you don't love them, but it's fine

ricardo reis wrote:

No one loves anyone else; he loves
What he finds of himself in the other.
Don't fret if others don't love you. They feel
Who you are, and you're a stranger.
Be who you are, even if never loved.
Secure in yourself, you will suffer
Few sorrows.

(10 august 1932)

and he was right.

there are two layers to this poem, but i want to focus on one, expressed in the very first two verses. love makes us do and think the craziest things that sometimes should be criminal. but hey! it's all chemistry, baby! and of course it is, but let's look at the sociological side of it. 

existentialists were low-key right when they told us we are truly, really alone in this world. (i say low-key because i don't agree with their dooming narrative that is supposed to be “liberating”.) only we can know our own thoughts for sure, only we are spending the whole time with ourselves. and even when we search for love, when we look at our beloved ones, we still see our very own selves. people need to deal with something familiar, already known, and easy to understand. 

Unable to sleep, I spent the whole night seeing her figure all by itself
And seeing it always in ways different from when I see her in person.
I fashion thoughts from my memory of how she is when she talks to me,
And in each thought she's a variation on her likeness.
To love is to think.
And from thinking of her so much, I almost forget to feel.
I don't really know what I want, even from her, and she's all I think of.
My distraction is as large as life.
When I feel like being with her,
I almost prefer not being with her,
So as not to have to leave her afterwards.
And I prefer thinking about her, because I'm a little afraid of her as she really is.
I don't really know what I want, and I don't even want to know what I want.
All I want is to think her.
I don't ask anything of anyone, not even of her, except to let me think.

(10 july 1930)

and then here comes alberto caeiro, ready to present us the second side of this matter. we have this silly little narrative of ours going on in our mind all the time. we have to explain ourselves the surrounding world, occurring events, and experiences. this is no different when it comes to relations with people. 

actually, the mystification may happen on both sides, what crosses out the possibility to see somebody's true self. first mystification, and this is the optional one, happens when one person presents themself to the world. why? because some unconsciously select what they say, or how they behave when with the others. (it all comes down to carl gustav jung and his theories; i will undoubtedly raise the topic of one's true self in some different post). the second one happens when the second person “receive” what is presented to them. our cognition is biased, we never register anything objectively. we see what we want to see, listen to what we want to hear, create a certain narrative about things.

and gods save us when it combines with our brain chemistry. gods save us when we fall in love. do we really see this other person, or is it like in caeiro's poem? we spend hours thinking about this person, imagining things based on our opinions, limited knowledge, experiences, desires. do we love this other person, or do we love how they make us feel? love what promise they bring with themself? 

it is very puckish what caeiro did in his poem. he knew what he was doing when he wrote that rather than actually experiencing this other person, he thinks about her. throughout his entire poetry caeiro stresses the importance of experiencing, of resigning from this futile attempts to name things, think about them. for him it is completely useless. so what does it say about loving someone, when at the end of the day we prefer the imagined version of them to the real one?

mitski in Why Didn't You Stop Me? sings:

I look for a picture of you
To keep in my pocket
But I can't seem to find one
Where you look how I remember?

and it is tragic. it is always tragic to learn the truth after time unconsciously spent on living self-made lies, and dreams. we all are prometheuses: we love to take mud, warm it, and mould it to create something in our own image. and then, when the time of the reality check comes, just like prometheus, we suffer the greatest miseries because of our creations. 

does it have to be like that?

culture knows the counter examples to that mystification theory of mine, when people in love reveal themselves. we can observe it in hannibal (2013; s2e13), when the chesapeake ripper says I let you know me. See me. I gave you a rare gift. But you didn't want it. we can find it in our flag means death (2022, s1e08), when the kraken says This is who I am, Stede. Can you see me now? [selection of the names intended]. in both cases, it happens during the culminating points of these stories (in terms of development of the relationships between the characters), and is a symbol of ultimate love, and trust. and in both cases, the initial reaction is withdrawal, hurt, and other gut-wrenching horrors beyond human comprehension that only people in love experience. can we blame the receiving sides of such experiences? it is as terrifying to be seen as to actually see. truth and love are equal in that they both can crush you straight to the ground, or even six feet under it.

to be seen, or not to be seen; to seek, or not to seek

every other human being is both an autonomous being, and a reflection of your own self. do what you want with that information, with all the examples provided here. but i beg you, don't agonise about being by yourself. learn to live with it. only then you might be able to handle others' truth.