Love is passion. Observe the following quotes from Ayn Rand’s novel, “The Fountainhead,” which illustrate her views on the nature of love: “I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference.” “Love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don't know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who've never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you've felt what it means to love as you and I know it - total passion for the total height - you're incapable of anything less.” It is common, today, for people to accept and adopt the view that the proper disposition one ought to have towards someone one is interested in dating is something approaching indifference. When a man or woman becomes “too attached” to a potential partner, this is often viewed as immature, naïve, and foolish. Many times, when a person says something to the effect of, “I feel so strongly for this person that I can’t stop thinking about them,” the general response people give is, “Stop putting him/her on a pedestal.” The implication of this is that no person is worthy of such praise, admiration, and affection; and that if you feel so strongly for one person in particular, there must be something wrong with *you* because *they,* the person you are interested in, cannot possibly be worth this amount of mental and emotional attention. The further implication of this is that any person is as good as another. The further implication of that is that you should be equally as willing to love someone who doesn’t embody the particular qualities of *this* person as you are to love someone who *is* that person and *does* embody those values. The necessary conclusion, then, to draw from all of this, is the final conclusion of: love and values have nothing to do with each other. That, thus, love is arbitrary. And that, thus, you should pass no judgement on any person whatever, have no standards, refuse nothing, accept anything, and that love is completely causeless. When you fall in love with someone, they will tell you that you have to accept their flaws just as much (or more) than you accept their virtues. The implication of this is that flaws are more important than virtues; and accepting flaws is a greater act of loving someone than appreciating their virtues. The foundation of this belief is the age-old belief of “There is some good in the worst of us; and some evil in the best of us.” The foundation of this belief is the conviction that moral perfection is impossible, and that moral imperfection is inevitable. Thus, for anyone who holds this belief (which may, in fact, be the vast majority of people in the modern age), the implication of this is that just as any particular partner *you* choose must be morally flawed; so, too, you are equally as flawed by the fact that you are human. To be human, they hold, is to be flawed. Moral perfection for a human being, they believe, is wholly impossible. Therefore, in conclusion, because everyone must be some shade of black and white and can never be truly one or the other, out of basic necessity, one must accept the flaws of others (and love them in spite of these flaws) in order to be loved by others, since one’s own flaws will have to be accepted and forgiven. Thus, the consequence of this belief is that love is not based on a mutual admiration of the virtuosity of one’s partner, but a mutual acceptance and forgiveness of one’s vices, flaws, and defects. Love, then, is not a worship of the good in one’s partner; but a concession to that which make’s one’s partner deplorable. Thus, again, this view of love elevates vice to be the significant element of love, offering that humility and forgiveness are the key virtues which makes love possible (in both directions). Observe the world today. How many people in a relationship that you know seem truly happy? How many people—even those that are married—do you know who seem truly in love with their partner? How often do you hear wives and husbands complain about their spouse? How often do you hear some remark being made to a man about his wife that implies a reproach of his wife, and the husband actually defends her? How often do you hear a remark being made to a woman about her husband that devalues him, and she actually defends him? At the base of most relationships in the modern world is a mutual agreement of never speaking the hidden truths—particularly the truth that deep down, there is some lingering feelings of resentment and contempt for their partner. Most men and women relish in responding to devaluing comments about their partners, glad of the opportunity to complain about their partner’s flaws in a safe context. Perhaps, yes, they do have moments of closeness and intimacy—of romance, affection, and bonding. But such moments are detached from their actual estimate of their partner—buried in the mutual commitment to not have their relationship issues enter into the frame of their awareness during those moments—moments of forgetfulness, not contentiousness. True love does not require self-fraud, self-deceit, self-delusion, rationalization, compartmentalization, or fantasy. True love is achieved by the virtue of honesty—by fully consciously evaluating and *judging* one’s partner—of holding one’s partner to the highest standard of one’s judgement—and of appreciating the fact, without deceit or self-made blindness about one’s partner, that the partner easily surpasses that standard without fraud. Nobody is immune to error—and all people make mistakes. But to commit an error is not a moral flaw. If one makes an *honest* error, there is no damage to one’s moral value. A proper moral system does not demand omniscience or infallibility. When one makes and error because he refused to be honest about reality, or if he makes an error because he has created a fantasy about reality in his mind as a substitute for his actual perception of reality, or if one blanks out reality as not to see the facts of reality in order to let his emotions dictate reality rather than his rationality—then, he is immoral. An immoral act is not a death sentence for one’s character. He can identify the act as immoral and make amends. He can identify his evil and reshape himself. He can redefine and reestablish himself. Personal redemption does not require any person he has harmed to forgive his evil; nor do they have to accept him thereafter. But what is important is to recognize that even if a person *has* been evil, he—and he alone—can determine to commit himself to being good; and, depending on the nature of his crime (some crimes being beyond even self-forgiveness), he can accept and forgive himself for any evil committed; and so, too, in many cases, it need not be any important matter of concern for those whom he deals with from then on. Unless, again, his evil was such as to be unforgiveable. And yes, there are unforgiveable evils! But note that evil is always volitional, meaning that evil is the result of a conscious choice. When a man makes a mistake because he had incomplete information, this is not evil. When a man makes a mistake because he refuses to recognize certain facts that are important and indicate that he is pursuing the wrong path, he is wholly guilty of committing whatever evil he does. Morality does not and cannot require infallibility and/or omniscience. What morality does require is that one be honest about reality, and never allow one’s self to evade the facts of reality or blank out the facts of reality. And, just as honesty is the key virtue for morality; so, too, it is the key prerequisite for love. One does not and cannot love a person by simply choosing not to see another person’s flaws. One does not and cannot love a person by attributing to one’s partner virtues they do not possess. If one loves another person—particularly as a romantic partner—then this means a total awareness and appreciation of that person’s total essence and character. What may confuse the issue is that many people look at love as a matter of arithmetic: we like the same music—we have the same hobbies—we share the same views on how to raise children—et cetera. These things can be contributory to love, but are hardly the *essence* of love. Love is not a surface level feeling. Love penetrates beyond the superficial details of a person’s character and is deeply rooted in their philosophical outlook and perspective. You may appreciate the fact that your lover has a certain kind of career, but it is the deeper qualities of character which caused him to pursue and succeed in that career that you are actually in love with. It is a person’s view of existence—a person’s view of what is worth appreciating (and on what criteria)—it is a person’s method of thinking—it is a person’s sense of self-esteem—it is a person’s integration of various character qualities—which makes us fall in love with that person. Not whether they like drawing, or like music, or like certain kinds of movies. None of that actually matters very significantly in whether or not we love someone. It is not the resulting surface-level values of a person’s character which makes us fall in love with them, but the deeper, more essential, more fundamental values which gave rise to those surface-level values which we fall in love with. Love is passion, worship, exultation. If you approach love with the belief that you should never put someone on a pedestal, then what do you hope to achieve once you finally end up with them? What about when you are married? Is it okay, then, to put her on a pedestal? Is it finally acceptable only after you’ve signed a legal contract to feel a sense of passion, excitement, reverence, worship of her? If, again, we look at most modern married couples: where’s the passion? Where’s the excitement? Where’s the worship? Marriage today is not an excited flame of burning appreciation for the other person, but a lethargic, stagnant acceptance of a marriage duty. I said, “Till death do we part,” and I am now duty-bound to spend the rest of my life in a boring, mundane, passionless marriage. Don’t get me wrong! Marriage goes through ebbs and flows. Marriage is not always going to be fully filled with passion, excitement, and eagerness. No two people can forever maintain the feeling of, “I can’t wait to see you and nothing else in life matters,” but this should be the exception, not the norm. Passion does dwindle, at times—and it has to be rekindled. But its dwindling should not be the end and the forever more. The passion should remain. The feeling of deep, burning appreciation should remain. The feeling that— “I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference.” —should remain as the base and prevailing feeling towards that person. People will tell you that if you are too committed to any one person, that you are not in love with *them* but with a fantasy. In some cases, this may be entirely true. But *if* you are not obsessed with the person you profess to be in love with, you cannot really said to be in love with them. To be obsessed with someone does not mean that you give up everything in your life for them. It doesn’t mean you give up your passions, your desires, your interests. All of such values in your life *make you who you are,* and they are indispensable. You cannot love someone by renouncing that which makes *you* who *you are.* Those things are antecedent prerequisites for any capacity to love another person. But to love a person so much that you *worship* them—that you *exult* them—that you think about them in appreciation—that you have a desperate urge to be with them even when you are apart for long periods—that is wholly rational and proper in love. If your love is born out of fully, honestly, and contentiously evaluating and judging another person—if you have looked at a person and judged them as honestly as you could and *still* love them—that you love them even more because your love for them is born out of considering everything about them and forgiving *nothing*--then, you are wholly justified in loving that person obsessively, and fully justified in telling others who claim that no such honest love could exist to go jump off a bridge. Honesty is the key to true love. You cannot have true love without being both honest with yourself about yourself and honest with yourself about that other person. You have to be on the look out for the key qualities which makes that person worth *worshipping* and never allow your hope of finding those qualities blind you to whether or not they actually exist. But once you judge a person fully honestly—fully contentiously—and find that your love does not diminish—then, not only will your love not diminish, but it will endlessly grow—because your love for them is based in the full certainty that this person you love has gotten away with nothing—that no virtue you attribute to them is unearned—that no flaw has gone unnoticed and needlessly forgiven—and that in their total character, in the full integration of this person *in their essence,* there is nothing *to be* forgiven, and everything to be loved. Love requires honesty, judgement, and certainty. When you are honest about that other person, you can judge them properly. When you judge them scrupulously and contentiously, then you can have full certainty that they are worthy of your love, your desire, your passion, your worship! Those who profess that love consists of mutual forgiveness will never experience love. Only those who seek love with scrupulous, demanding standards are capable of actually achieving it.