However, later in life one is lucky to have any inspiration left at all. But the idea is as we have described above. First comes a phase of unreal positiveness, a charge of energy. And then life challenges one to climb back to real achievement independently. Perhaps the sharpest application of this idea in modern Western society is in marriage.
Marriage today is to a large extent in ruins in the secular world.
In many communities divorce is more usual than survival of marriage, and even in those marriages which do survive it is common to find much disharmony. One of the prime factors in this disastrous situation is the lack of understanding of our subject. Romance is the initial, heady, illogical swirl of emotion which characterizes a new relationship and it can be extreme. Love, in Torah terms, is the result of much genuine giving. Love is generated essentially not by what one receives from a partner, but by the well-utilized opportunity to give, and to give oneself.