What is love?
Baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me, no more
Baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me, no more
What is love? Yeah-yeah
Indeed, what is love?
The title and opening line begins a worthy inquiry as deep as any Zen koan while masquerading as an early 90’s Eurodance pop song.
Not unlike my analysis I wrote about the country rock hit “I’m In A Hurry (And Don’t Know Why)”, here I investigate the potential wisdom hidden beneath the superficial appearances of Haddaway’s 1993 pop hit “What Is Love?” on the auspicious occasion of Valentine’s Day.
In English, we use the word ‘love’ across so many contexts, but what do we even mean precisely?
To wit:
I love my mother.
I love my dog.
I love chocolate.
I love reading.
These are clearly very different contexts, yet we use the same word interchangeably.
Ancient Greek, for example, has at least three words for different kinds of love – philos, eros, and agape. Philos refers to friendship or the love between equals, eros to a more passionate desire to consume, and agape to the kind of spiritual unconditional love reserved for God or other divine matters, to which the word charity is related.
Sanskrit, by comparison, has nearly a hundred words for love.
Let us proceed to the next line.
Baby, don’t hurt me
“Baby,” a term of endearment, a pet name for lovers and a staple in love songs that somehow persists despite its cliche usage. Of course, a baby literally refers to an infant, inviting love from parents, friends, family and strangers alike. It is an interesting contrast to the words that follow – a request to avoid harm. The irony of course is that literal babies are among the most helpless and harmless of creatures, whereas the romantic connotation of “baby” speaks to the vulnerability often associated with intimate relationships. Thus, the invocation of infantile vulnerability with the fragility of romantic attachments is accomplished in a mere four words.
Next line.
Don’t hurt me, no more.
As if to reinforce the main thrust of the previous line, the repetition of “don’t hurt me” transforms a request into something more emphatic – like pleading for mercy. Also note that whereas “don’t hurt me” terminates the first line, it begins the second. Combined with the rest of the line, “no more”, this implies a historical pattern of hurt.
This could be interpreted in at least two ways I”ll expound upon here.
One interpretation involves the very common melodramatic phenomenon of romantic attachments where an individual, after beginning and ending several relationships, finally notices an emerging pattern of what kind of person or qualities they typically attract or are attracted to, and how their relationships end. They begin to notice that despite the apparent variety of “others” with outwardly differing appearances, there is something in their own character and behavior that produces similar outcomes, a budding realization of personal accountability for their part in how their relationships unfold.
In a way, this scenario is a prototypical example of the Buddhist concept of samsara, the endless cycle of suffering caused and perpetuated by craving.
Another interpretation, also invoking samsara, is as an epiphany to end suffering and declare that they have had enough pain. Typically, this realization would be confined to the particular relationship at hand, but perhaps in the fullness of time, the more general insight would be arrived at.
To reiterate and conclude, what is love?
It is a multifaceted mystery.
In a way, the vagueness of English points to its indefinability. It is simultaneously the source of our deepest pain and our greatest aspirations. It is the foundation of religions, both as the greatest virtue, in its unconditional sense, and gravest sin, as it connotes base desires.
While most wouldn’t hesitate to agree that love is a feeling, a particularly deep insight shared by John Vervaeke was to construe love as a mode of being rather than a mere emotion. While that may seem confusing on first reading, I invite you to consider the complexity and full range of emotions you experience in conjunction with a parent — from gratitude for their support, happiness for their friendship, upset during an argument, to grief upon their loss. These emotions all happen within the context of a loving relationship.
Indeed, as is often observed, and underscored here by the present analysis, those who are dearest to us are the most capable of wounding us.