An opinion piece by Ling Sing Lin
This title may be somewhat off-putting. If you love someone or even something, losing it can be very painful. If you don’t love anyone or anything, its loss doesn’t give you any grief. But do you want to live a life where you have no love or concern for anyone? Do you want to drift through life like some jetsam or flotsam in the sea, without any attachments, so that you will never suffer any emotional pain?
Loved and Lost
Many of us have loved and lost. Loss is often from death, or from divorce or other physical separation. The more you loved, the greater the pain with the loss.
However, if love is already lost, as in some marriages, the death or divorce can be a big relief. You discover to your surprise that you had been subjected to physical and/or emotional and psychological abuse for years without you being aware of it.
The one who has been unfaithful (often the male) and has moved on with an invariably younger partner, has not lost, but has gained a new partner. No suffering or pain there. It is the one who has been left behind who is often in pain.
When I read of how some people mourn their deceased pets, have funerals and special cremations like aqua cremation, and keep their pet’s ashes in an urn in the house, I believe their love for the pet exceeds that for humans in their lives.
Even inanimate objects, especially if they are costly, can cause grief when lost or stolen. Imagine the pain of losing all your life savings to a scammer.
You have loved and lost, but the pain and grief will pass.
Philophobia
This is a fear of love, due to abandonment or rejection during childhood or adulthood, which affects the ability to have meaningful relationships later. This phobia is a psychological condition which can be treated. People who fear falling in love belong to this category.
The Price of Love
Unfortunately, one must love if one desires to be loved.
When you love, you are prepared to forgo your own wants and needs and desires in favour of your loved one’s wants and needs. Love is never free; you pay a high price for it.
Married couples who are still happily married can identify with this. There is a lot of give and take, very often one does most of the giving and the other does most of the taking. Any couple who keeps a close count on whose turn it is to give will soon realise that their harmony is short lived.
Narcissist
This is a person who has an anti-social personality disorder, who is only capable of loving himself. He/she can fall in love, but this love is superficial and fleeting. In time, when the romance fades, when the fantasy person they created in their mind becomes a real person who is no longer ideal, they show their true nature of a lop sided self love.
Everly Brothers’ Song
The Everly Brothers released the song “The Price of Love” in 1965. They sing that The price of love is the debt you pay with tears and pain. The price of love has not changed with the passage of time. It is a perennial truth.
lingsinglin
Dr Ling Sing Lin is a medical doctor by training. She worked in MOH HQ for many years, in policy making and administrative positions, until her retirement.
