Love Is the Sister of Death: A Conversation with Arash Naraghi

What is love? Is love definable, and can you provide a specific definition for it? There is much debate about whether it is even possible to provide a definition of love. The first point is that love has different types. There is no necessity for all these types to follow a single definition. Love of country, love of a child, romantic love, are different forms of love. But in most cases, when we speak of love, we mean romantic love. That is, the love that occurs, for example, between a woman and a man. If by love you mean romantic loves, then one of the most important characteristics of romantic love is what appears in the speech of Aristophanes in Plato's famous treatise, the Symposium. In the Symposium, Aristophanes recounts a mythical story according to which, at the beginning of creation, we were round beings with four hands and four feet and a single head with two faces on it. The gods became fearful of this being's power, and the god of gods, Zeus, split this being in two and cast each half in a different direction. From that time on, these halves have been running around, lost and bewildered, searching with a burning passion for their lost half, to find it, to unite with it, and to become a single whole again. I think this myth shows the essence of romantic love experiences. The main point of the story is that in romantic loves, two different "I"s become so close to each other and merge in such a way that it is as if a new identity emerges from those two "I"s—an identity that can be called a "we." This new identity, which arises from the fusion of these two "I"s, is the most important characteristic of romantic love. Therefore, love is a special experience in inter-human relations in which two "I"s merge and form a new identity, a "we." Individuals find themselves broader and more complete within the context of this "we," and in the heart of this experience, they experience a kind of openness, wholeness, and deep existential peace.

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PDF file of the Conversation with Arash Naraghi "And Love, Which Is the Sister of Death"

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Love Is the Sister of Death: A Conversation with Arash Naraghi

"And Love, Which Is the Sister of Death: A Conversation about Love" - Text of the interview with Kargadan Weekly, No. 24, 19 Mehr 1395

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