3 - The depth of love

Summary

It is a striking circumstance that most of the great pessimists about love have refused to dismiss it as a trivial matter, as a temporary perturbation of our wits that might easily be avoided. One fictional exception to this norm is the character Benedick in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Benedick mocks the romantic adventures of his friends and protests that he will never lose more blood with love than he can get again with drinking. But even among pessimists Benedick remains something of an anomaly. And, in the course of time, he is stricken down with love in such a way that the naive quality of his earlier folly is thrown into sharp relief. The love that he cannot ultimately deny serves as a reminder that we may influence and shape our love but loving or not loving is beyond our deliberate, moment-to-moment control. There are things that we can do to try to fall out of love and things that we can do to fall into it. We can prepare the ground or put barriers in its way, and this is one of the reasons why we can be praised or blamed for loving someone. But love itself is not chosen.

In general, pessimists about the nature of love are aware of the limits of our control and try to prepare us against love's inevitable onset.