L'amour n'est pas un sentiment
(Love is not a feeling)
French Expression

As everyone who knows me knows, I am at heart a born romantic. For all my political cynicism, I still embrace romance in all its forms, not just in love. I like flowers, lace, scented candles, chocolate of just about any kind, the sensuality of a soft spring breeze, and cool satin sheets. And I love romance as most people think of it, that involving the intimate emotional and physical relationships between couples. It's what makes me an avid reader and writer of romance novels and poetry from across the ages.

I wear a heavy silver French poesy ring on a chain about my neck that is inscribed with L'amour n'est pas un sentiment. Love is not a feeling. I've pondered that inscription since I bought the ring. What does that mean, love is not a feeling? Of course it's a feeling! Isn't it?

In The Search of the Absolute, Honore de Balzac describes love as being an art, a “few simple words, a precaution, a trifle reveal to a woman the great and sublime artist who can touch her heart without withering it.” As a lover of romance, his take on love appeals to me. In contrast, however, Indian philosopher, Jiddu Krishnamurti, in The First and Last Freedom, wrote, “Love cannot be a feeling. Being sentimental, emotional, is not love” because “sentimentality and emotion are only sensations.” He goes on to explain that “thought is the result of sensation, so a sentimental, emotional being can never know love.” So, if love isn't a feeling then what exactly is it?

And that, exactly, is the conundrum.

Being someone often accused of analyzing things to dust, I look upon the concept of love as a precious and mysterious puzzle with a constantly changing kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. We can love our cars, our homes, a certain brand of chili, our partners, our families, and our pets. But if it is our nature, we can also love to inflict pain and discord with equal passion. And we can do either out of a love for God.

In the end I must concur with the inscription on my ring. Love is not a feeling. It is not a mere sensation. It is so much more. It simply, and not so simply, is its own entity that cannot be easily defined as being simply born of chemistry or spirit. It is a living thing, an ethereal tool, pulsing with life that is both good and sometimes evil. It can be used to heal or to harm. It can bring anguish as well as comfort. It can give hope, and keep it alive when all else fails. Or it can destroy it completely. As a friend said after ruminating on the meaning of my ring, “Love is all things to all people, good and bad.”

Love is not a feeling. It simply is.

c. 2025