I've been on a love ballad fix for a very long while now (Sometimes When We Touch, Ocean Deep, Spanish Eyes, and Paint My Love are the particulars that get to me often). They're my guilty pleasures because I like them even when they reek of oversentimentality. It just so happens, however, that when I got into this ballad fix, people started declaring their 'love' to me. That, my dear friends and colleagues, makes me feel uncomfortable.

It would help to know exactly what I think of love to understand my confusion. At the expense of losing some possibly-important details and nuances, I'll try to sum it up as succinctly as possible:

Love is the heartfelt appreciation and admiration of a free man's entire being: their values, their work, their personality, their pride, their sense-of-life, etc.

Please note two things here. First, the word free. "Love can only exist in freedom" , says Anthony De Mello, a Jesuit priest whose works have been condemned by the Catholic church as harmful and destructive. A free person is much like the sunset, a snow fall, a bite of good food. The sunset and scenery always changes, each individual snowflake changes, even each re-making of a particular dish changes in each iteration. Likewise, man is ever-changing in subtle ways. The sunset, snow fall, and food can only be enjoyed if one keeps it free; if one strives to imprison it, not only is it impossible, but now you've become blind to the new ways it can bring you joy in the future because you so cling to how it is now. Likewise, to bind men is to forever be blind to who they are and how they're changing. How can you love someone when you don't see them, but you see your idea of them, and you strive to always keep that person fitting that idea? A person who I love will be free to be themselves, to do as they like, to choose as they please, and to love who they wish.

Also note in my summation that there is no condition the man has to obtain to get my love. Nothing. At. All. Love, the admiration and appreciation of another free being, to me, is not something gained because 'one thinks I'm special' or 'one has done so much for me' or 'one is a very good fuck' or 'one is so nice' . Wake up! See that those ideas blind you to the potential that, in some days, a being cannot be nice, or will not think you're special, or cannot do something for you. Is it really fair to restrict someone to always thinking special of you? Is it fair to imprison them to your idea of them, rather than appreciating their ever-changing themness? I think not. So love is not something I give for something I get (it is more complex than that, but to elaborate on this sentence would require a segue toward some teachings of Ayn Rand. In not-quite-adequate three sentences: Man trades with other free men for their goods and services. Out of this trade man recognises another man's values, ethics, sense of life, and virtues. The appreciation of the values one recognises is Love.) .

I am free; I need nobody or nothing to attain my happiness, for my happiness is dependent on nothing outside of me. I am free to look at every snowflake, flower, building, dish of food, stranger, and friend and smile, appreciating them for that moment, instead of imprisoning or manipulating them to keep my idea of them.

In a sense, then, I love everyone and everything. Apathy? It might look like apathy on the outside because I think nothing so special that I must imprison it, because I desire nothing so desirous that I will manipulate it to stay. In apathy and in total, absolute, love, you love everything equally. In apathy, not at all. In total, absolute, love, you love everything with the being of your soul.