LOVE

28 Oct, 2026

The Most Complicated Variable in the Universe

I had a future waiting for me on the other side of the ocean.

A prestigious career, a promising professional path, and all those wonderful things that apparently mean you are doing very well in life.

So there I was, sitting on a plane, ready to cross the Atlantic and begin a new chapter.

But just as I was looking for my headphones inside my backpack, I found something unexpected.

A letter.

From him.

It was a declaration of love.

And he was asking me to stay.

Naturally, as the plane was taking off, I immediately unfastened my seatbelt, ran into the cockpit, explained the situation to the pilots and demanded an emergency landing so I could return to the love of my life.

Obviously.

Just kidding.

I didn't stop the plane.

But I did stop the future I had planned for myself because of him.

And this actually happened about seven years ago.

But before I tell you the rest of the story, I thought I would leave you with a little suspense.

I will come back to it at the end.

For now, let's talk about love.

I had originally planned to leave this subject for much later in the blog. Something rather apotheotic, perhaps a little like Interstellar, where love appears as that mysterious element that seems to connect everything, even across dimensions, and somehow gives meaning to the whole story.

Very modest ambitions for a blog post, I know.

But someone asked me to write about love, and since I am trying to be a coherent human being after my previous post, I suppose I should keep my word.

And with great pleasure, actually.

By the way, forgive me if I sometimes take a while to publish. I like taking my time to think about these things, while trying to combine all these reflections with my other lives.

Anyway.

Love.

Oh, love...

Falling in Love and Loving Are Not Quite the Same Thing

I think falling in love and loving someone are two very different experiences.

Falling in love can be extraordinary, intense, irrational and sometimes rather inconvenient.

You suddenly find yourself thinking about someone at completely inappropriate moments, smiling at your phone like an idiot, or behaving in ways that would normally make you question your own intelligence.

Wonderful.

But I don't think that is necessarily love.

At least not the kind of love I want to talk about here.

Because I am interested in all kinds of love.

Romantic love, family love, friendship, the love we feel for animals, and perhaps that more general appreciation for another living being's existence.

Personally, I think I know quite a lot about love.

Not because I have had an extraordinary number of romantic relationships. Quite the opposite, actually.

But because I believe I have a great capacity to love, and that capacity has changed and evolved considerably throughout my life.

One of the moments when I became aware of this was when I realised how easily I could forgive people who had hurt me.

Not always immediately, of course. I am still human, unfortunately.

But I noticed that I didn't particularly enjoy holding resentment.

And when I genuinely loved someone, I found it quite natural to wish them well, even when things between us hadn't gone particularly well.

I have always believed that love purifies the soul.

Not in some mysterious supernatural sense, but because loving from a genuine place seems to change the way we experience life.

It makes us more generous, more understanding, more willing to appreciate the good things happening around us.

At least, that has been my experience.

When I feel love, I generally feel happier, more peaceful and more complete.

And I don't necessarily need the person I love to be physically next to me to experience that.

For me, loving someone means sharing without constantly calculating what I will receive in return.

It means wanting the person next to me to be well, not because their suffering would be inconvenient for me, but because their wellbeing genuinely gives me peace.

It means being able to empathise with their emotions, enjoy their evolution and feel grateful that they are experiencing the miracle of existence, just as I am.

I think that is one of the most beautiful things about love.

Being happy that another living being gets to experience life.

And wanting to contribute something good to that experience.

For me, love is sharing our appreciation of life through giving.

Sounds beautiful, doesn't it?

Well.

There is a small problem.

Before Loving Someone, We Have Some Homework to Do

I think loving in this way requires quite a lot of personal work.

A reasonably well-adjusted ego.

A certain degree of humility.

Generosity.

Kindness.

The ability to recognise our own selfishness and hypocrisy.

And, ideally, not being terribly stingy.

I mention that last one because I find it particularly interesting how often we manage to introduce financial accounting into something we describe as unconditional love.

Of course, nobody is completely free of egoism, and I certainly don't pretend to be.

But I do think that the less we need other people to satisfy our insecurities, the more freely we can love them.

I have had several partners throughout my life.

Not an enormous number, to be honest. Being dependent on somebody and walking around holding hands twenty-four hours a day has never been my main objective in life.

And I suspect that hasn't always been particularly appreciated by the other parties involved.

But every relationship has taught me something.

About other people, obviously.

And, much more uncomfortably, about myself.

Interestingly, my longest relationship was also the one in which I found the greatest similarity between our ideas of generosity, independence and personal evolution.

We both understood that loving someone didn't mean preventing them from changing.

Quite the opposite.

Sometimes loving someone means accompanying them while they discover things about themselves that are not particularly pleasant.

And sometimes those discoveries can be uncomfortable for both people.

But I have always thought that if a relationship doesn't allow us to evolve, something important is missing.

Which brings me to a subject I find rather controversial.

Toxic relationships.

Is It Really Love, or Do We Just Need an Excuse?

I hear people talking about toxic relationships all the time.

"I left because it was a toxic relationship."

And perhaps it was.

There are genuinely harmful relationships involving manipulation, control, abuse and behaviour that nobody should have to tolerate.

But I have also noticed that sometimes we use the word toxic as a very convenient way of placing all the responsibility on the other person.

They were toxic.

They were the problem.

End of story.

Very comfortable.

But what if the relationship was simply showing us something about ourselves that we didn't particularly want to see?

What if we were both contributing to a dynamic that wasn't working?

Or what if the relationship had reached a point where we could no longer grow together?

I don't think every relationship that ends needs a villain.

Sometimes two people have simply reached different stages in their lives.

And sometimes loving someone means accepting that their path no longer continues alongside yours.

I find that particularly difficult for people to understand.

Because when someone leaves, we often interpret it as a betrayal.

"If you loved me, why did you leave?"

But what if leaving was precisely the most loving decision that person could make?

What if they genuinely believed that you would be happier without them?

Or what if they realised that they could no longer give you the kind of love you deserved?

Sometimes loving someone means letting them go.

Sometimes it means getting divorced because you recognise that you no longer love your partner in the way they deserve to be loved.

And sometimes it means accepting that somebody else's happiness may not include you.

Not particularly romantic, I know.

But perhaps more honest.

There is something else I have been thinking about for a long time.

And I suspect some people won't agree with me.

I don't think love should be confused with sacrifice and suffering.

Now, before anybody gets offended, let me explain.

Of course, loving someone sometimes requires effort, difficult decisions and putting another person's needs before our own.

That is part of sharing a life with other human beings.

But I am talking about something different.

The idea that suffering is somehow proof of love.

That the more we sacrifice, the more we must love.

And I am not entirely convinced.

Throughout history, people have made enormous sacrifices in the name of love.

For God.

For their partners.

For their children.

For their families.

My own parents worked incredibly hard to give us a good life, and I will always be grateful for that.

Thank you, Mum.

Thank you, Dad.

But I sometimes wonder whether we have become so accustomed to associating love with sacrifice that we have forgotten to question what is actually motivating some of our decisions.

Because I think we occasionally use love as a justification for situations we are afraid to change.

And that is not quite the same thing.

Imagine someone who stays in an unhappy relationship.

"I can't leave him. I love him too much."

But do you genuinely love him, in all his complexity, and enjoy sharing your life with him?

Or are you afraid of being alone?

Are you staying because you believe in the relationship, or because you don't know who you would be without it?

Are you fighting for love, or fighting to avoid the discomfort of starting again?

What about the famous argument:

"We have been together for so many years. It would be such a shame to throw everything away."

Well.

Wouldn't it be an even greater shame to spend another twenty years somewhere you don't want to be simply because you have already spent ten?

I know.

Easier said than done.

But I think it is worth asking.

And then there are the situations involving children.

How many people remain in deeply unhappy marriages because they say they are doing it for their children?

Perhaps sometimes that genuinely is the best decision under the circumstances.

Families are complicated, and there are practical, emotional and financial realities that cannot simply be ignored.

But I often wonder whether fear is also playing a role.

Fear of economic independence.

Fear of what other people will think.

Fear of changing a life that has become familiar, even if it is no longer happy.

And there is one question I would love to ask those parents.

What concept of love do you want your children to learn from you?

Do you want them to grow up believing that loving someone means spending your life in a relationship where neither person is happy?

Wouldn't it frighten you to see them repeating that same pattern when they become adults?

Perhaps showing children that love can also mean making a difficult but respectful decision to separate is sometimes a more valuable lesson.

Of course, not every unhappy period requires a divorce, and not every sacrifice is unhealthy.

But I think we should at least question the idea that suffering automatically makes our love more genuine.

The same applies to parents who work themselves to exhaustion for their children.

Sometimes there is no alternative. Economic circumstances can be genuinely difficult, and I have enormous respect for people who do everything they can to provide for their families.

But sometimes, when alternatives exist, I wonder whether we should also question the beliefs that keep us trapped in situations that make us miserable.

Are we afraid to ask for better conditions?

Do we underestimate our own value?

Have we become so accustomed to struggling that we no longer imagine another possibility?

Or have we somehow learnt that being a good parent, partner or human being requires suffering?

I don't have a universal answer.

But I do think that sometimes we should be brave enough to ask ourselves whether we are acting out of love or simply using love to justify our fears.

Because love is a wonderful excuse.

Perhaps the most socially acceptable one we have.

Nobody wants to question somebody who says they are doing something out of love.

But perhaps we should occasionally question ourselves.

Not to love less.

Quite the opposite.

To love more honestly.

Love Without Keeping Accounts

I think one of the most difficult things about genuine love is learning to give without constantly expecting something in return.

And I don't mean that we should allow people to take advantage of us.

A healthy relationship requires reciprocity, respect and boundaries.

But there is a difference between reciprocity and keeping accounts.

Imagine you invite someone you love to dinner.

You pay.

And immediately, somewhere in your head, a little accountant appears.

"Excellent. Next time it's their turn."

Why?

If you genuinely wanted to invite that person, if you enjoyed sharing the evening and were happy to give them something, why does the gesture suddenly become a debt?

Of course, if one person always gives and the other never contributes, there may be a problem.

But in a relationship where both people share a similar understanding of generosity, giving and receiving should happen naturally.

Not necessarily in equal quantities.

Not necessarily in the same forms.

And certainly not according to a spreadsheet.

Although I am sure somebody somewhere has already created one.

I sometimes feel that we have become so suspicious of generosity that we struggle to believe someone might genuinely want to give something without expecting a benefit.

And that makes me a little sad.

I love my family.

I don't need to be physically attached to them all day to feel that love.

I simply need to know that they are well.

If I could buy one of them a house as a gift, I would be delighted.

Not because I wanted them to owe me something.

Not because I wanted to feel superior.

Not because I expected some enormous demonstration of gratitude.

Simply because knowing that someone I love has a beautiful, comfortable place to live would make me happy.

And yet I know that some people would immediately begin looking for a hidden intention.

"Nobody gives something like that for nothing."

Really?

Have we become so accustomed to self-interest that we find genuine generosity suspicious?

Perhaps sometimes the explanation is much simpler.

Perhaps somebody just loves somebody else.

I find it rather worrying that we are increasingly inclined to assume that every good action must conceal some personal benefit.

Of course, people can be manipulative, and generosity can sometimes be used as a form of control.

But I would hate to live in a world where we become incapable of recognising genuine kindness simply because we are constantly searching for the trick.

And this doesn't apply only to romantic relationships.

I love my family.

And yes, my dog is included.

Actually, I find animals particularly interesting when thinking about love.

Sometimes, when I go to bed, I enjoy listening to my dog's breathing.

Just knowing that he is there, alive, peaceful, sleeping comfortably and having what I hope is a rather pleasant experience of existence.

It makes me happy.

I don't need anything from him at that moment.

I don't need him to entertain me, protect me or demonstrate his affection.

I simply enjoy knowing that he is well.

And perhaps that is one of the purest forms of love I can imagine.

Being grateful that another living being exists.

And feeling happy that its existence is a good one.

What Quantum Physics Made Me Think About Love

Now, I had originally imagined that this would be the grand finale of my blog.

Love.

The mysterious variable that explains everything.

Very much like Interstellar, where love is presented as something that might transcend the dimensions through which we normally understand reality.

I love that film.

And I love the idea.

But before we start rewriting the equations of the universe, I should probably clarify something.

Love is not a recognised fundamental force of physics.

As far as we know, it doesn't hold atoms together, curve spacetime or transmit information through additional dimensions.

Disappointing, I know.

But quantum physics does offer some concepts that I find fascinating when thinking about human relationships.

One of them is quantum entanglement.

When two quantum systems become entangled, their combined state cannot be described simply by assigning each system its own independent pure state.

Their properties are connected through correlations that belong to the joint quantum state.

And those correlations can remain even when the systems are separated by enormous distances.

Now, before anybody gets too excited, entanglement doesn't allow particles to send messages to one another faster than light.

Nor does it mean that two people in love are literally quantum-entangled in some mysterious romantic sense.

Although that would certainly make long-distance relationships considerably more interesting.

But there is something about the idea that I find beautiful.

In quantum mechanics, the description of an entangled system involves relationships that cannot always be understood by considering each part independently.

And I sometimes think something similar happens when we try to understand human beings.

Not physically, of course.

But emotionally.

Because when we genuinely love someone, that relationship becomes part of our experience of the world.

Their happiness matters to us.

Their suffering affects us.

Their existence changes the way we understand our own.

And sometimes, even when that person is no longer physically present, the relationship continues to influence who we are.

We carry things we have learnt from them.

We remember conversations.

We make decisions differently because of something they once taught us.

Perhaps we even become better people because we had the opportunity to love them.

I find that extraordinary.

There is another concept in quantum physics that I think is particularly interesting here.

Correlations.

In an entangled quantum system, measurements performed on different parts can reveal correlations that cannot be explained by a simple classical picture in which each part carries predetermined local answers to every possible measurement.

The relationship between the parts matters to the description of the whole.

And I think we sometimes forget how important relationships are in our own lives.

We spend enormous amounts of time trying to understand ourselves as individuals.

Our personalities.

Our ambitions.

Our fears.

Our identities.

But perhaps some of the most important things about us can only be understood through the relationships we have with other living beings.

I am not exactly the same person with my parents as I am with my friends.

Or with my partner.

Or with my dog.

And I don't think that necessarily means I am being incoherent.

Perhaps different relationships allow different parts of us to become visible.

And perhaps loving someone is partly about creating a space where both people can discover and develop those parts of themselves.

Not by becoming dependent on one another.

Not by losing their individual identities.

But by allowing the relationship to contribute something meaningful to both lives.

This is where I find the distinction between love and dependence particularly interesting.

Because in physics, correlations don't mean that two systems become the same thing.

And in human relationships, I don't believe love should require two people to become one person either.

I have never particularly liked the romantic expression "You complete me."

I understand what people mean.

And I admit that it sounds beautiful.

But I would much rather love someone who already feels like a complete human being.

Someone who chooses to share their existence with me, not because they cannot survive without me, but because they genuinely enjoy doing so.

And I would like to offer the same in return.

Two independent people who choose to share something extraordinary.

Not two incomplete people desperately trying to fill the spaces they haven't learnt to understand in themselves.

Of course, we all need other people.

Human beings are social creatures, and emotional connection is an essential part of our lives.

But needing connection is not the same as making another person responsible for our entire happiness.

And I think that difference matters enormously.

Perhaps love is not about eliminating the distance between two individuals.

Perhaps it is about creating a meaningful relationship while allowing that distance to exist.

And perhaps that is why I find the idea of entanglement so fascinating as a metaphor.

Not because love is quantum.

But because it reminds me that the relationships between things can be just as interesting as the things themselves.

And sometimes, perhaps, even more.

Back to That Plane

Now, I promised you the rest of the story.

About seven years ago, one of the most important people in my life was terribly afraid of telling me how he felt.

He knew I was independent.

Perhaps a little too independent.

He knew I had a promising professional future waiting for me on another continent.

And he probably thought that declaring his feelings to someone like me was a rather risky experiment.

What he didn't know was that my feelings for him were already very genuine.

I simply didn't know whether he felt the same way.

What can I say?

I may be intelligent, but I am not a fortune teller.

Apparently, he spent an entire week writing a letter.

Changing it.

Rewriting it.

Trying not to sound stupid.

Trying to sound romantic, but perhaps not too romantic, considering that the person receiving it was a girl who had spent a considerable amount of time pretending not to be particularly interested in romantic things.

Which, by the way, was not entirely true.

I have always made fun of excessive romanticism.

But the truth is that there are very few things I admire more than genuine romantic courage.

The courage to love someone.

And, perhaps even more importantly, the courage to tell them.

Anyway, before we said goodbye at the airport, he managed to leave the letter inside my backpack.

And there I was, sitting on the plane, completely unaware that my future was about to become rather more complicated.

At some point, I started looking for my headphones.

And I found the letter.

I opened it.

I read it.

And...

Well.

Let's just say that the quantity of tears that came out of my eyes was not particularly consistent with the image of a detached, independent and supposedly unromantic woman that I had spent years cultivating.

It was a beautiful letter.

Not because it was perfect.

Not because it contained extraordinary poetry.

But because someone had found the courage to express something genuine, knowing perfectly well that the answer might not be the one he wanted.

And I found that incredibly beautiful.

Of course, I couldn't stop the plane.

I didn't even try.

I am romantic, not completely insane.

But when I arrived at my destination, I made a decision.

I bought a ticket back.

And I returned.

I didn't continue with that prestigious professional career.

And if I am completely honest, I had never been entirely convinced that it was the path I wanted to follow anyway.

But I made what I still consider one of the best decisions of my life.

I chose love.

Not because I wanted to abandon myself for another person.

Not because I couldn't live without him.

And certainly not because I believed that loving someone required sacrificing my entire identity.

I simply realised that I was about to give up something that mattered enormously to me in exchange for a professional future that, deep down, I wasn't even sure I wanted.

So I changed direction.

And I have never regretted it.

Not once.

Life has taken me through other paths, equally interesting and perhaps even better than the one I originally imagined.

And the most beautiful part is that I have been able to experience so much of that journey alongside someone who has helped me evolve, question myself and understand love in ways I probably wouldn't have discovered alone.

Of course, that doesn't mean everything has always been easy.

Love doesn't magically eliminate difficulties, disagreements or the occasional desire to throw something at somebody.

Preferably something soft.

But I think that is precisely why I value it so much.

Because I have never believed that love should stop us from becoming who we are.

Quite the opposite.

I believe genuine love should give us more freedom to discover it.

And perhaps that is why I don't see my decision as a sacrifice.

I didn't abandon myself for love.

I chose a life that felt more like me.

And love happened to be a very important part of it.

The Variable I Would Like to Believe In

So, after all these reflections, I think I am still left with more questions than answers.

What exactly is love?

An emotion?

A feeling?

A decision?

A form of empathy?

A biological mechanism that encourages us to form attachments and care for one another?

Probably a combination of many things.

And perhaps something about the human experience that we haven't yet managed to describe particularly well.

I don't know.

But I do know what love means to me.

It means being able to appreciate another person's existence without needing to possess it.

It means giving without turning every gesture into a transaction.

It means enjoying someone else's happiness, even when that happiness doesn't revolve around us.

It means having enough courage to stay when staying is right, and enough honesty to leave when leaving is the more loving decision.

It means wanting to grow together without preventing one another from growing individually.

And sometimes, apparently, it means finding a handwritten letter inside a backpack somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean and completely reconsidering your professional future.

Not particularly scientific, I admit.

But rather beautiful.

And while physics may never recognise love as a fundamental variable in the equations of the universe, I can't help thinking that, for us human beings, it is one of the most important things we will ever experience.

Because what would be the point of understanding the entire universe if we had nobody with whom we wanted to share the discovery?

So, dear readers, I would like to raise a glass.

To love.

Not as a physical force.

Not as a magical explanation for everything we don't understand.

But as that extraordinary human experience that makes us care about another existence almost as much as our own.

And sometimes even more.

To the courage of expressing it.

To the generosity of giving it.

To the freedom of allowing it to evolve.

And to those people who, without necessarily realising it, change the trajectory of our lives simply by being part of them.

Cheers to love.

My favourite variable in the universe.

Even if the physicists refuse to put it into an equation.

;)