Today I watched a sci-fi show where the plot involved a symbiote being and a human being who fell deeply in love. (Okay, sci-fi nerd alert, but stay with me here.) The symbiote was a separate being, a soul, who lived within a host body. However, the essential person, the real person, was the symbiote being within, not the one you could see externally. The host body of the symbiote became injured beyond saving, and physicians had to find a new host for the symbiote. The perfect match happened to be of another gender. The surgery was successful, and the symbiote being was transferred to a new host body of a different gender. The other person, the human, then faced the very real struggle of trying to figure out whether or not they actually loved the physical, external person or the person within, and questioned whether it was possible for them to separate the two in matters of love.
What a great philosophical question. In a way, I believe we are all internal beings inhabiting a "host body". When we are able to truly love another person, either romantically or in family or friendship, doesn't it eventually become the internal person that we truly love? I think so. Our challenge is in learning to love that internal person. I believe that love is love, regardless of the appearance, age, or gender of a person's "host body". I believe that true love, when it is mature and real, transcends the physical. It is two souls connecting... deep calling to deep within one another. When two people are truly in love, they love the essential person within.
Yes, physical attraction is absolutely essential in romantic relationships. To be blunt, sex is extremely important in romantic love and intimacy! To shut off or withhold sexual affection with your partner is shutting down a primary channel of intimacy. Eventually it will damage the relationship. But I believe that attraction is more a result of the powerful internal love rather than the other way around. Sadly, in our society, we judge our own relationships and the relationships of others, on the physical. We fall in love with someone's external host body, and in time, we learn to love the internal person they truly are. This seems backward, to me. Physical love and soul love are not exclusive, but the internal attraction inspires and fuels the external attraction when it's real. And this, of course, begs the question, how many of us have ever honestly experienced this kind of love? Probably not as many of us as we think. If we have ever loved or have been loved in this way, we are most fortunate.
I've been working on a song that contains the line, "the heart can feel what the eyes never see". Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing. After watching this sci-fi love story, I have new inspiration to finish my song, a ballad about deep love and connection that cannot be severed by challenging circumstances, disapproval of others, disappointment, setback, physical distance, drastic change in physical appearance, or even death itself.
I'm not making a moral, religious, or political statement here. In fact, if you feel it necessary to share your moral, religious, or political views in response to this story, I would respectfully ask you not to reply. This is meant to provoke thought, not to convince others to think like I do. I believe that mature people grow and learn by exploring and expanding our perspectives and understanding, not by insisting that everyone believe and think exactly the way that we do. I hope, at the very least, I've challenged your thinking just a little bit. My thinking certainly has been challenged, and I'm grateful for that.
What have I learned from this? That the words "I love you", whether I'm expressing them or receiving them, mean so much more in my life now than they ever have before.
What is our deepest human need? To love and be loved, to understand and be understood, to know and be known. If our world learns to see more with our hearts than we do with our eyes, we will be a more loving world, indeed.
