Is love something we decide?
On the axis: Nature of love · loving
Is love a promise the will can keep over time, the commitment Kierkegaard calls for, or a passion that seizes us and leaves us without asking, as in Proust and Schopenhauer?
Lasting love: is it a decision we take and keep (choosing to love, committing), or a state that befalls us and escapes us, undergone more than decided?
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Justification
The Metaphysics of Sexual Love, whose novelty he proudly claims, unmasks in passion the ruse of the : the illusion by which the genius of the species makes the individual, thinking he pursues his own happiness, serve the making of the next generation. Love as charity, for its part, belongs to compassion, and eros as lack is traced back to suffering.
Every amorous attachment, however ethereal it may pretend to be, has its roots in the sexual instinct alone.The World as Will and Representation, vol. II, ch. 44
The World as Will and Representation, vol. II, ch. 44, 'The Metaphysics of Sexual Love'
Anchors: Kierkegaard · Proust · Schopenhauer