This is one of the joys and challenges of love: the more skillfully you love someone, the more held, encouraged, and accepted they feel, the more they change.
So many things I find interesting, but I think the biggest one is how much *self* this form of loving takes. For both of you, finding common ground with which to discuss gardening required deep, deep knowledge of the way the other saw the world, as well as the ability to process how that interfaced with your own preexisting conceptions. It is a very admirable level of awareness, especially as you know you are both constantly changing.
It feels a bit daft to say, but love takes so, so much heart.
I love the ideology of love in this article, not describing love as comfort, or as emotional attunement in the usual sense, but as a transformation of both sides.
Even deep love doesn’t guarantee convergence, it can just as easily reveal divergence more clearly over time, and I love how the author treats it as 'value-expansion'. The risk of growing apart is always real, but so is the possibility that another person’s becoming enlarges your capacity to perceive reality itself. Love allows you to see what you could not have generated alone.
What I found most precise here is that love is not treated as the possession of a shared world, but as an apprenticeship in another person’s attention. There is something deeply demanding in that. To love someone who changes is not only to tolerate the change, or even to support it from the outside. It is to risk being changed by the new world that their attention has opened. In that sense, love is not merely fidelity to a person as they were, but fidelity to the reality that becomes visible through them.
My boyfriend and I just had our 8 year anniversary, and your essay got me thinking about how he’s been trying to teach me pure math for ages, and I haven’t been making much of an effort to sit down with him and actually try. He’s been asking to teach me since our second year of college, a time when he had plenty of other people in his major to discuss math with. In retrospect, given how much I know he loves math, and how much I know he loves me, I think he wanted much more than just someone to about math talk to.
He’s a teacher now and tells his students that we do math because it’s enjoyable. When anyone asks what’s the point of doing math, he says, “well, why do humans make art or music or write?” As an artist myself, him being able to find the most fulfillment via the process, is incredibly inspiring to my own work. And I think it makes me begin to really appreciate math, an appreciation that isn’t just riding the contagious high of his passion, but one that feels entirely my own. I love him so so much.
I love how you weave both the abstract and artistic with the practical:
> She’d kept talking, as I was thinking about this, so I told her to be silent for a moment so I could process what she’d said; I wanted to give myself the time to notice if there was any subtle part of what she talked about that interested me or confused me.
My experience of reading your essays is as an exploration of a deeper (or higher) self, but firmly set on the real without being floaty.
So beautiful and such wisdom in this essay, thank you. I love the point you make about aspiring. I believe this requires opening up toward something, which in turn means letting go of some conception of yourself, your own interests, softening some part of what you might believe (or think you believe). I notice that this is seemingly easier for some than others, and wonder why that is. Also, this essay has made me profoundly curious about Johanna's garden.
I like the idea of trying to understand and feel someone’s internal experience even if the topic at hand is not naturally interesting to you. I also think this is especially valuable for people like us who are interested in interiority.
I loved reading this essay. I had a stressful moment today, and I read this essay and felt calmer.
I have indeed also found that, if you engage something someone loves with just enough curiosity, no matter how you felt about it before, it’ll be hard not to come away with at least a deep appreciation of it, and like you described, new eyes with which to see the world.
Really beautiful sentiment. Love as a means to expansion.
It made me think a lot about my own experience with cross-cultural love when their is not only an whole new person to learn, but an entirely different culture, language, upbringing (etc...) to dive into. It expands reality and the possibilities towards ways of living ten fold and opens my eyes to differences that I didn't even knew existed.
Love awakens and multiplies what is possible and who you become as a singular individual and as a shared entity. <3
It took me a while to jigsaw the idea of loving being an aspiration into my long-time conception that love should be a source of comfort and belonging. Aspiration stretches out and reaches for the unknown, whereas belonging points fuzzily inward. How can the two be about the same object?
The moment it clicked for me was the realization that the sense of belonging is picketed around me, whereas the other person in the relationship is excluded from this plot of land that I now regard as scared. In a healthy relationship, however, belonging is a two-way street and I should provide means of comfort for my partner as well. And as you so lovingly portrayed, that means often takes the shape of those bridges of empathy you constructed to reach Johanna. It's ironic how love is something we feel so deeply within ourselves, yet its purest form is not about ourselves at all.
A thought-provoking read as usual, thank you Henrik!
I was particularly puzzled by the way you describe ambition. Here's the question I thought of: how do you distinguish between what you want to want and what you think you should want?
In my understanding, wanting to want comes from genuine curiosity and an ongoing feeling of zest, as William James would describe it. An example for me is the book Greek Lessons by Hang Kan. I find it so very mysterious, and I don't really get it. But I don't get frustrated by not getting it, but rather more interested. I always end up doing what you did: I put it down and pick it back up in a year, and then I get it just a little bit more.
What I think I should want comes from the image of myself I want to project outwards. It comes from how I want other's to recognise me, as opposed to how I want to recognise myself. Will someone that reads Russian literature just because they want to be able to say to others "I'm a big fan of Russian literature" ever really get Russian literature? I think not, because they're not even interested in Russian literature in the first place. Their interest lies in rather the discourse around individuals who have read and get russian literature.
In the spur of the moment, I find it really hard to tell between the two. But more often than not, when I feel stuck, I've found that the problem is that I'm trying to project an image of myself based on what I think I should want instead of focusing on what I actually want in that specific moment.
Someone has said, Love is an action, not just a feeling. The commitment you have towards finding a way towards the act of loving deepens the love, and nourishes you both. A fine thing to read and be reminded of.
I am reading “All About Love” by Bell Hooks and at the chapter where she speaks on romantic relationships. She speaks on soul connections from John Welwood’s writings emphasizing that a soul connection supports each other being their highest self and I see that tenderness in care in what you shared. Love this so sincerely.
I thought about the same thing when I read the essay!
For hooks, love is "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth" - almost exactly your title, Henrik :)
This is beautiful. Thank you.
So many things I find interesting, but I think the biggest one is how much *self* this form of loving takes. For both of you, finding common ground with which to discuss gardening required deep, deep knowledge of the way the other saw the world, as well as the ability to process how that interfaced with your own preexisting conceptions. It is a very admirable level of awareness, especially as you know you are both constantly changing.
It feels a bit daft to say, but love takes so, so much heart.
Here for an early comment!
“When I look I am seen, so I exist.”
I love the ideology of love in this article, not describing love as comfort, or as emotional attunement in the usual sense, but as a transformation of both sides.
Even deep love doesn’t guarantee convergence, it can just as easily reveal divergence more clearly over time, and I love how the author treats it as 'value-expansion'. The risk of growing apart is always real, but so is the possibility that another person’s becoming enlarges your capacity to perceive reality itself. Love allows you to see what you could not have generated alone.
Such a beautiful piece!!
What I found most precise here is that love is not treated as the possession of a shared world, but as an apprenticeship in another person’s attention. There is something deeply demanding in that. To love someone who changes is not only to tolerate the change, or even to support it from the outside. It is to risk being changed by the new world that their attention has opened. In that sense, love is not merely fidelity to a person as they were, but fidelity to the reality that becomes visible through them.
My boyfriend and I just had our 8 year anniversary, and your essay got me thinking about how he’s been trying to teach me pure math for ages, and I haven’t been making much of an effort to sit down with him and actually try. He’s been asking to teach me since our second year of college, a time when he had plenty of other people in his major to discuss math with. In retrospect, given how much I know he loves math, and how much I know he loves me, I think he wanted much more than just someone to about math talk to.
He’s a teacher now and tells his students that we do math because it’s enjoyable. When anyone asks what’s the point of doing math, he says, “well, why do humans make art or music or write?” As an artist myself, him being able to find the most fulfillment via the process, is incredibly inspiring to my own work. And I think it makes me begin to really appreciate math, an appreciation that isn’t just riding the contagious high of his passion, but one that feels entirely my own. I love him so so much.
I love how you weave both the abstract and artistic with the practical:
> She’d kept talking, as I was thinking about this, so I told her to be silent for a moment so I could process what she’d said; I wanted to give myself the time to notice if there was any subtle part of what she talked about that interested me or confused me.
My experience of reading your essays is as an exploration of a deeper (or higher) self, but firmly set on the real without being floaty.
So beautiful and such wisdom in this essay, thank you. I love the point you make about aspiring. I believe this requires opening up toward something, which in turn means letting go of some conception of yourself, your own interests, softening some part of what you might believe (or think you believe). I notice that this is seemingly easier for some than others, and wonder why that is. Also, this essay has made me profoundly curious about Johanna's garden.
I like the idea of trying to understand and feel someone’s internal experience even if the topic at hand is not naturally interesting to you. I also think this is especially valuable for people like us who are interested in interiority.
I loved reading this essay. I had a stressful moment today, and I read this essay and felt calmer.
I have indeed also found that, if you engage something someone loves with just enough curiosity, no matter how you felt about it before, it’ll be hard not to come away with at least a deep appreciation of it, and like you described, new eyes with which to see the world.
Really beautiful sentiment. Love as a means to expansion.
It made me think a lot about my own experience with cross-cultural love when their is not only an whole new person to learn, but an entirely different culture, language, upbringing (etc...) to dive into. It expands reality and the possibilities towards ways of living ten fold and opens my eyes to differences that I didn't even knew existed.
Love awakens and multiplies what is possible and who you become as a singular individual and as a shared entity. <3
This was lovely. What a rare connection. Is this evolving intellectual intimacy? It’s so beautiful you found each other.
"This was a bit of a narcissistic way of getting curious about her, but you have to start somewhere."
I like your honesty here!
It took me a while to jigsaw the idea of loving being an aspiration into my long-time conception that love should be a source of comfort and belonging. Aspiration stretches out and reaches for the unknown, whereas belonging points fuzzily inward. How can the two be about the same object?
The moment it clicked for me was the realization that the sense of belonging is picketed around me, whereas the other person in the relationship is excluded from this plot of land that I now regard as scared. In a healthy relationship, however, belonging is a two-way street and I should provide means of comfort for my partner as well. And as you so lovingly portrayed, that means often takes the shape of those bridges of empathy you constructed to reach Johanna. It's ironic how love is something we feel so deeply within ourselves, yet its purest form is not about ourselves at all.
A thought-provoking read as usual, thank you Henrik!
As always, very enjoyable read.
I was particularly puzzled by the way you describe ambition. Here's the question I thought of: how do you distinguish between what you want to want and what you think you should want?
In my understanding, wanting to want comes from genuine curiosity and an ongoing feeling of zest, as William James would describe it. An example for me is the book Greek Lessons by Hang Kan. I find it so very mysterious, and I don't really get it. But I don't get frustrated by not getting it, but rather more interested. I always end up doing what you did: I put it down and pick it back up in a year, and then I get it just a little bit more.
What I think I should want comes from the image of myself I want to project outwards. It comes from how I want other's to recognise me, as opposed to how I want to recognise myself. Will someone that reads Russian literature just because they want to be able to say to others "I'm a big fan of Russian literature" ever really get Russian literature? I think not, because they're not even interested in Russian literature in the first place. Their interest lies in rather the discourse around individuals who have read and get russian literature.
In the spur of the moment, I find it really hard to tell between the two. But more often than not, when I feel stuck, I've found that the problem is that I'm trying to project an image of myself based on what I think I should want instead of focusing on what I actually want in that specific moment.
Anyway, cheers!
Someone has said, Love is an action, not just a feeling. The commitment you have towards finding a way towards the act of loving deepens the love, and nourishes you both. A fine thing to read and be reminded of.
until now even didn't realize how much i wait for your every new article 😅
and thanks!
I am reading “All About Love” by Bell Hooks and at the chapter where she speaks on romantic relationships. She speaks on soul connections from John Welwood’s writings emphasizing that a soul connection supports each other being their highest self and I see that tenderness in care in what you shared. Love this so sincerely.
I thought about the same thing when I read the essay!
For hooks, love is "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth" - almost exactly your title, Henrik :)
Love that you picked up on that feeling too!!