Love and Liking
Before discussing liking and love, let’s first consider sensibility and rationality.
Everyone possesses emotions. The younger one is, the more sensual and unrestrained one tends to be—joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness are expressed directly and without inhibition. As we age and gain life experience, acting solely on emotion often leads to mistakes, repeated setbacks, and persistent disappointment. After each painful reflection, people gradually learn to analyze situations calmly and rationally, developing protective mechanisms to avoid potential harm and suffering. This marks maturity. Yet fate seems to play a trick: in old age, people often revert to the sensibility of childhood—emotions once again vividly displayed on their faces. Life thus traces a full circle, returning decades later to its starting point. An old saying puts it this way: “Little children and old children.”
Nietzsche said, “Life is a sensual existence.” Science epitomizes rationality—but even its most fundamental axioms, such as “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line,” cannot be rationally proven; they are accepted solely by intuition and thus deemed “axioms.” Rational science rests upon sensual, intuitive foundations.
The same holds true for emotionally rich human beings. Sensual tenderness, battered and bruised along life’s bumpy road, forms a thick callus—that callus is rationality. Sensibility is the naked body; rationality is the stylish, fashionable outer garment. Only when confronted with profound emotional upheaval or overwhelming affection do people tear away this thick rational façade and reveal their authentic, sensual selves. In Assembly Call, after the political instructor—who had lived and fought alongside his comrades like a brother—is killed, the company commander refuses surrender, orders captured enemies to pick up their weapons again, and then executes them—a profoundly irrational act driven by deep, raw emotion. Likewise, when people lose beloved family members, they weep uncontrollably, unreservedly—this is humanity’s most essential, deepest sensual nature.
Love, too, is humanity’s deepest emotion—and therefore inherently sensual.
Many people cannot distinguish between liking and love, repeatedly asking themselves: “Do I merely like him—or have I fallen in love?” Others claim clear distinction, confidently declaring: “This is liking; that is love.” In truth, liking and love are manifestations of the same emotion—distinguishing them is impossible. Some say: “Liking is shallow love; love is deep liking.” I say: “Liking leans more toward rationality; love leans more toward sensibility.”
Love often arises instantly upon first meeting—could it possibly result from rational deduction? Not a chance! When the Trojan prince awarded the golden apple to the goddess of love, he simultaneously renounced wisdom and wealth. Love is typically a sensual decision. Countless behaviors exhibited by people falling in love bewilder onlookers—they cast aside worldly conventions entirely: Sima Xiangru and Zhuo Wenjun eloping; Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai’s tragic, life-and-death romance; Romeo and Juliet’s passionate, tumultuous love...
People in love appear foolish and clumsy precisely because of their sensibility. Years ago, I met an online friend who was heartbroken after her first love ended. Recently, we reconnected online, and she brought up that old breakup, admitting how silly and naive she’d been—and thanked me for my comforting words back then. Yet there’s one thing I’ve never said: “You may never again find such foolishly pure love…” When someone loves another rationally, that feeling edges closer to liking.
Only before the person one loves most deeply does one easily lose rationality and display one’s most authentic sensibility. If you’re a woman and meet a man who acts like a child—“pouting” before you, asking inexplicable questions, speaking in ways no adult would, or even blushing and behaving capriciously—you should feel fortunate: he truly loves you! If you’re a man and meet a woman who behaves like a child—obedient before you, believing everything you say—even if you claim the Earth is square, she believes it; if you say it’s flat, she believes that too—you should feel fortunate: she truly loves you! Yet how many women actually enjoy such “immature” men? And how many men genuinely cherish such “foolish” women?—Sensual love is frequently wounded.
If you’ve hurt someone because you don’t love them—and it wasn’t intentional—don’t carry excessive guilt; love cannot be forced. If you’ve been hurt precisely because you loved deeply, allow yourself grief—but also maintain perspective: love requires two willing participants; coercion is not love. At such moments, you should feel grateful: you possess a genuine, sensual heart. Since you’ve loved, your life has not been lived in vain!