Material Love

What is Love Without the Ego?

Yesterday I found out about a subreddit for "objectums". People who identify with feeling romantic attraction towards objects. Meaning, actually falling into long term and committed relationships with things like stuffed animals or cars etc. Simultaneously, the past week, I've recently begun a new relationship (with a human lol) which does not have the intellectual aspect that I typically find to be a non-negotiable for me. So, I've lately been thinking a lot about what love means when it is not intellectually driven, and how we can understand ourselves better by looking at love that is based upon certain principles that most people may not consider.

There is a fine line between wanting a materially based love because you actually have a very high ego, wanting to possess objects and make yourself bigger than you are, vs. accepting a 'material' love because there is something unexplainable which draws you towards it, DESPITE the materiality, as opposed to BECAUSE of it.

This can be said for objectums, falling in love with objects even though intellectually they know it might be better (egoically/societally) to fall in love with other humans. Or for me, to fall in love with someone who does not share my inherent drive for intellectual wit and complex theorizing etc, even though, egoically, I would prefer to be with someone who can keep up with me on that intellectual level.

The last two relationships I've had, directly from the start, strayed far away from anything based upon mind matters. Naturally, I want to debate, I want to dissect, I want to unravel another person and have them unravel me. But maybe I should look more into WHY that is so important to me? Why do I place so much weight on the mind?

It's just like for someone who does the opposite, placing so much weight on the looks, and money and THINGS, rather than what is the truth behind the feelings. I think we can get really lost in these ideals of what we want out of another person and we forget the essence of a relationship.

In my last relationship, he didn't speak any English, only Portuguese. And I didn't speak any Portuguese. We didn't talk much. 

I remember watching a video one time, years ago, where an American girl went to Japan and fell in love with a Japanese boy and they didn't speak each other's languages. I thought, how shallow? How would they be able to know real love without words? Without diving into eachothers minds in a long drawn out talk on the pillow? 

But maybe I was the shallow one. Maybe I was the one who didn't understand how love can exist on a plane that doesn't hold words or thoughts. But rather something sweeter than that. 

So with the Brazilian, Portuguese speaking man, there was some unexplainable connection there, hidden without all the stuff I would usually place all the important weight on. Something that didn't make sense, that I still don't fully understand. It wasn't even about attraction, because honestly, initially, I wasn't even physically attracted to him.

And for the man I am seeing now, we don't know or understand the same things. I can't talk with him for hours. To be honest, I find it difficult to talk to him about much at all. But he holds the car door open for me, and cares for me so deeply on a level that transcends the amount of time we have known each other, and he says I am helping him to understand the world, and I love the way he touches me, and it doesn't feel like a selfish love. I don't feel like I am looking for what I can get from him, because it's not based on a give and take factor in the typical sense that I am used to. There's no give and take in that intellectual way fo me, it is a very moment to moment feeling. It is a very present connection. 

I don't need to think about what to say to him, I don't need to flex my inner world and its vibrancy, he doesn't really understand that part of me, he just wants to hold my hand and admire me from where he is. 

And so I'm trying to learn something from myself now, what really matters? That someone can keep up with me while I sprint forward at my own, quick speed? Or that someone is just there, standing with me, in the moments which I choose to be still?

Maybe when I'm running, it's okay to be alone, it's okay not to have someone match my speed, it's okay to just enjoy the movement on my own time. And whenever I've stopped to catch my breath, to have someone who wants to breathe with me slowly.

This is the first time I'm looking at love in this way. Trying to care less about what I can GET from the person. 

Most people think that when you're obsessed with GETTING things from a relationship, that it's focused on the material things. Like if they can give me money, nice objects to brag about, a beautiful body to be standing next to. But you can also be obsessed with GETTING ideas, getting more information all the time, getting more intellectual fire from them to fuel your ego which tells you how smart and witty you are, getting more deep transcendent knowledge to add to your self proclaimed high-esoteric thought collection, it's all just more mind games. All things that you can already give to yourself anyways through your own introspection. 

I think maybe, I want to focus on what I can GIVE. Or what I can just exist with, without longing for more, and more, and more.. 

I try to take everything in my life and put it in the context of "What can I learn about myself from this?" and in relationships which aren't based on an obvious intellectual growth, I realize there is still so much that I learn. I learn patience, I learn kindness, selflessness, acceptance, presence, how to be more in the body and soul and less in the mind, how not to perform, how to see the truth in simplicity as opposed to everything needing to be so layered and complex all the time just to keep me entertained, just to keep my mind from getting bored. 

I don't want to NEED that hyper-complex, labyrinth-like love to keep me from leaving and longing for more. I want to know how to sit in a continuously simple experience of another person and be just as satisfied. 

Does the seeking seeking seeking, knowledge knowledge knowledge, really lead anywhere? If anything, doesn't it just lead back home at the end of the day? To where you had already started in the first place? Can just *being* with our beloved be enough for us? 

Like the objectums, purely satisfied with the touch, and feel and presence of the object of their desires, maybe there is a more profound way to love that isn't from the desire of mind expansion or egoic need to deepen your ideas of life constantly and extract every drop of meaning from every possible sentence and conversation. 

What is hidden behind the words? What is left when you purely rely on some kind of unspoken truth?

The truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing. 

And Rumi said, "I don't Love you with my heart and mind. I Love you with my soul, in case my mind forgets, and my heart stops."

Love which is beyond what the mind finds pleasing, is something worth considering.

(I have also written another essay with similar, first stepping stones, of the ideas I'm expanding upon here today, last year, when I was dating the Portuguese man. I'll link it here if you'd like to go deeper into this topic of love without words: The Language of the Soul of the World. I Think This is a Love Letter. )

If you enjoyed this essay, you can Like, Subscribe, Comment or Share to suddenly attain the power of flight. Enjoy!