 2+ 2 of expectations one must not expect a four, but one must be allowed to add on the left hand side and on the right hand side, so that not only creativity is allowed for expressiveness on both sides, but that there is space for personal evolution for both the lover and the beloved.