Is it Better to Have Loved and Lost?

I envy not in any moods

         The captive void of noble rage,

         The linnet born within the cage,

That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes

         His license in the field of time,

         Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,

To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,

         The heart that never plighted troth

         But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;

Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

         I feel it, when I sorrow most;

         'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I found this group on Meetup.com called Open Minds, where a few “reasonably reasonable people” get together to talk about things. I’ve attended two, and the over 70’s crowd that was there both times welcomed me.

This week the topic of discussion was whether it was better to have loved and lost or to never have loved at all, inspired by the Tennyson poem above.

Third option: I don’t think we are ever without love. Rather it’s a choice we make to experience it or not. I know it to be a fundamental thing that exists whether or not we welcome it or are aware of it, an element of our being and of the world that we nonetheless have free will around whether we ever want to look at it or admit it. What we all have are the walls we’ve built around it, which we also built in love but based on more limited perceptions at the time to protect us.

Every thing we touch in love is something that expands us. It is a felt thing, where we gain more access to our bodies and our souls.

“What I hear you saying is we are never without love.” - Basil, the octogenarian who has led the opening statement both times I’ve gone, and seemed to be interested in the idea despite his being married and divorced twice and to his word being closed off to the idea for a ten-year stretch in between.

Why yes, that is what I’m concluding, Basil.

Losing a partner or something we love is painful, but we don’t lose the love.

If my experience with someone is that through them I open myself to love more than I ever had before, I do not lose the fullness of that experience via their departure, if it happens. My expansion does not disappear. I do not lose love by their leaving, but instead feel gratitude (and yes, maybe pain) for their role in helping me to open more to love through knowing them. They opened the door for me to let more of myself feel love. If it was love, I should feel bigger. The memories of moments that felt expansive are real and unchanging even if later memories were painful. If I decide to stop feeling love, it’s a choice I then make to block off a part of me that I just got in touch with.

I don’t lose love through separating. They do not take my access to love with them.

Basil also asked whether you could feel love for a dog, or for nature.

I used that prompt to express that love is a feeling of connection to more within ourselves and that we don’t ahve the same hangups and fears when we open up to a dog or to the trees (more people should open up to the trees, they love it when we talk to them and share our troubles and they are uniquely capable at grounding the energy). We’re not guarded and afraid of how nature is going to respond when we connect to it.

Chris, the organizer, and the most open-minded of the group, asked what the difference between love and “really liking” was.

It’s the degree of willingness you have to be vulnerable and connect. Love is when we allow connection to more of ourselves and feel expanded in the process. Liking is when you hold back your cards.

I thought Frank’s response that the difference is the intensity of the feeling was dangerous and should be tempered by questions of codependency or merely familiarity to past situations. Recycling experiences through a new person feels intense but it doesn’t necessarily expand the love inside of you.

Love is a deeper and more expanded connection to ourselves.

Indeed, Tennyson’s poem speaks to expanded experience being the valuable thing, and that he would never trade places with someone less knowledgable once it is known - someone whose conscience never wakes, or a caged animal that does not know what freedom feels like, or someone who has never loved.

We don’t love, we access love.

We access it when we don’t close ourselves off and contract but choose to open and stay open.

In many cases our loved ones may not like our answers or behaviors but that our devotion to staying expanded might be the most loving thing we can do, in service to something that exists outside of the relationship but may be experienced through it.