love doesn't exist.

or maybe it does. who even knows at this point.

So, I had this random thought-fantasy the other day. Here’s what happened:

It was probably 30 years into the future. In this reality, I’m a philosopher (nice). And, one of my primary areas of expertise (surprisingly) is the philosophy of love. I write about topics in this world fairly frequently and people (for whatever reason) vibe heavily with my work.

I find myself at a conference or something, and a young man—someone familiar with my work —perhaps jokingly asks me the question: what is love?

Let’s pause this story while I think about my thoughts for a second.

I found this encounter pretty interesting for a few reasons. I was especially interested in what kind of answer a 53-year-old version of me would give to such a question. I wondered if it’d be different from what I might say if someone asked me right now.

I also felt it was worth considering that, in this fantasy, I’m a philosopher of love on the journey to being immortalised in the same paragraphs as Kierkegaard, St. Augustine, Diotima and bell hooks. How would such a philosopher answer this question? Surely, if old-hypothetical-me gave a simple, conclusive answer, it would question his legitimacy as a philosopher, no? How could a philosopher speak definitively on something like love? How could a philosopher define it confidently and satisfactorily?

No thought-fantasies exist in a vacuum. I likely dreamt up this scenario because lately, more so than usual, I’ve been reading several texts on the philosophy of love. If you know me, you know that my favourite Platonic dialogue is The Symposium, which, through and through, is about love. And, if you’d like to hear me talk about love in these contexts for over an hour, here’s a podcast I was on with two awesome people.

Anyways, in some of the texts I’ve been reading, I noticed something interesting:

It seems easier to talk about the appearances of love than love itself.

Now, dear reader, I could go down a rabbit hole and bring Kant into the equation by talking about the thing in itself vs. the thing as it appears to an observer. But you know what, we can just leave that to the side. In either case, I noticed this idea, and it likely influenced the answer my old hypothetical self gave:

‘What is love, you ask? Hmm, well. Love is nothing. It doesn't exist.’

The young man looked a bit perplexed.

I said to him, ‘Well, you tell me. What is your name?’

‘Josh Brolin’, he responded.

‘Well, Josh Brolin’, I said, ‘Tell me about you. But don’t tell me anything at all about your hobbies, interests, passions, dislikes, character traits, personality traits, strongly held beliefs, weakly held beliefs, friendships, family dynamics, occupation or life goals.’

Josh Brolin was both silent and silenced.

I said, ‘Surely you can tell me things about you, stripped away from all your traits, no?’

‘No, I don’t think I can’, he said.

I smiled. Partly because I just had a certified Socrates moment.

‘Well, that’s what love is, my friend. It does not exist. All we do— all we try to do— is explain its effects, its manifestations. We (typically) know what it feels like when it shows up at our door. But when it is elsewhere, when we cannot see its manifestations, it is nowhere. It does not exist.’

Josh Brolin was too stunned to speak. But he had one more question.

‘Sir’, he said, ‘but— I exist. I cannot describe myself in the way you have requested, but I exist, no?’

I smiled. And opened my mouth to speak.

Unfortunately, that’s where the thought-fantasy ended. I did not respond. Seeing as this was all just my thoughts manifesting as a story—because I‘m quirky like that sometimes— It probably just means I don’t have an answer to the question.

Who are we without all our traits? What is love without all of its traits? Perhaps there is no us that exists; there are only traits and moments. There’s a conversation we could have here with Buddhism as our philosophical guide, but, like Kant earlier, I will put this in a corner, perhaps to return to someday.

The point for today is simply: Maybe love doesn’t exist, and neither do we.

One could say: well, there’s nothing wrong with existing as a combination of traits. That is still “existing”. On most days, I might agree with that. But today is not one of those days.

How would you have answered Josh Brolin?¹ Let me know.

vibes est vida.

1. Okay, so, in this fantasy, the person didn’t have a name. However, for narrative purposes, Josh Brolin seemed a reasonable choice.