Greek mythology offers a parallel to the biblical fall of mankind in the form of Pandora, the first created woman (analogous to Eve). She was a punishment to be inflicted on mankind and was given many gifts: Hephaestus molded her out of clay and gave her form; Athena clothed her and the Charites adorned her with necklaces made by Hephaestus; Aphrodite gave her beauty; Apollo gave her musical talent and a gift for healing; Demeter taught her to tend to a garden; Poseidon gave her a pearl necklace and the ability to never drown; Hera gave her curiosity; Hermes gave her cunning, boldness, and charm.

But the most important and powerful gift she was given was a storage jar (not a box, which is a mistranslation), which was a wedding dowry from Zeus, the king of all gods, and was never to be opened. Until then, mankind lived life in a paradise without worry. Eventually Pandora’s curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, releasing all the misfortunes of mankind - greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining— leaving only hope (or the ability to foretell the future) inside once she had closed it again. Thus, mankind always has hope in times of evil and misfortune. Hope is considered the worst of the potential evils, because it is equated with terrifying foreknowledge. By preventing hope from escaping the jar, Pandora in a sense saved the world from the worst damage.

Love may be the greatest and purest of all truths and feelings, but it is also extremely dangerous. Its gentle touch is just enough that you can hear it as a whisper in the breeze but enough to break the back of the most horrific and destructive of emotional chains. All human beings have an intrinsic and violent craving for it, and its memory can haunt us forever. It confuses and astounds us in equal measure. A little can be a tidal wave to some and a lot can be an eggcup’s worth to another. The mystery of love is found in its definition, which is considerably more difficult to pin down than anyone imagines. Just recognising it can be more of a challenge than appreciating it, and receiving it can often be harder work than dispensing it. Our life’s quest is to find out whether we are worthy of it and deserve it.

My thoughts tonight are with 4 girls i know who are all utterly exhausted, and although i won’t mention their names, all believe love has something to do with their condition. What’s most bizarre is that love is universally perceived to be a good thing and a healing power that can cure the evils gone past. There is no more effective emotional crowbar available through prescription or experience that performs the same brutal surgery as love does. To love, and be loved, means opening up to let the good things in and the good things out. And like Pandora, once the box is open there’s no way to restrict or control the flow of whatever is inside when it inevitably spills out. Love opens the door like a monkey wrench and cannot be resisted. The only reason those i know suffer is because they are in the safe space of a relationship where they are happy and loved. If they were going about their normal single day to day lives, they wouldn’t be the same way. It would only be a matter of time though.

Love can kill. It can literally send people mad.

Its easy to build ourselves a cage to walk around in just to protect us from what life throws at us. A comfortable cocoon with a hard outer shell is almost an essential accessory for a postmodern world. Shutting down, being cynical and clouding ourselves in numbness are too natural and understandable but they leave little room for developing the soul. That in itself is a safe place. A relationship is a natural mechanism and environment for healing of all that’s come before. When we are loved, its potentially safe to deal with everything we’ve been hiding inside, even if we know we’ve been doing it or not. We automatically start pouring out the damage in the every day things so we can resolve it and heal whether we like it or not. We have to heal, and nature will force us to at the first available opportunity. Resisting the process is futile. We bring our baggage from the last relationship into the next. and unless we learn to accept it and deal with it appropriately, it can cause massive problems with the new relationship.

Love’s a terrifying prospect as it brings with it the possibility of being hurt. The deeper we fall in, the more we will suffer when it inevitably ends. We know in the back of our mind it will end, as all things do. It almost seems like a raw deal and some even go out of their way to be emotionally disconnected and not allow themselves to be at risk of that inevitable grief. Elderly people have been known to die of a broken heart, and murders are committed every day out of passion and obsession. Love brings such strong and intense feelings out in us that it is more lethal than we realise. The excitement of it means we can’t eat or sleep, the separation from it traumatises us to the point where we can’t move or get out of bed, and the worry and jealousy exhausts us to the point where we don’t have the energy to think of anything else. Nature and time heal, but the scars can last forever. Those cages and cocoons we build around us are made from scar tissue.

Children who grow up without it suffer for the rest of their lives. Just the mere thought or mention of being in a situation where love is can bring on panic from the helplessness it causes. For the manipulative, it is a means of control, for the daydreamer its a distraction, for the needy its a feeding frenzy and for the rest of us its a strange, but calm and warm sensation that makes the rest of what we do worthwhile. It connects the dots and glues all the other pieces of our jigsaw together to give it purpose and beauty. We chase it but it follows us wherever we go. We cannot escape it, cannot deal with it and aren’t able to rid ourselves of it when we need or want to. It knows no reason or rationale, can’t be understood, respects no gender, class, age, race, religion, creed or physical condition. It defies our most stubborn will in the face of all the cruelty and hurt we have faced.

Many things come under the name of love, but are in fact nefarious machinations that serve as cheap imposters to fulfil our needs in the short-term. The way to test for “true” love that is pure and real is whether it reflects and contributes to a person’s spiritual growth. In other words, if the end of it all means you have, or are growing spiritually and becoming a better person, then the intentions your or the other person have are true.

Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, It is not proud, It is not rude, It is not self-seeking, It is not easily angered, It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Love never fails.
Corinthians 13 : 4 - 8

Reading that makes me feel deeply embarrassed. I’m not patient. I’m not kind. I envy. I boast. I am proud. I’m rude. I am self-seeking. I’m easily angered. I keep a record of wrongs. I often delight in evil. I don’t always protect or trust. I don’t bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and endure all things. I know i am about the least understanding person i know - i say i understand but then demand my own way afterwards, like a very superficial act of cursory lip service. Love is simple. Lust, infatuation and neediness come as thieves in the night dressed in the clothes of love but don’t know its subtleties or have its truth. We fall for them because we are all desperately weak when it comes to wanting to be loved. Love is the great equaliser.

One of the most beautiful girls i know, who could have literally any man on their knees from her sheer sexuality, is a man-eater because she is still in love an ex 3 years on from when they split up and totally emotional unavailable. Those with the prettiest outsides often have hearts that suffer the most because love is deeper than the skin. The wounds inflicted on us can only be healed by those who dealt them out. For others it brings unexplainable anxiety and subconscious terror that wreaks absolute havoc when it should allow us to revel in euphoria. A lifetime’s searching should be enough to make us more eager to enjoy it than anything once we find what we are looking for, but we greet it with suspicion and hesitation from the time it left us before.

Is it worth it? Of course it is. Jo’s favourite quote sums it up so beautifully:

Love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. If you don’t start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who’ll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I’m not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you’ll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love - well, you haven’t lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.

William Parrish (Anthony Hopkins), “Meet Joe Black”

There is no other reason to live. There is no higher or purer cause.