The Mechanics of I Love You

By John Kimson

In a world characterized by an increasing rate of relational disappointments, heartbreaks, and distrust, The Mechanics of I Love You by John Kimson deals with everyday issues such as love, lies, and relationships. The books analyzes known and unknown issues directly or indirectly affecting those in a loving relationship and further explains why there are trends such as multiple partners, the role of lies, influence of the unknown, and seeing oneself through the eyes of others. Written from a rich and complex personal and shared experiences of relational struggles, the books main focus is to help on adopting healthier attitude and improve the quality of decision making while interacting with others in the name of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499079425

John Kimson

John Kimson is a freelance writer and counselor. He enjoys sharing experiences and ideas on critical issues such love and lies and draws inspiration from natural systems within and beyond his immediate surroundings. He is a member of the author learning center and is currently working on two other projects, Eternal Frontiers and Grandma’s Diary. His rich experience working with people of different ages from different cultures and educational settings enables him to use a multicultural approach in his writing and at the same time establishing universal elements that unite nature.

Book preview

Love: The Most Powerful Force

After I thought I had forgotten all about him, I could still remember in greater details the time, place and the very first day he said, I love you. I was excited but unfortunately, did not understand what he meant. It did not take long for me to start feeling the heat that caused me to review if what I thought or felt was actually love.

No word has dominated and shaped human history as the word love. Many great wars, crimes, successes, and tragedies have been recorded over history in the name of love for one’s country or love for somebody. Love still remains one of the most confusing and complicated word that man has never properly defined. It is broad, vague, and relative in meaning. Love can present itself in different forms and intensities with respect to different individuals. Those who have walked on the part of love see it in different perspectives, and the effects of love is a net evaluation of the whole love experience.

On one hand, some people see love as a blessing in their lives. They see love as a much positive force that forms integral part in the life of any human being. Love is addressed in the Holy Bible as the greatest of all commandments and a quality everybody is expected to have.

On the other hand, love to some people is total confusion, problem, and frustration experienced in everyday life. Such individuals can easily be upset by the word love because to them, it is such a confusing pack from which all odds should be expected.

With such a diverse atmosphere surrounding love, some important aspects about it have to be investigated in order to get a better understanding of what love is all about. What is love? Are we redefining love? Why is love needed in the first place? Can one live a satisfactory life without love? How many people should I love? Is there anything like true love? Can I forgive and forget in love? What are my expectations when in the waters of love?

These many questions about love come up because of the fact that love remains a very vague word that can be applied in almost every aspect of life, be it positive or negative. This section of this book attempts to answer some of these questions and many more.

Many people marry in the name of love. Others fornicate and commit horrible crimes still in the name of love. Such positive and negative ways through which people interpret love give it a dual identity, one through which love can be seen as light and another through which it is complete darkness. Therefore, one can define love the way it suits him to meet his needs.

Love is an internal drive which can be influenced or modified by external conditions. It is not a thing or a defined state. It is a dynamic process that keeps on changing either positively or negatively with time. Today, one’s love for another is hardly the same as it was yesterday. It must have improved or reduced because of external influences. Love cannot be measured or quantified but its trend whether improving or deteriorating can easily be observed.

Love itself is nothing. It needs a medium to be activated. This medium is certainly a living being. At times, we may be tempted to believe that love is limited to humans only. It should be noted that this great emotional experience rules the entire animal world. It is left to be investigated if plants, too, possess this emotion called love.

Love is real. It does exist but cannot be proven or quantified by any scientific approach since it is very relative and has no upper and lower limits. Mathematically, one would say love has infinite variables, most of which are not known by those in love.

Love has its opposite—hate, which is also as confusing as love itself. When people don’t feel loved, they feel hated. At times, they may have mixed feelings of the two, but then they still have to live on.

Hate, like love, has also influenced humanity in many ways. People may accuse others of hating them even when they don’t. Discipline is easily mistaken for hate by many children, while others may look at hate as refusal to yield to their desires.

It is almost impossible to separate love from hate because most often, it is those who are loved or hated who describe what they feel. All of one’s efforts to show love to someone may still be mistaken for hatred. A typical example is seen when you refuse to fornicate with a man or woman no matter how much he or she wants it. This act of love on your part can easily be interpreted as hate.

There is always this confusion between pleasing someone and loving the person at the same time. It should be noted that you can hatefully please somebody or lovingly displease the person. Don’t fall into the trap of ever wanting to please somebody. If you yield to such pressures, you may subconsciously unleash true hatred in the place of love. This may later hurt you so badly if the consequences of your actions start to haunt you.

To properly manage love, one has to understand love in different perspectives; a dive can be hurtful, a backstroke pleasant, and a walk challenging. It is therefore imperative to be aware of all the possibilities that are usually considered as love by many in order to find your place and role in love.

Most people would find love at one stage of their lives, but keeping the love would be the major issue because love tests the infinite qualities in a person such as tolerance, patience, kindness and others.

What Is Love?

Then they gave him everything he asked for except love and he felt the emptiness of space as if loneliness were a part of his brain. He was ready to give up everything for love.

Love and music share a very strong element in common which is how we respond to them. We respond to the same music the way we feel it. Some might spend time nodding, while others may swing their bodies from one angle to the other. Others too may be still, while a neighbor might just be furious or happy about the lyrics. That does not change anything about the music. If we consider love to be that music, we can establish a lot of connections on the varying response and attitude people project when the music of love is playing. Like music, love motivates actions that may be expressed differently and perceived differently too.

Different individuals dance to the tune of love the way they perceive it—a loving parent cares for her baby till death. Those who love God keep his commands and struggle to do his will. Those who love the devil follow him and assist in his works. They offer their services as agents through which demonic missions are being accomplished. Those who love their wives, husbands, girlfriends, or boyfriends try to support them to see that they are happy. Those who love others try to give them attention to see that they are doing well. Those who love sex work hard to buy it whenever they want it. Even when you don’t have anything to give or do, when you love someone, you always wish the person well.

However, it’s yet to be verified if all the wishes we make for our loved ones are truly positive. It’s difficult at times to stop people from hating what they love even when it is dangerous for them. Actually, that’s how they feel it, that’s how they want to dance to it, and that’s what makes them comfortable.

For example, if a lover exposes his loved one to drugs or excessive drinking, it may seem all right to look as she perceives it as good. On the other hand, another loved one might question the need for such and review her plans. Hence, it takes results to get a better picture of the love you want and at the same time how you perceive the result.

From our daily experiences, we can notice that in a lovely relationship, there is always someone who loves and another person or thing that is being loved. This interaction can be mutual or unilateral. When such a lovely link is established, it activates the Work-Wish-Give (WWG) cycle for anyone dancing to the tune of love. When we love someone, we work, wish, or give in favor of that person.

The WWG cycle is powered more by an internal drive in the person who loves and not in the person who is loved. That is why most heartfelt statements used to express love are made in the first person singular, e.g., "I love you, I will never leave you, I wish you well, I will die for you, I will never let you suffer, etc. If they don’t follow this form, they take the possessive form, e.g., You are mine," "My world will crumble without you, You are my only love," etc. Hence, a good definition of love should incorporate these complex characteristics in order to give it its true nature.

According to the seventh edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, love is a strong feeling of deep affection for somebody or something, especially a member of your family or a friend. It goes further to define love as a strong feeling of affection for somebody that you are sexually attracted to. These definitions of love, just like other existing ones, are too sketchy, owing to the fact that different individuals love and appreciate love differently and also the fact that love does not have any defined upper or lower limit. An expression like strong affection is only relative as one’s strong affection may just not be appreciated by another person as strong.

This definition is made further difficult by the fact that we cannot, with certainty, quantify the amount of affection one has for the other. These feelings are always changing with time, so it becomes pretty difficult to fix some defined and measured qualities to define love. Because of these ever-changing multiple variables involved, any attempt to define love may only be paving the way of writing a book. Nonetheless, love has some qualities that are common in almost every case.

To the person who loves, it is felt both in the spirit and the body. It results to some degree of internal satisfaction even if it entails a lot of sacrifices. It creates a degree of emotional dependability, affection, and attachment to the person who is loved. It provokes some voluntary sacrifices and care. It is powered more by an internal motivation than external influence. These good qualities do not necessarily make love always a good thing. Different individuals may want to be loved in different ways before they can appreciate it or perceive it as love. Some of the criteria they use may just be invisible disasters, although they may appreciate them as being loving for that given moment.

To the person who is loved (beloved), it is felt both in the body and spirit only if it matches with his/her perception of love, hence, creating an impact. It should be noted that you can love someone who feels NOTHING for you. Second, the beloved automatically becomes something of value and emotional dependability to the person who loves. She stands at an advantageous position over the person who loves and may consequently gain more in terms of sharing of resources in the relationship. She derives satisfaction only if she appreciates what she feels.

However, someone may love you and want to implement many changes to improve your life. This offer may be rejected or accepted depending on how you perceive it. Some of the offers may even be confusing especially if their overall effects are not felt. Hence, we can equate love to a chemical equation with a variety of undefined end products, depending on the conditions under which the reaction is being carried out. The person who is loved has to choose from a wide range of products available, from which she can derive some satisfaction. Some of our choices may seem very satisfying but end up plunging us into very complicated situations.

In all circumstances, love requires a certain degree of effort from the person who loves and requires him to do a lot of work whether physical or emotional, if he must fully express it. Love causes you to act, for it is an active force. It is better not to love if you don’t want to act or work. It is for the above reason that many people are craving for mutual love so that they don’t always have to act alone.

To keep it simple, love is the dynamic and absolute basis for emotional dependence. It does not matter whether the love is directed to somebody, animal or thing. To test this definition, try to destroy whatever somebody loves. The response is usually rage because the individual is emotionally destabilized.

Today’s Notion of I Love You

Finding meaning in something that can still be meaningless requires a practical input. Sex came in quick and he said he loved me as if it was rehearsed several times. When sex was gone, he forgot the rehearsal and the excitement that came with the phrase died as if it were poisoned by hatred.

Though brief and precise, one cannot underestimate the penetrative effect of the phrase I love you. The coinage, style, intonation, and the ways people project the phrase may differ, but it remains a short and beautiful phrase that has been thrilling the world from the beginning.

Have you ever been served breakfast, lunch, or supper of "I love you?" How did you feel? Were you excited, sad or you remained indifferent? Have you ever used the phrase? How many times? Did you know exactly what you were saying? Are you still comfortable with the phrase? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then you were/are in the waters of love either as an active lover or a loved one.

The most interesting thing about I love you is that it is easily used by those who don’t know its implications. When you tell someone you love him, what does it actually mean to you? Have you ever sat and thought of how this phrase affects others?

Seventeen-year-old Erin said, I was very excited the very first day he said he loved me. I could not sleep because I had fascinating imaginations that made me very comfortable.

I thought history has restarted again. I looked at him with a lot of suspicion the first day he told me he loved me and angrily barked out, said twenty-five-year-old Lillian.

I quickly thought of the ease with which I will get her when she said she loved me. My mind was full of fantasies of romance, and I started devising strategies on how to make this real, said twenty-one-year-old Ludovic.

Different individuals use and accept this phrase in different ways. You are not an exception. While some may be too quick to use it, others prefer to use it with a lot of reservation, and some prefer the actions speak louder than words approach. The usage of this phrase varies from person to person, and it is strongly influenced by how an individual views love. Despite the smoothness and ease in using this phrase, it may completely be a skeleton of frustration and hopelessness or a foundation of trust, hope, and joy.

Is it a grammatical error or societal conditioning that we always tell people we love them even when we don’t? Does everybody who uses the phrase actually understand what he or she intends to say? Such questions cannot be readily answered because one cannot perfectly guess what’s on a person’s mind. Such thoughts can only be better understood when they are translated into observable parameters. It’s only through careful observation that one can understand the meaning of the phrase I love you.

When somebody uses the phrase I love you, its meaning can be found in one of the following phrases:

1. I loved you.

2. I will love you.

3. I may love you.

4. I love you.

5. I am sorry.

Analyzing this phrase with respect to person, context, and situation can enable one to determine which of the above phrases has been used in the place of I love you. Grammatically, this phrase is in the simple present tense, a tense used to describe habitual or everyday events. However, one has to verify the habitual or everyday nature of love as it is most often proclaimed.

First, I loved you can easily be used in the place of I love you if the person who uses it loved you in the past but drastically started to lose interest in you for one reason or another, even though you may still be close to each other. Such an individual may be bored by your presence but may still have some reasons to keep the union. He or she may occasionally say I love you, but this may just be with reference to his or her past experiences.

Such a situation is common in some marriages which are no longer working, but the couple may decide to keep the union because they fear the future of their children if they separate, or they are scared to break their marital vows. They might be ashamed of divorcing publicly and would prefer being together as a better option. The fact that you are living with someone is no guarantee he or she still loves you. You may just be together for other reasons and not because of love. If someone no longer emotionally depends on you, his love for you is dead.

Second, if somebody you have never known sees you by the street, a park, beach, market, school, hospital, etc., and uses the phrase "I love you" it does not make any sense because you are the one who is better placed to evaluate what he or she feels for you. What he or she feels must be translated into visible parameters for your appreciation. What he or she thinks is love may just be the opposite to you. Hence, he can only demonstrate this quality if given the chance to do so.

In this context, he is simply telling you he will love you if given the opportunity. If such an opportunity is not given, it will be very difficult to know if he actually loves you or not. I love you in this case stands for promises which may or may not be realistic. It has to be tested.

Third, you