“You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but seeing an imperfect person perfectly.”
On Love
Khalil Gibran
What is love? Is it just a plain four-letter word? There is no concrete definition of the word “love”. It maybe just a word, but it can drown you from its deepest meanings. And it is an indefinite argument when we talk about it. Others might say that it is just a fraud, that it does not last long and it only exists in novels and movies. But for me, love is like a blue diamond, finding will be difficult because it’s so rare. And when the moment comes and you finally have it, you will realize that it was worth your sacrifices. The people who have realized the meaning of life have only spoken to those who can understand love, because love is the meaning of life. And very few of us have realized that love is our very flame. It is not the air we breathe, not the food we eat nor the water we drink, it is love: which keeps us not only alive but also gives us a life of beauty, hope, faith, truth, sincerity and millions of other things having a value beyond any price that no money can buy.
Khalil Gibran’s “On Love” is an eye-opener for us to take risks; that we must have an optimistic approach towards love and allow ourselves to go with the flow of love. That when it invites us, we should embrace it for it is an extreme of its kind that is rare and pure. We cannot wish for love to reach only a certain measure, or to presume that we can direct the way of its course, "for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course." As much as love allows for our growth, it also acts to prune us so that we grow straight and tall. “For even as love crowns you, so shall he crucify you”. These words imply that love is double-sided. The other side creates happiness while the other creates grief.
If you read it for the first time, you will be amazed on how the author came up with such a brilliant poem. The words are striking it’s as though it was really written for you. A shallow interpretation of love that you can get from it is when you get your brother’s chocolate bar every day in his drawer and yet he puts the chocolate bar there anyway. The simple thought of appreciating small things is already love. Technically, the poem is all about love. But if we are to look deeper in it, it entails with each line a meaning that is beyond our imagination. Khalil Gibran is truly a master of metaphor. The difference when you read the poem without analyzing it and when you read it by heart would be like the difference of the world of reality and your ideal world. In life, we have the choice as to whether we live and love on life’s terms or our ego’s terms. As to how most of us put it, “Life is always in the right.” But this is not what we want to believe; we want to believe that we know best, that we’re not lost, that we have things figured out well enough, that we’re more or less in control. But to live and love on life’s terms is more difficult and emotionally taxing–even terrifying–yet, in theory, rewarding, meaning joyous and meaningful, way of living and orienting ourselves in the world. That’s the wager. Live and love on our terms or on life’s terms? Which one will make our lives truly extraordinary, which one will allow us to become what God intended us to be, which one will allow us to live and die well, awake, fully alive and fully born? Khalil Gibran’s poem take on what it means to love on life’s term–to not cater to our ego’s excessive need for control and security, but to instead to love bravely, honestly, deeply–even if doing so wounds us and takes us far beyond ourselves. To me it’s the only way that makes sense to love: all in. Life is too short for any other way. No one gets out of here alive, so why live and love as if we do?
The person who is speaking in the poem is Khalil Gibran in the medium of the romantic & angry young man to his final metamorphosis as the Prophet to whom the persons asked to on what he can say about love. And the prophet spoke extravagant about love, talking about how it makes the ride worth riding despite the goose bumps it gives you. The prophet’s mood jumps from being happy to being scared as how great is the feeling of being in love to the consequences of being in love.
Kahlil Gibran is trying to get the point across that love is going to treat you right and other times it is going to treat you wrong. His purpose is to encourage people to be not afraid to let themselves love but that they should be thankful they are able to love. To awaken the imagination of the readers, Gibran used figures of speech. He used (1) Simile: “Like sheaves of corn, he gathers you into himself; “be like a brook. (2) Metaphor: You may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast and (3) Personification, since he used the pronoun “he” to animate love. The first stanza, second stanza, as well as second to fifth lines in third stanza also used personification. And I must say that personification is dominantly used in the whole poem. The author didn’t use rhyme scheme, so I conclude that he used a free verse. And to provide a stronger emotion and impact, Gibran used sound devices. He used alliteration as seen in these lines: “Peace and loves pleasure”. He also used assonance: “lays waste”. He also used symbols to add more color to his piece. Just like he used the word “wings” in the third line, which (in my own interpretation) means the warmth a love brings. “Brook”, which suggests that we should always dance with the flow. “Sword” means the pain love might cause.
The poem provides timeless spiritual wisdom on a range of subjects especially about love, including giving, eating and drinking, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, teaching, time, pleasure, religion, death, beauty and friendship. Some of the main points of the author in the poem remind us about a lot of values in life. That we should seize every moment we have for we don’t know until when they will last. That love beckons us to millions of great things we have not known, so we shouldn’t be hesitant and dubious, instead, we should take it willingly and wholeheartedly. And love certainly hurts and wounds people, but time heals us to make us whole again. So we should embrace the warmth that love gives us, let it flow with us the way the wind brushes through the waves. Let love sweep us by our feet, and allow it to give us wings so we could fly with it. Taken as a whole, Gibran's poem is a metaphor for the mystery of life: we love and suffer its consequences, we come into the world and go back to where we came from, that have a great journey to explore in the world. The poem suggests that we should be glad of the experience of coming into the world, even if it seems full of pain, because after death we will see that life had a pattern and a purpose, and that what seems to us now as 'good' and 'bad' will be appreciated without judgment as good for our souls.
The prophet also teaches us that the separation we feel from other people and all forms of life while on earth is not real. We are merely expressions of a greater unity now forgotten. As we look forward to our journey, we should compare ourselves to "a boundless drop in a boundless ocean." To feel yourself to be a temporary manifestation of an infinite source is greatly comforting, and perhaps accounts for the feeling of peace and liberation.
Relax. This five-letter word popped into my mind when I was finally done reading the poem. I just realized that sometimes we’re afraid to love because it might only disappoint us. But let love take us where it is going to take us. Let us not try to control the path we are headed down because we won’t be able to. We just have to trust that love will give us the right way. And although we may get hurt sometimes, and that pain is going to be hard, we just have to remember in the end, it’s all going to be worth it. Again, love crucifies but also crowns.