I politely disagree with Countee Cullen
"Nothing Endures, not even love"
With respect to one of my favorite poets, I'd like to dissect this argument a little bit. Cullen basically asserts here that love cannot last, because it must be based on qualities which themselves do not last into old age. As we get older our minds and bodies deteriorate. So, regardless of whether romantic love is based on the physical beauty or on intellectual/emotional attraction -- either way, it's doomed to failure in our last years.
But, I would argue with the premise that romantic love is based on our qualities. I think that's how it starts, but I think that a strong love moves beyond being reasonable in that way. I think that romantic love can operate in the same way that familial love does. In the same way that, "I love her because she's my mother" is, in some way, a cyclical argument, I think that romantic love can exist sui generis. In old age, this may very easily be one of any number of things. It could be love for the memory of who the person used to be. It could be love which exists because of its beneficial effects, instead of because of rational causes -- that is to say, a pragmatic emotion, most likely driven by the ego ("I am a good husband, therefore I still love my wife despite her brain damage"). It could be that emotions like love have an inertia to them, that after many years of feeling a rational love for someone, you'll continue to feel it irrationally after the rational reasons have gone away. Or it could simply be that love isn't exactly rational, and it can exist predicate only on the nirvana which Cullen says gapes for all things given. If something is based on nothing, then nothing can threaten it... or, in this case, nothing can't threaten it.
