I don't know if love exists, not the kind that keeps. I think

The words of Lemmy Kilmister, the thunder-voiced bard of Motörhead, echo with the weary wisdom of one who has walked through both love and disillusion. When he said, “I don’t know if love exists, not the kind that keeps. I think love’s an infatuation that turns into a habit, because you can’t keep that passion going. You get used to people, and that’s death for me — I like to be surprised,” he spoke not only of romance, but of the eternal conflict between passion and permanence. In his gruff confession hides a question older than time itself: can the fire of love burn forever, or is it destined to fade into the dull glow of routine?

In the ancient days, the poets of Greece sang of Eros, the fierce god of desire, and Agape, the steady flame of divine affection. They knew that Eros is a spark — beautiful, consuming, and brief — while Agape is the hearth that endures the winter. Lemmy, in his raw honesty, mourns the death of Eros. To him, the moment when love becomes a habit, when the heart no longer trembles at the sound of the beloved’s voice, is a kind of spiritual death. He is the wanderer who seeks constant surprise, for he fears the stillness where once there was storm. And yet, this longing reveals a truth: he does not reject love — he rejects stagnation.

So often, mortals mistake the ebb of passion for the end of love. Yet the wise know that every flame must flicker, that the sun itself must set before it rises again. The problem is not that passion fades — it is that we do not know how to tend its ashes. We forget that the true art of love lies not in keeping the fire wild, but in learning to reignite it when it grows dim. Lemmy’s lament is therefore not a denial of love, but a challenge to those who grow complacent. For him, to “get used to people” is to forget the miracle that they are — to stop seeing the divine spark that once drew us near.

Consider the tale of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, whose union shook empires. Their love was not built on comfort, but on the ceaseless wonder of discovery. She, the queen of the Nile, charmed him not with beauty alone, but with intellect and mystery. Caesar, who had conquered nations, found in her a mind he could not conquer — and thus, he was surprised until the end. When love ceases to surprise, it dies. The heart must be renewed through curiosity, through the daily act of seeing one’s beloved as if for the first time. Even the gods envy such devotion, for it demands both passion and discipline — the fire and the craft that contains it.

There is also tragedy in Lemmy’s words, for in his craving for the new, he confesses the restlessness of the human soul. Many have chased surprise into ruin, mistaking novelty for meaning. The philosopher Epicurus warned that endless desire leads to endless dissatisfaction — that the man who must always be surprised will never be at peace. Thus, Lemmy’s truth cuts both ways: it calls us to keep our hearts alive, yet also warns of the peril of never learning to dwell. The challenge is not to avoid habit, but to fill habit with intention — to make the ordinary sacred through awareness and gratitude.

From these words we may draw this wisdom: love is not meant to keep its first flame forever, but to transform — from passion into trust, from thrill into reverence. When routine becomes death, it is not because love has failed, but because the soul has stopped attending to its mystery. Every day, the wise lover must look anew, speak anew, touch anew — not as repetition, but as ritual. Surprise does not come only from change; it comes from seeing what is already there, with awakened eyes.

So, to those who would learn from Lemmy, let them neither worship passion alone nor fear the quiet endurance of love. Let them choose to be surprised by the familiar, to seek depth rather than novelty, to breathe wonder into the hours that might otherwise pass unseen. The heart that can do this will never grow old. For though infatuation may fade, and habit may harden, the soul that tends its love like a sacred flame — rekindling it with gratitude and curiosity — shall find that passion, far from dying, rebirths itself eternally.