There are lots of chemical explanations about hormones and pheromones and endorphins and other manner of “scientific” reasons that purport to explain why love is crazy, but I like this fable-ic explanation better. After all, if love is going to involve a bit of madness, I don’t want a purportedly rational explanation.
Everything is a mystery with Love — his arrows, his quiver, his torch, his childlike appearance. It’s not the work of one day to understand the breadth of his science. I’m not even going to try to explain everything here. My goal is just to tell you, in my way, how shall I put it? — how this blind man here (he’s a god) lost the light and what happened after this unhappy event, which might actually have been a good thing. I take no position on the merits of the outcome. I’ll let each lover be the judge.
One day, Love and Folly were playing together. Love still had his eyes. A dispute arose. Love wanted to gather a council of gods to determine the resolution. Folly didn’t have the patience. She landed a blow so furious that Love lost sight of the skies.
Venus demanded vengeance. Woman and mother, you can imagine the screams. The gods were reeling, Jupiter, Nemesis, the judges of hell, really the whole gang. Venus presented the gravity of the case. Her son couldn’t take one step without the aid of a stick. No punishment would be enough for the crime. Not to mention the damages owed.
The gods had considered the case from every angle — public interest, the parties involved.
Their final judgment was this: They condemned Folly to be Love’s guide ever after.
Now you know why there’s always a side of folly with any serving of love. And isn’t that what makes it so delicious? And so mystifying when we’re not the ones eating the meal, which to our outside eyes just looks like mush. Because it’s often that way isn’t it? — viewed from the supposed heights of reason, someone else’s great love looks rather ordinary. Oh, but the minute it’s us in the throes, then all bets are off, everything we might have thought when we were being “sensible” is thrown out the window. And we think, no one has ever experienced love the way I am right now.
How wonderful. Unlike LaFontaine, I will take a position on the outcome — I love that love is crazy.
What are these Fableogs?
Originally published at www.huffingtonpost.com on October 31, 2017.
By Mina Samuels on October 31, 2017.
Exported from Medium on March 17, 2018.