Everything about Love - By: Khai
Love.. Love.. Love..
For you what is love?
Actually there are many different things each person can say about love, but here are some of those things I learned about love. Some of these things are taken from the book of Eddie Babor and most are my own opinion.
I know most of us have our own view and understanding about love and some are curious of how it feels to be truly in love. If I will be describing love, I would say " it's the greatest feeling man can have" because when I'm in love, I can almost do anything without hesitation for that special someone. It is love that can make a person to be off-guard and susceptible to receive pain. It is Love that makes us want to fall down and risk everything.
For me, real love exists when a strong feeling is balanced with respect because when we love and respect someone, everything follows: honesty, obedience, care, forgiveness, acceptance, etc. When i love someone, I will gladly accept pain just to see him happy, I would rather be a martyr than let my pride rule over me.
Love also has an element of Madness and it is mainly the ultimate reason why man conquers everything. Love really conquers all for it is a strong force within us that drives us to make things that seems impossible to be possible. As you can see the hanging Garden of Babylon and Taj Majal in India, these are concrete examples of love's power which drives man to break the walls of that is preconceived as ordinary or natural.
But, love also means pain and even death, for the madness in love does not always drive man to do good or positive things but it can also make a person destroy what he/she loves. Because love has an element of madness, poets tend to mention these lines:
"There is no mountain so high that love cannot climb and no ocean so wide that Love cannot cross" and
"There is no enough difficulty love can't conquer,
no disease that enough love can't heal,
no enough gulf that love will not bridge,
no door that enough love cannot oppen,
no wall taht enough love will not throw down,
no sin that enough love will not redeem/ forgive."
All these are said and written because many believed that Love really conquers all.
It will make no difference how deep the trouble may be or how hopeless the situation, how muddled the tangle and how great the mistake, A sufficient and clear realization of love will dissolve it all.
~ CHARACTERISTICS OF LOVE ~
1. Love is an Encounter.
Love is a call, a request or a plead which is addressed to human just like saying " Be with me". Love is really appealing and calls human to be with the other person. But we must remember that we will never be able to love anybody else unless we encounter to love ourselves, for love here seems to mean how much you could give of the much you have. It follows that you can never give love when you don't have love.
2. Love is Silent.
I really like this characteristic of love because I believe that love is so deep and silent, not even needing words to convey itself. many great things happen in silence and love is so powerful, so great and it happens in silence. Since love is silent, we can never impose an injunction or command to our heart to love someone for we only discover love in ourselves. That is why lovers, more often have no reason, of they find no reasons why they love each other. Love seeks for no reason and defies all reason. No wonder why Blaise Pascal once said that " THE HEART HAS ITS OWN REASONS WHICH REASON ITSELF CANNOT FATHOM".
3. Love always seeks for Unification.
It is a fact in human existence that everybody always want to be with the one they love. It is very painful to detach oneself from the beloved that is why we shed tears of goodbyes, particularly "goodbyes" caused by death. In a word, death is the most poignant antithesis of love for love indeed cannot afford to take permanent separation. It drives a person to be always with his or her beloved. To be unified with others indicates a person is deemed or hooked to love this other person that's why we cannot afford to hurt them since it is said that an genuine love cannot dare to hurt the beloved or "An Authentic love does not know how to do wrong".
4. Love is Giving.
Love is giving but not just a simple act of giving since IT GIVES NOTHING BUT THE SELF> I mean to say that lover experiences self-dying for the sake of the one they love. I believe that self-giving in the name of love is easy thing to do. If we truly love the person, we can sacrifice our own life for him/her. Self-giving is made manifest particularly in marriage and religious life. In this light, if one seeks to be loved, he has to give love first. But since as I've said earlier, man cannot give love if he has none, so he must acknowledge first of all that he/she is lovable.
5. Love is growth.
According to the famous ong of Nazareth " LOVE HURTS", yes, definitely Love hurts and love can make us cry. But love's nature is really like that. If love hurts, then we may convince ourselves that it's better not to love anymore. But, we must remember too that if we cease to love, we deviate ourselves from what is natural in us. Yeah, PAIN is just part and parcel of love, but it actually makes love grow. Growth is a result which can only be acquired in a painful process. In order for love to grow, it should not be abated nor be taken for granted. Communication is the best weapon to alleviate the pain, as the saying goes " When communication weakens , love gradually disappears."
6. Love is Action.
For love to be love, it must be expressed. Though words are powerful, love makes action more powerful than words. It is true that love is the impetus that drives us to act even beyond the limits of our capabilities. Some of us became heroes, others became rebels because of love. As the prevalent adage goes,"Action Speak Louder than words". When we say or promise something, we must do it since action is really important to prove our love to someone.
7. Love is Creative.
Love is creative in the sense that it finds its own way. it creates union of two unique person who are seeking for a new meaning of life. Love makes people discover things and reach for new heights and dimensions. Love is creative force that motivates people to be more productive. Growth therefore is the inevitable consequence of love as being creative.
8. Love is Mutual.
To love someone is a gamble, the gamble here lies with the very risk of loving. We all know and must accept that to love is not an assurance of being loved in return, for the truth that love cannot be imposed; it is a gift which is freely given to us. In some other aspects, it is a fact that most often, those whom we love are those who don't love us in return -- speaking of a romantic love. This is the irony of love. however, when two hearts meet, the heart of the "I" and the heart of the "Thou", there , love gets mutualized. But when the one you love doesn't love you in return, just continue living a happy life and don't lose hope for GOD prepared someone rightfully meant for you and you don't know, maybe that person who doesn't love you right now might love you someday. When you love, you must take the risk , just like the saying goes " it's better to have loved and lost than never to have love at all". We don't have fear rejection, we must be ready to be hurt and should not be afraid to commit mistakes coz through it you can learn many things and acquire self-growth.
9. Love is Supreme Value.
Perhaps, Frankl's analysis of love is the best explanation of love as the supreme value. Frankl started to explain love by analyzing that value is. He remarked that value neither drives nor pushes man but value rather pulls man. This act of pulling is best experienced in the context of love. Human persons are gravitated by love. This is everybody's experience. Seeking love in this way makes Frankl say that love is the ultimate and highest value to which man can aspire.
10. Love is Mysterious.
Not withstanding the aforementioned characteristics of love, one may still somehow claim that love can " never be captured in capsulized characterizations". So, one may further say that " it cannot be analyzed and dissected into components, because love belongs to those inter-subjective states which refuses to be fully caught and circumscribed in concepts. With this, one may infer that love cannot be objectively verified, but only acknowledged and alluded to, hoped for, and invoked. Since love is indeed a mystery, love is not an enigma to be solved but a revealed truth to be lived
11. Love is a Decision.
"Falling in love" is different from "Being in Love", the former is not permanent because the feelings just come and go. The latter, however, calls for permanence so that when one has decided to love, he must continue loving even the one he loves appears to be no longer lovable.
