That Old Sappy Love Song
I am a total sap.
I don't know what precisely it is about a good love story, what just turns on inside of me when two people who are destined to just be together finally realise it and somehow-despite all the odds-wind up in each other's arms, but there's something good in that. A good love story is one that I'm willing to hear over and over, never quite fully able to get too much of that good thing. If it's a book, I'll read it again; if it's a video game, I'll play it again; if it's a movie, I'll watch it again. I cannot help it; I'm a romantic deep down. I am a total sap.
I think some of this fawning over such a classic storybook love, the great persisting human fantasy, comes from this well of hope within me, this hope that perhaps, if I happen to be lucky enough, that I too might experience the joy of such a storybook tale even though I keep telling myself that I don't deserve such a thing to happen to me. No, I don't expect some real-life princess to tap me on the shoulder and invite me to some regal ball. Hell, I don't even expect that fantastical person to even be all that princess-like! Someone who cared about me for who I am and loved me deeply would be sufficient to be just like the princesses in those old fairy tales for me. After all, isn't that what the fairy tales are about? Princes and princesses, royal balls and glass slippers, all of that is mere plot device, a mere exaggeration of metaphor for what the tale is truly about at its core: finding someone to whom you can relate and with whom you could live all your days. Such a feat perhaps is one of life's greatest endeavours.
Truthfully, I believe that if everyone in the world were able to grasp such a concept and even experience it themselves-as if somehow everyone in the snap of a finger were to find that special soulmate this very moment, I do think that the world would honestly be a better place. While it would not eliminate hatred in the world, at least certainly it would greatly diminish that negative trait from our day-to-day concerns. If nothing else, the love that such a thing would bring to every man and woman would at least distract us from hating that driver who cut us off on the highway, that coworker across the hall that won't stop using speaker phone, that acquaintance who is very adamant in some opinion with which we disagree, or those "horrible" people who worship to a different deity. For at least for this magical moment, this pretend moment, the love we experience would cause that hatred to dissipate if only temporarily, and everyone would stop focusing about themselves, dedicating themselves solely to someone else, someone whom they serve instead of expecting everyone to serve them.
Perhaps this is why I cling so tightly to that ideal embedded within my sappiness, why I relish the notion of love-both romantic and platonic-so passionately. Not only am I simply enjoying the feelings of the moment, those temporarily lapses and distractions within the intoxicating smell and taste of love, but I am also serving another, and through them experiencing my own happiness that another could never truly give me on their own... and perhaps, perhaps by this very simple act, that feeling might propagate and spread throughout the world like a plague, infecting everyone over the course of time, hoping that the world can find itself in a better place because the people of the world simply wish it so.
I don't know what precisely it is about a good love story, what just turns on inside of me when two people who are destined to just be together finally realise it and somehow-despite all the odds-wind up in each other's arms, but there's something good in that. A good love story is one that I'm willing to hear over and over, never quite fully able to get too much of that good thing. If it's a book, I'll read it again; if it's a video game, I'll play it again; if it's a movie, I'll watch it again. I cannot help it; I'm a romantic deep down. I am a total sap.
I think some of this fawning over such a classic storybook love, the great persisting human fantasy, comes from this well of hope within me, this hope that perhaps, if I happen to be lucky enough, that I too might experience the joy of such a storybook tale even though I keep telling myself that I don't deserve such a thing to happen to me. No, I don't expect some real-life princess to tap me on the shoulder and invite me to some regal ball. Hell, I don't even expect that fantastical person to even be all that princess-like! Someone who cared about me for who I am and loved me deeply would be sufficient to be just like the princesses in those old fairy tales for me. After all, isn't that what the fairy tales are about? Princes and princesses, royal balls and glass slippers, all of that is mere plot device, a mere exaggeration of metaphor for what the tale is truly about at its core: finding someone to whom you can relate and with whom you could live all your days. Such a feat perhaps is one of life's greatest endeavours.
Truthfully, I believe that if everyone in the world were able to grasp such a concept and even experience it themselves-as if somehow everyone in the snap of a finger were to find that special soulmate this very moment, I do think that the world would honestly be a better place. While it would not eliminate hatred in the world, at least certainly it would greatly diminish that negative trait from our day-to-day concerns. If nothing else, the love that such a thing would bring to every man and woman would at least distract us from hating that driver who cut us off on the highway, that coworker across the hall that won't stop using speaker phone, that acquaintance who is very adamant in some opinion with which we disagree, or those "horrible" people who worship to a different deity. For at least for this magical moment, this pretend moment, the love we experience would cause that hatred to dissipate if only temporarily, and everyone would stop focusing about themselves, dedicating themselves solely to someone else, someone whom they serve instead of expecting everyone to serve them.
Perhaps this is why I cling so tightly to that ideal embedded within my sappiness, why I relish the notion of love-both romantic and platonic-so passionately. Not only am I simply enjoying the feelings of the moment, those temporarily lapses and distractions within the intoxicating smell and taste of love, but I am also serving another, and through them experiencing my own happiness that another could never truly give me on their own... and perhaps, perhaps by this very simple act, that feeling might propagate and spread throughout the world like a plague, infecting everyone over the course of time, hoping that the world can find itself in a better place because the people of the world simply wish it so.