All You Need is Love

Published on May 01, 2008 by Tabitha Teves

All you need is love.  How often have I heard the strains of that ageless song swirling around me?  It is a phrase that spans time.  It is a noble, even romantic inspiration.  But sometimes I wonder if it’s true.  Is love really all we need to survive?

All you need is water?  That makes more sense. 

All you need is air? 

All you need is your recommended daily serving of leafy green vegetables?  Ok, not nearly as poetic. 

But all you need is...love?  Come on.  At times I think we’d all be better off without it.  Love is so often found at the core of heartache and depression.  It is the underlying theme of every tragic love song and epic motion picture.  Is this burdensome, life-altering sentiment really necessary to our well-being?  If you ask me, I think love just makes us crazy. 

Think of Romeo and Juliet.  Their love drove them both to a self-induced death...well before their time.  In China, a couple named Liu and Xu had to spend their entire married life in seclusion due to a community un-accepting of their love.  Liu spent fifty of those married years carving a 6,000-stair pathway down the mountainside for his wife to have access to town.  My friend Cathy gave up life as she knew it.  She found herself leaving behind family, friends, and familiarity...even risking deportation...to follow her true love across the span of an entire ocean.  We drain our life savings for engagement rings; risk our dignity in bold confessions of undying love.  We sacrifice food, sleep, even sanity to be with the one we love.  Love makes us crazy. 

And what about all the negative connotations associated with love?  Think of the popular catch-phrase:  “We fell in love.”  To me, falling is not synonymous with happiness.  Last time I fell, I was climbing up the concrete steps to my office.  I landed hard on my knees and the result was a lot of blood (which, by the way, stained my trendy, white Hollister capri sweats) and a very permanent scar.  My recent encounter with an iron rod falling on top of my head, left me with a nice little concussion.  Falling is not a good thing for me.  I guess the only kind of falling I like, is the kind at the amusement park when you find yourself teetering at the brink of a 200 foot free-fall every sense heightened, every nerve trembling.  You’re terrified out of your mind, clinging to the lap bar...but there’s no turning back.  And as you plunge into the depths, this overwhelming surge of joy explodes from somewhere inside of your stomach and leaves you crying out with uncontrollable happiness!  Ok, that sounds a little nicer than the first two examples.  So, love is terrifying and yet, somehow exhilarating?  That makes a little more sense. 

But if love is all you need, what about the vast majority of our population surviving each day without it?  Love, for many people, seems to duck just out of reach.  It shrouds itself in secrecy.  It is illusive and selective.  It finds you...not the other way around.  Love is a mystery.  And even once we obtain it, and think we have things figured out, it isn’t long before disillusionment sets in, or the clouds hover into place casting their damp shadows across our theories and expectations. 

So, maybe there is something wrong with love.  Or maybe there is something wrong with our perception of it.  Then what exactly is love? God tells me that love is patient.  Love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.

That doesn’t sound like love to me.  Or at least the kind of “love” society is obsessed with.  This kind of love sounds a little less romantic.  A little more like work.  Yet, a little more obtainable.  It is not a matter of chance.  It’s more like a choice.  We choose to be vulnerable.  We choose to make love more than just a feeling.  We choose to know someone specifically, so that we can love them intimately. 

The more I think about it, love sounds like a nice hot latte.  At the top is a thick layer of frothy deliciousness.  Sometimes I think that’s the best part of the drink.  But would I ever order a cup of foam?  Probably not.  It’s delicious but it lacks true substance.  It is the essence of a fairy tale.  Touch it with your fingertip and it disappears.  It would never satisfy.  But sip it and enjoy it we must, to arrive at the rich brew beneath.  Here is where the stuff of illustrious lovers lives.  It is rich with commitment and intimacy.  It is deep and vibrant, bursting with flavor.  But you can’t fully enjoy one without the other.  They’re both vital to love. 

Now, this kind of love sounds worth it.  Maybe John Lennon was right.  It just might be all I need.