I Love You!

I love you, as my fellow human! Weird to read someone earnestly declare it outside of fictional stories, huh?

I may not have met or know of you individually, but I recognize and value you as a human. Using the consciousness bestowed upon us as the conduit by which we acknowledge one another, and move through life. One of about 8.7 million species on earth.1 This love is not too strong of an emotion to offer. It’s given with the same sincerity I share with everyone in my immediate family.

When I think of the possibility of living without you, my fellow humans, I can’t seem to garner a concrete idea of who or what I’d be like. For sure I wouldn’t be the person I am now.

My declaration of love was recently whipped up and formalized when I came across this photograph looking through my catalog. On first look, nothing in particular stands out. It wasn’t meant to be a hit-you-over-the-head photograph. Its quintessence is subtle. A softer, humanistic vibe.

Did you look closely at those faces?

I can’t discern if one of these people knows another. I can’t identify familial connections. The only thing for sure, is the human connection. Most every face shows an anticipatory look. Their reactions are virtually the same. That, to me is truly amazing. Our genetic coding on full display.

It’s not just a crowd of people on a hill. It’s a congregation of humans united in being spectators. It’s easy to gloss over that idea of sharing, but sharing is what they’re all doing together, as one. The expressions on their faces is quite uniform throughout. So simple a concept that we tend to not see the obvious because our thoughts are looking for something more exceptional. Does our human lives require constant negative angst in our day to day existence that we just can’t enjoy the simplicity of being?

I think one has to love humanity in order to see what’s best about it. To get beyond the angst.

What is the effort in knowing and showing love? I’m sure there are research papers out there in the world formulating what it’s all composed of.

Despite the lingering mysteries around attraction, love, and their demise, there seems to be little or no disagreement about how critically important relationships are to our very existence, says Robert Waldinger, HMS professor of psychiatry, part-time, and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, which has been running for more than 80 years.

Waldinger said his research and other studies in the field have found convincing evidence that relationships and how happy we are in them profoundly influence our health. Research has indicated the level of satisfaction with relationships in midlife is a good predictor of healthy aging.

“Science shows us that being securely attached to at least one other person is a bedrock of well-being,” said Waldinger.

Research by Waldinger and others has also focused on the danger posed by social isolation and the loneliness that can arise with an absence of human-to-human connectedness and interactions, whether friendships or romantic relationships, particularly among young individuals and older people.

Dennis Nealon, The Science of Love2

Love can be a sacred emotion that is only offered to a select few with a strictly defined emotional bond. Which can appear to make it a more valuable human emotion that only “special” people in our lives receive.

I’ve come to know that growing older, relieved me of the very tight hold I had on emotional love of people outside of my immediate family. I couldn’t even admit that my best friends were people I actually loved.

It’s also a kind of quagmire to figure out the best time to state love to a romantic partner. Love at first sight? You’ll know it when you feel it, declaring it right then and there? Or, do you dwell on it for that moment when you’re “sure?”

Was your family a very tight-knit one that expressed their love in word and deed multiple times on a daily basis? Or, was it spoken sparingly, therefore difficult to offer due to an internal fear? No judgement here. Just putting it out there for us to ponder.

By no means do I admit to being a psychologist, psychiatrist, social scientist, or medical practitioner of any kind. But, as a member of the human race that is irrevocably tied to the emotion of love, I do have the required aptitude of emotional expressiveness to offer valid thoughts on the idea.

Later this year, we’ll be observing the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 Attacks. Though it happened on United States soil, it brought about an emotional jolt that was felt worldwide. Human empathy was on full display everywhere, foremost in the thought and actions of those who wished no ill will to the American people as a whole.

September 11th fell on a Tuesday in 2001. The following Sunday at the Central Park Skate Circle, a solemn memorial was held in honor of those who died. Hundreds of us humans gathered to empathize and show, dare I say it, love for our fellow humans.

The aim for the majority of those in mourning was the emotionally draining thoughts of those that died. Not those that perpetrated the attacks. Though I speculate that some wondered about how they could take revenge on the perpetrators. The reality of such a pursuit would’ve been pointless. What else is in one’s heart if not seeking revenge? Dedicating one’s love and support to another who’s hurting, could without a doubt heal both souls.

noun

ˈɛmpəθi: the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions

: the ability to share someone else’s feelings

—Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary

One month after September 11th, on November 11th, one of many vigils held around the city. The story is self explanatory. The emotion is empathy.3 Love involves being able to feel what other humans could possibly feel. Those who died, can’t see this story, but the living can be comforted in this offering of compassion in the human experience.

noun

ˈtrʌst: belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc.

—Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary

I happened to come upon Muhammad as I was walking from the subway towards my destination in Downtown Brooklyn. Something about him sparked my imagination, so I asked if I could take a few portraits of him as he was standing there. I don’t recall any hesitation in his response, “sure.” Something about our interaction sparked a level of trust between us.

Trust that was acknowledged in a few seconds. Assured that I wouldn’t use his likeness in any unrighteous or derogatory way. Initiated by my own curiosity in permanently affixing that moment and his likeness into a photograph. Love involves trusting one another.

I believe that most of us humans are righteously inclined with altruistic intentions. Muhammad hopefully saw that within me.

I don’t remember the first time I met Bruce. Maybe it’s because that first time felt as if I already knew him. Outgoing personality. Forthright and emotionally generous. A combat veteran that smiled more than frowned. He lived in the building next to where I lived. Most of the time, our conversations were discussed on the building’s steps, right where he is in the photograph.

A unique thing about those conversations? As we’re there talking, he’d almost always, without question, offer “hellos” to people passing by with their name or a quick quip to engage with them.

Bruce passed away in June 2015.

This is the first time ever publishing his photograph, knowing he’d get a laugh out of it being used to write about a brotherly love. I miss him, and his lighthearted personality.

Admittedly, I didn’t get any details about this woman and girl’s cultural background. It was a quick “can I get a photo of you both” moment. So, I’m not sure of their country of origin. I didn’t want to assume it from their wardrobe.

When I meditate on the brief moments the three of us shared, I realize how much those decades of practicing photography had impacted the expanding of my heart and soul from a barricaded dividing line of love.

Love conveys vulnerability. Of which many are told to quash it so no one else can see our compassionate side. Fearing it will open us up to being taken advantage of. It can surely happen! Though it shouldn’t be taken as a disadvantage for us to show love for others regardless of such ramifications.

Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff wrote a song in 1973 that had been released by three different groups over two decades. The O’Jays (1973), Third World (1978), and Heavy D and the Boyz (1991). That’s eighteen years of it playing over the airwaves since its original release. Then you have to add those thirty-five years since ‘91!

Here are the lyrics from the first verse and chorus (original The O’Jays version).

Now that we found love what are we gonna do
With it? (Sweet love, we found it)
Now that we found love what are we gonna do
With it?

Let's give it a chance
Let it control our destiny
We owe it to ourselves
To live happy eternally

Oh, love is what we've been looking for
And love is what we've been searching for
Now that I've got it right here in my hand
Seems like I'm gonna spread it all over the land

Now that we found love what are we gonna do (Oh, we've got love, sweet love)
With it? (Right in the nick of time, we found love)
Now that we found love what are we gonna do (Sweet loving)
With it? (Yeah, yeah)

Now That We Found Love (tap title to hear song).

What makes this a unique song about love is it proposes activism, not inaction, by asking the question if you’re going to do something about it.

So, I’ll step out of my comfort zone and express my love for you. Directly from the heart, with tears of vulnerability sliding down my cheek.

Does this mean that I love every aspect of human personality? No. There are people that fall outside my personal zone of humanistic love. I can’t offer any love to frauds, racists, misogynists, persistent liars, thieves and others in that realm of personality types.

The unique thing about love, we all fully possess and express it! Being innate within us. Romantic love. Familial love. Friendship love. And, I believe, humanistic love.

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Spread love. Let it roll effortlessly out of your mouth, or into the written world. The reciprocal love you get in return will undoubtedly be worth it.

Wishing you love until next time…