Love’s Function

“Love’s function is to fabricate unknowingness.”

                                              — e.e. cummings

The unknown. That’s almost everything. And, the pile of unknown stuff grows as one gets older, and nearer death, so becoming wiser and more honest. Then it is clear that the more one knows the less one knows. So this Slow Lane piece will demonstrate the truth that accompanies ‘not knowing.’

Have you noticed how spacious and roomy everything gets when the unknown is let in? The unknown seems like dark matter— it fills everything up, with no perceptible substance. I like the thought that despite so much knowledge, we know practically nothing, and the unknown envelopes us, stretching farther than the eye can see. The unknown is ubiquitous, except in most of the conversations I am privy too. When was the last time you were in a conversation, or heard others talking, in any way, which acknowledged, and made space for the unknown?

You would think that the fact that we seem to be swimming in a sea of unknowingness might be part of our daily discourse. But, we seldom talk about it. I wonder, does this mean that it is very seldom factored in to what we call reality? I know I have been guilty of that. I still, too often, am.

I remember vividly how I failed in my second marriage, to really recognize my partner’s otherness. Like most everybody, I guess, I was relating to my version of who she was. And, that of course, cost us both, her because she was only partially known, and me because I interacted primarily with a familiar mirage I thought was her. A little more reality would have helped. It that case if I had been a little more mature, and admitted to myself the truth of the moment, and accepted that I didn’t know her as well as I thought, I might have related to her better. That failure, painful as it was, for both of us, is what cued me in to “love’s function.” Now, I know more, how I don’t know.

Unknowing has been hard to learn. The lessons have been painful and humiliating. Of course, it has freed me, too. Still, almost no one seems to notice or care. I don’t win any recognition, or admiration, when I let folks know that I don’t know. Not knowing seems to be the wisdom of the fool. It seems to let one in on the depth of reality, but doesn’t help a whole lot in learning how to swim in those depths. Maybe not knowing is not widely popular, and on everyone’s tongue, because it is so deep, that for most of us, it’s over our heads, deeper than we dare go.

What does that say about love then? If love’s function is to fabricate unknowingness, and few of us want to swim in those deep waters, then how much love are we really admitting into the world?

I’ve wrestled a little with the uncertainty inherent in that question. The truth is, I don’t know. I do take re-assurance from the perception I have, that the vast unknown is operating whether I know it or not. It seems, that despite my ignorance, most of the time, I get the benefit of what the unknown has cooked up for me. My ignorant belief, that I know something, does occasionally get in the way, and cause painful havoc. So my answer to the uncertainty is that we humans, as intelligent as we are, are not very intelligent, and don’t bring a lot of love into the world. Mystery, what seems to be in the provinces of the unknown, brings a lot more love into the world.

Think of that, sometime when you think you know something, especially about another (or even your self). I sometimes remember. Mostly, I don’t. Every now and then I recall love’s function, then I just feel grateful, because then I recollect that the unknown is bringing a lot more of the love in, than I am capable of. I like the thought that the unknown is my benefactor.

If I am lucky, and I am, then I get to be baffled and freer because love is doing its function with me.