Priorities, Love (I)
Your lovers will infuse your life with Éros, with Kāma, passionate love. Éros is an ocean; there is no taming it. When you first set out into its depths it will overtake you, toss you on its waves like a toy. As you grow older you will come to know its currents, how to read its skies, how to sail its storms. Through Kāma you will learn of ecstasy and despair, beauty and sadness. It is a descending love. It will drench your memory with peaks and crashes of emotion. But the ocean will never be still. Éros is not steadfast, for it knows neither bond nor loyalty. Your lover will leave you, always, as you will leave your lover, always.
Your brothers and sisters, your friends, your comrades’ love is Mettā, Philia, the love of family. By blood or bond, their love will remain where Éros flees. It will ground your life in the lives of others; through it you will learn of trust, of loyalty and honor. Philia is a chain, and it will hold you up where you would fall as it will hold you still where you would run. It seeks neither to descend nor ascend, but to remain. In time, Éros succumbs to Philia; lovers become friends, friends become family. It is strong, but still conditional: your friends, your family will follow you as you follow them, always but only if.
Love of self must be Areté, not the thin vanity of Narzissismus but a love that seeks always to move forward. Through life we must seek to better ourselves; to nourish and strengthen our bodies through action, to nourish and strengthen our mind through experience. Through Areté we learn of truth, of power, of virtue and of life. Your self will never leave you. It is unconditional so long as you remain. When you reach the end of your days, your self, your love will be your sole possession; Philia beneath you, Éros a distant memory.
Your mission is all of these things; it encompasses them and transcends. It is not love of passion, or friendship, or power, or wisdom. It is Agape, Bhakti, Prema, Ishq; a love born not of self but of selflessness. It is the love of God. It is the love of life. It seeks not to move forward, but rather to move upward. Through it you will learn of death, and of purpose. When your self is gone your mission will remain, for it exists beyond the self, beyond the scope of a single person. It will remain for other selves to further, and when they pass it will remain still. For there is only one mission in life, and we all, ultimately, fulfill it.
In life we sacrifice that which is lesser for that which is greater; that which is fleeting for that which remains. Therefore put your friends before your lovers, your self before your friends, and your mission before your self.
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See also:
Bat for Lashes – Daniel || 2009/Two Suns
