“Why do fools fall in love?”
Steve Jackson, Psychologist, Denver, CO
My short answer is, “Do you really have to ask?” (My colleague Theresa Blanding warned me “Of course you’ll get crank questions like this one!”) Oh well, an invitation is an invitation. I expect my chosen vocation to continue to be what it has always been… a grand adventure. Life is one continuous practice. With every sunrise we can expect something new. An experience that reminds us that even the most mundane of moments teaches us something new about ourselves. That is, if we’re open to it. So thanks Steve, for another wonderful moment.
The phrase “why do fools fall in love” was made popular by the song of the same title in 1956 by Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers. Lymon, who at the time was a mere 13 years old, wrote the megahit song that would be covered by a host of popular artists, including The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons, and Diana Ross, among others. The lyrics of the song undoubtedly view the experience of a fool falling in love through a lens of emotional hardship, including embarrassment, humiliation, and the subsequent heartache and melancholy that accompanies it. For a thirteen year-old to have experienced this says a great deal about how foolish we can be about love, at most any age.
So, what is it that makes fools fall in love? Love is at the core of our being. Our shared desire is to be accepted and loved for who we are and to love others in the same manner. Aside from money and physical wellbeing, there are two things in life that we hold dear and cause us anxiety when we don’t have enough of them. They are love and time. Of these, time is not limitless and so we want to spend it doing what matters most to us. Naturally, and for the most part, this involves how we spend time with those we love. This is one of the great insights that become clearer with age. It is the reality that the time we have to spend with our loved ones is not infinite.
Fortunately, unlike time, which has the distinct boundary of human life connected to it; love has a sense of infinity (i.e. I love you bigger than the whole wide sky; I will love you forever; My love for you has no end.). Love is timeless as it is deep, an emotion that lives in our hearts and souls. Love is the common language of mankind and lives at the core of our being. Is it foolish to believe that this is not true? Does this create an unachievable fulfillment of a desire and need? When it comes to love, isn’t everything possible? If I believe that love is stronger than anything, can you prove to me that I am wrong? Or am I just being foolish?
This thing we call love can get pretty complicated. The answer to the question does not need to be a complex one. It’s simple. We all want love. And at times, we all act like fools. These are both within our capacity and realm of simply being human. And so, if you’re going to be foolish about something, it may as well be love. The problem is that as much joy and happiness that love brings us, it can also be the source of heartache and deep emotional pain. Nevertheless, it is likely true that it is better to be a fool in love than to not have loved at all.
