195. The Aesthetics Of Love

To love someone is much more than merely to have an interest in them. I might be interested in you only because you have something I need, and I might seek you out just because you can fulfill some practical function for me. But love is not practical. I do not love you because of something you do for me or because of something I can get from you.

My love is based on something beyond what you do or what you have. Its foundation is the beauty of your being — a unique beauty that only you have. This beauty is not limited to your physical form. It includes everything beautiful in the totality of your being, everything from the way you smell in the morning, to the kinds of jokes you tell, to the way you say the word “butterfly”. It includes all of these things and it is also always more than I or anyone else can describe. I see your beauty and I cannot ignore it. I can only answer it with love.

I can try to justify my love by giving reasons why I love you, but they always fall short. They fall short because love is always more than what language can capture. I can try to grasp at words that explain it but I will always just be rationalizing my love and never quite reaching the thing itself.

I can never explain my love because I cannot fully understand it. The beauty I see in you is all I can point to, even though my attempts to explain that beauty will also fall short. For that beauty too is more than any words that exist. It is more than all of language itself.

This overflowing beauty that is yours means you are always more than I can pin down. You are a being that transcends. It is your existence as this beautiful, transcendent other that pulls me towards you, that causes me to watch you, and learn about you, and love you. Others might not see your beauty, but I will show them. I will show your beauty to all of the world by loving you now, and tomorrow, and forever.