The Art of Love: Test Everything

Falling in love feels like riding a sled downhill on hormones.

You want to stay in the moment, not wreck it with questions or second thoughts. But my philosophy—and anyone I’ve ever loved will attest to this—is to test everything.

When every nerve is tuned to that electric hum. When you’re ready to fall into each other’s arms?

Don’t.

Or fall, then leap right out again. Don’t let anything settle.

You’re learning.

The way a cat walks a room before choosing where to land, you’re reading the room, each other. What happens if I lean in? If I pull away? What if I text back fast, or not at all? Compliment or withhold? What’s the look in your eye when I look at someone else? Or when you do?

This is emergent training.

One time I had a student who was the poster child of peace, love, and light until we did a silly jump rope exercise. Then, she became the dictator of the whole event. That’s the truth seeping out through the cracks—the real you, under the pressure of something absurd. Not the you of theory, but the you of practice.

Test it all.

Put each other in these small fires and see what burns, see what stays. Especially at the points where you want to rush past, avoid, or surrender to the sweet inevitability of it all. Don’t. We’re racing toward what Bowie called the “steel jaw” of commitment. Don’t let it snap shut.

Once you lock things in,

the dynamic shifts.

It’s like sealing a jar; the air’s gone, the fermentation stops. You stop learning who the other person is, who you are with them.

Test everything. 

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