Love and Romance
There is no more confused or impenetrable spectacle than that which arises when both parties are passionately in love with one another and both consequently abandon themselves and want to be the same as one another … The beautiful madness of this spectacle is too good for this world and too subtle for human eyes.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak, Section 532
Being in love is a peak experience that most people long for - the experience of complete obsession and total intimacy, the sense of being overtaken by another person. It is the subject of poetry, music, cinema and art.
The ancient Greeks used different words for love like philia, eros and agape. Agape love was an idea that Christianity took up with gusto - the idea of love that is self-sacrificing, that gives up everything, is willing to suffer and even die, for someone else. This, of course, was thought to be exemplified in the life and death of Jesus Christ.
Nietzsche can seem to …
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Provocations to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.