It Must Be Love

Last few weeks I have been ruminating on this here blog about men’s  stories, especially relationship narratives (not necessarily romantic in nature) and about self-perceived shortcomings that can be remodeled at will. Many posts are connected to song lyrics and all of them are things I think about when awake, and feel even when asleep. If you’re into this kind of tales go and see other posts with tag “On Relationships”.

And now, let’s continue.

Illustration taken from http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com

It is not easy to find songs to illustrate relationship narratives before everything has gone awry. One could say that  humans are prone to “not rocking the boat” when things are going well. Objectively, there is, of course, logical explanation of fact that we’re not spending much effort describing time when all is well; predictive value of positive events is a lot smaller than for negative events and also we are 3 times as likely to complain then we are to praise.

And yet, most people do not intentionally, with forethought, enter anything, lest relationship talk. They just find themselves in situations and are directed by winds of change much more then with goal-oriented actions. That is why I love this song - It Must Be Love by Labi Siffre  - so much; because it illustrates rarely cool-headed approach to questions of the heart. Being a psychologist I’m acutely aware of people being extremely poor judges of their own states and desires but still it surprises me how rarely observation is used to access one’s own emotional states.

Like noticing that one could do with much more contact with particular people:

I never thought I'd miss you
Half as much as I do
And I never thought I'd feel this way
The way I feel
About you
As soon as I wake up
Every night, every day
I know that it's you I need
To take the blues away

… and to use this observation to base theory on:

It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
Nothing more, nothing less
Love is the best

To further this pursuit of truth one must only follow scientific method some more; by making predictions based on newly established theory:

How can it be that we can
Say so much without words?
Bless you and bless me
Bless the bees
And the birds
I've got to be near you
Every night, every day
I couldn't be happy
Any other way

It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
Nothing more, nothing less
Love is the best

You only need to evaluate evidence: If person/relationship makes you happy, if motivates you for action and makes you a better person this is a good thing. Good things are to be celebrated and maintained so they continue to give pleasure and happiness. It is that simple. And you need no better gauge to measure this then your own self.

As soon as I wake up
Every night, every day
I know that it's you I need
To take the blues away

It must be love, love, love
It must be love, love, love
Nothing more, nothing less
Love is the best

It must be love, love, love...

Noone is on his/her best behavior every day and "accidents" happen that put us in the doghouse but way out of the doghouse is just as simple; observe, theorize, make predictions, direct actions, evaluate evidence.

I love love.