Paulo Coelho
It is unnecessary to talk about Love, because love has its own voice and can speak for itself.
(The Pilgrimage)
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Santosh,
I like how you put it ! LOVE JUST IS !
Reading Savita Vega is exact moment when I agree the most with Paulo when he says: “It is unnecesary to talk about love……”
In so many words I find so little substance of love, discesting love like surgeon, what for ?
“….love has its own voice and can speak for itself !”
What if it does not speak ? Then there is no love. obviously !
Love
Luce
u r sssso rite,,,,, its tru and love speaks for itself,,,, but i still find after 37 years together with my husband (36 married) that from time to time its so nice and soft and feels good to hear the I L U sentence!!!!
so i love u all
Orly
One of the reasons it is so hard to talk about love is because it is such hard work! Rewarding – but never easy! So leave it alone and let it find it’s own way.
Paulo we loved your feature in The Sunday Times – it was really inspirational. Made me realise that if I want to be a writer I better get on with it – I suppose I always knew that – but your attitude and approach connected with me far more that continual reading and waiting for inspiration – i can write quickly and in a concentrated form – so now all I need to do is get on with it! And now not as I have always done – writing for others – but for myself!
I think when one is in love it is unnecessary to talk about it, because the experience itself transcends mere mortal voices, and thus can never be fully captured or conveyed in words. However, when one is not in love, or when love is unrequited or otherwise unfulfilled, one feels compelled to talk about it – to try to understand it, to try to capture it, to try to control and direct it. But love is not this – not some farm animal, to be led, or pushed, or herded. Love is more like the soundless tiger, slipping on padded feet through the forest of our experiences, parting effortlessly the foliage of our senses, defying all logical discourse, foiling all attempts to capture it.
Now, having said that, there is a book that I once read (read several times over, in fact), called “Methodology of the Oppressed,” by Chela Sandoval. In that book is a chapter on what she terms “Revolutionary Love,” containing the only truly meaningful discourse on love that I have ever read. (The language she uses is painfully academic, and yet the points she makes are intensely profound.) In that chapter, she defines “Revolutionary Love” in this way:
“To fall in love means that one must submit, however temporarily, to what is ‘intractable,’ to a state of being not subject to control or governance. It is at this point that the drifting being (the lover) is able to pass into another kind of erotics, to the amplitude of…(the) ‘abyss.’ It is only in the ‘no-place’ of the abyss that subjectivity can be freed from ideology as it binds and ties reality; here is where [we enter into] a constant tumult of possibility. But…the ‘true site of originality and strength’ is neither the lover nor the self. Rather, it is the ‘originality of the relation’ between the two actors that inspires these new powers….
“Once one recognizes this abyss beyond dualism,…any ‘injury’ created by a love relationship can only arise from one’s own ‘stereotypes’ that one lives out…. Once subjectified, ‘I become obliged, to make myself a lover, like everyone else; to be jealous, neglected, frustrated—like everyone else.’ But when the relation enters the realm of the abyss — of the ‘original’— then stereotypes are shaken, ‘transcended, evacuated.’ And jealousy, abandonment, frustration, for instance, ‘have no more room in this relation without a site,’ without topos, ‘without discourse.’ This form of love is not the narrative of love as encoded in the West: it is another kind of love, a synchronic process that punctures through traditional, older narratives of love, that ruptures everyday being. In this commitment, ‘excess and madness’ become…’my truth, my strength’…(my) access to somewhere else; for through this love, insofar as it acts as a ‘punctum,’ as a coatlicue state, (I am) transported into an original realm that is beyond jealousy…’beyond language, i.e. beyond the mediocre, beyond the generic.’”
In contrast to this, she goes on to define what she terms as “Narrative Love” – the notion of romantic love that we uphold as an ideal and often cling to in Western society:
“On the other hand, one can allow love to become law, to become narrative. In the narrative form of ‘falling in love,’ a Western ethic predominates…example: you love someone, and either you have hope, and then you act, or else you have none, in which case you renounce. This is the discourse of the so-called ‘healthy subject’ who lives in the dominant: ‘either/or.’ But there is a third option, another approach to loving (Revolutionary Love). This other course of action ensues when the loving subject instead tries to ‘slip between the members’ of the either/or alternative by saying, ‘I have no hope, but all the same…,’ or ‘I stubbornly choose not to choose; I choose drifting: I continue…. This drifting is the movement of meaning that will not be governed; it is the intractable itself…. Drifting occurs ‘whenever I do not respect…’ the social scripts that name, drive, and impel us through ‘love’…[when] ‘I remove myself from narrative’…because ‘narrative is a death’: it transforms ‘life into destiny, a memory into a useful act, a duration into an oriented and meaningful time.’ (Narrative Love is) a system of power (that) dulls human senses with its normalities, its ‘shoulds,’ its scripts.”
In addition to these two definitions – Revolutionary Love vs. Narrative Love – the author also offers her opinion on the role of hope and faith in this process of Revolutionary Love:
“That..puncture, passage, or conduit [into the Abyss] can be provided by the process of ‘falling in love’…love as a ‘breaking,’ breaking through whatever controls in order to find ‘understanding and (communion)’: it is described as ‘hope’ and ‘faith’ in the potential goodness of some promised land; it is defined as (the) coatlicue state, which is a ‘rupturing’ in one’s everyday world that permits crossing over to another.”
Hope and faith in the potential goodness of some promised land, which causes a rupturing of our own world, thus permitting us to cross over to another world altogether.
Now I am at the end of this post, and I am thinking of the “boat” again, reassessing the meaning of my vision during meditation, rethinking what it means to leave behind this shore, this known world, and cross over to another, to awaken to a place called “home.”
Interesting,I have just read an ancient post saying that love wasn’t your priority Mr Coelho.Now all your posts are filled with love.
How beautiful!
Thank you Thelma :)
Candie,
You are always welcome, appreciated ! :)
God bless you all !
Thanks Santosh “fill in the blank yourself” :D which goes along with Irina Black anwers:”visible,audible,sensual,quality,quantity,monogamy,polygamy”
How cool is that?:D
Yeah I abuse words,I apologise if MIT words weren’t for me,it’s just relate me to an unclear story.I abuse words but I know someone who abuse words very well too,I forgot the link of his blog.:D
O amor o sentimento mais possante que existe dentro de nos…Somente o odio pode ter a mesma potência e a linha entre eles é muito curta, é necessario estar muito atento pra não cair do lado de la, pois podemos odiar uma pessoa o tanto quanto nos a amamos. Nesta linha, existe a compaixão, que faz o equilibrio entre estes dois extremos. Quando percebemos que o amor não pode se realisar na pratica é necessario muita paciencia e muito amor pra transformar isso em compaixão e jamais em odio. Certas situações te tentam a ir pro caminho do odio, se a outra pessoa escolheu, mas é justamente por isto que, como cada um segue seu caminho, o meu eu sigo com amor e é assim que quero seguir todo o tempo de minha vida, ja que o amor é tão vital pra mim quanto o ar que eu respiro. O amor deve ser trocado, mas quando vc não esta na situação que lhe possibilita dar este amor por falta de receptividade, transformando em compaixão, vc vê que não é por esta razão que o amor deixa de existir, ele continua la, e ele faz bem, te faz bem desejar que outro seja muito feliz independente se não sera ao seu lado. A energia do amor muda tudo e é com ela que quero continuar passando o resto da minha vida…
AMOR!!!!!!!
MARG,
I find that it isn’t “necessary” to talk about love. However, at times I find great enjoyment in writing, reading, and talking about love. I think it is one of the great reasons I enjoy reading Paulo Coelho’s books. They share a common theme about exploring the mysteries of love. Love is the most important thing in life. It is embodied in everything and therefore it is not “necessary” to discuss. If we are paying attention we can see it all around us.
I like that quote. Sometimes one can talk too much. I prefer to feel it rather than talk about it. How I feel will determine how I behave. If I love someone, they will know without me saying. I guess people need to hear the words sometimes.
Yes Love do speak for it`s self in it`s own language. Love IS – that`s simple. Most of the time we make it difficult – trying to find love outside ourselves. But – the diamond of love is a treasure hiding inside our hearts. May God bless them*
It is necessary to talk about love and learn from each other but love also has its own voice and talks to me through experiencing kind deeds from loved ones-I demonstrate love by showing kindness : )This is not necessarily erotic love .
Mit : the lesson of loving someone who shows the evil face of love-its complex why you stay-maybe childhood fears of abandonment and being alone keeps you attached or maybe your loved one is charming and loving towards you some days..? and therefore you live in hope of experiencing more of the good times.
PS -I am new to this and a little scared-yesterday my post went into the wrong section-oops-but one thing I do know I am amongstkind people on this site.Breda
Dear Candie, it is so simple.. When you have a cold and cough and you are in a room, to a concert or anywhere, then everybody knows … you are there!! The same happens when you are ‘in love’. You talk about your beloved all the time, you tremble when you see him, your eyes shine… We all know the signs! We cannot hide from the others that we are in love!
Have a nice evening.
LOVE,
Thelma
Candie – It’s my history..It’s about my live. I didn’t read any about you before wrote this, I don’t know you. But, I think we have almost the same history.
Dear all,
-”Love cannot talk on itself, it can only walk on the steps you take.”
-”Love is not something which can be shown or possessed, love is just love as simple and elegant with early morning sunlight falling in lake.”
-”Everybody has failed to describe love and nobody will ever agree on anybody’s answer to the most important element in human lives:love.”
-”Love is ____ (fill in the blank yourself).”
-”Love is me and I am love, best of above all.”
God bless you all !
“It is unnecessary to talk about love,because love has its own voice and can speak for itself”.(The Pilgrimage),just to find the form of presentation:visible,audible,sensual,quality,quantity,monogamy,polygamy-and it will sound.
Yes, just like quote says, and words abused Love, it is probably one of the most abused words.
Love
Luce
But one thing,I don’t appreciate people who try to tell me how to live my life,how to feel or don’t feel though,so.Advices and help beautiful thoughts,you have plenty here,beautiful souls like Annie,Thelma,Paul,Carolena and many more who are here to bring all those beautiful thoughts and heal you and being healed too,this I take,but orders:”let it go”was an order,I don’t :D
MIT:i don’t know if the message was address to me personnaly but I’m not desperately in love with that person I don’t even know.Believe me.But I didn’t get all the message.What about five years ago,who?
Anyway thank s for trying to enlight me,didn’t work.I guess the saying is right.We cannot talk about love really.Thelma?Paul?Where are you here?Help.
Yes and then….., what can we do ?, when you are lost for be in love to someone. Who love you with the Eros Evil face ?
And you don’t know how to change that situations, that you have been live since five year ago.
Like that is the only principal objective in your live…love someone who don’t love you the way that you hope to.
Let him go.. I did…but I tried to let it go for two years … but is surrounded by my family, friends, travel, spirituality, I felt alone …
I have to end this situation as it is likely that back to me and become a crazy for the rest of my life … I acknowledge that I will put stronger as it passes through it.
Based on the ethics, he is in a difficult situation right now in life, in the same situation when I met him and help him to grow and finish his tesis in 2004… I will stay as a friend in the distance … … but no longer with him as I was grabbing since November, when I felt it was all very nice for me to be in the same situation … I have to have patience, do not end with something or someone that has for five years that simple as overnight.
Sometimes I feel fine, other times not, losing strength and then recover, I’m fucked up, but leaving.
There is no intelligence to understand how it was that I came into this situation. Knew from the start and I realized what happened and I did not follow my instincts I’ve never known what I want from a person, but after all this time living with this situation, now that I know something different, to fill me joy of living.
All of this strength is about love, that mean something like this: “It is unnecessary to talk about Love, because love has its own voice and can speak for itself.”
(The Pilgrimage)
I think it’s important:who,what and why to understand if there’s something to understand at all!!uh,yeah really confused,but in the end another’s doing.Or both :D yeah but at least I’m Candie.And you are…
Hi Thelma,I didn’t get the quote.But then I’m not really tuned today :D
undending Eros,does that exist?I’m talking about love for a couple,not other kinds of love of course.Well I don’t believe in it.
Irena;let’s not confuse sex and love.Oh hell,I’m even more confused now.LOL
Why,is a wonderful topic.Why not talking about it?Sure,is better if we live the feeling,than to talk about it.But,I can say I found so interesting and touching lines reading some specific authors…
love is the one which will make you forget everything what you wanted from love.
that love is filled with passion, but if it is impossible, looking in the eyes is enough.
passion is like a desert.
if you can taste it- great, if not you are still not hungry. :)
‘The cough and Eros cannot be hidden’, is a Greek quote. [Ο βήχας και ο ¨Ερωτας δεν κρύβονται!!]
The Eros, that you can talk about is either fading or dying! The talk is made in order to give the … impression to others .. of the .. big Eros! It is the last plot of the play! Then there maybe Love, tenderness, respect or …. hate! Adam and Eve, stay together for many different reasons. Definitely not from …. unending Eros. ;]
LOVE,
Thelma
yes sure but it’s sometimes good to talk about it,besides the other post above is saying Eros has several faces,so several kind of love.Sure they are several kinds of love.As for the big day,it’s making me unconfortable,don’t know why,but I want to make sure to have the good Eros that day,I guess.I postpond always.I’m not confortable with the wedding thing but in the same time I want it to happen one day.Oh I’m lost,lol.How do you explain this?Any psy here?lol.I would confess lots of things right now but this isn’t the right place..lol.Love is beautiful but relationships are complicated.