Are *you* love?
With every sunrise and every sunset, people fall in and out of love. They fancy themselves caught in the crystalline lattice romanticized by literature and the media, when in reality 'tis naught but the sparkle of snowflake in one's eye--beautiful, but temporary. People enter into soliloquies when they envision their lives to be crumbling because the snowflake has melted into a drop of common water. They host pity-parties and wallow in despair, calling in the company that misery oh-so-loves, achieving nothing but to drag everyone deeper into the pit gloom.
If people lose their minds and sense of self after such shallow encounters made deep only by their desire for emotional (and perhaps sexual) gratification, then how can they deal with the real thing, the love that consumes one's entire being from the body to the soul? How can they transcend such states of infatuation and obsession?
There exists individuals in this world who choose not to go beyond this level of comfort (and discomfort, of course). These individuals happily flit from one shallow relationship into another as butterflies do flowers, each time declaring the latest to be better and more fulfilling than the last. Each time declaring the newest to be the real thing, whereas the others, each one of them a real thing in the past themselves, are naught but a means to ease the pain. History changes itself to fit the purpose and hapiness of these people... leaving one to wonder, How much of what I have been told is true then, and how much the product of a twisted process of bending truth-as-it-is into truth-as-X-believes-it-should-be?
There also exists individuals who, after experiencing a debilitating separation, choose to wait for the perfect partner and the perfect relationship before taking the plunge. My question to these individuals would be: How do you know?
Some love the concept of love, the idea of being in love, and so could not live with the fact that for the moment, they are single. They have to be in a relationship, and they have to be in one (or more) now! These individuals and the first in my little list may be one and the same, but not necessarily. The main difference between two such individuals would be that with the former, the choice to stay within the realm of shallow relationships is conscious, while with the latter, it's a hit-or-miss thing. If the latter chances upon the love-of-a-lifetime, then lucky lucky. Else, who cares?
There are more, but it seems I no longer have the drive to dwell on the matter.
I must come clean, though. I have shared my life with such individuals, and at some points in the said life, I was counted among them. I do not criticize... but I pity.
Love is more than the chemistry, the spark, the kilig. Love is more than just the overwhelming emotions that flood you when you are in the other's presence or company. Love is a choice. If you truly love, then you choose to love. You choose to work through problems, and you choose to stick with the other. If you are given the option to back out of the relationship and sever all ties for one reason or another, and you choose to leave, then it was your choice that it be not love. No matter how hard the other pushes, if you truly believe that it is love, then with all your heart and mind, no second-thoughts whatsoever, you will choose to be together, for better or worse. Til death do you part.
Saying the words is not enough. You have to do it. Live it. Be it.
If people lose their minds and sense of self after such shallow encounters made deep only by their desire for emotional (and perhaps sexual) gratification, then how can they deal with the real thing, the love that consumes one's entire being from the body to the soul? How can they transcend such states of infatuation and obsession?
There exists individuals in this world who choose not to go beyond this level of comfort (and discomfort, of course). These individuals happily flit from one shallow relationship into another as butterflies do flowers, each time declaring the latest to be better and more fulfilling than the last. Each time declaring the newest to be the real thing, whereas the others, each one of them a real thing in the past themselves, are naught but a means to ease the pain. History changes itself to fit the purpose and hapiness of these people... leaving one to wonder, How much of what I have been told is true then, and how much the product of a twisted process of bending truth-as-it-is into truth-as-X-believes-it-should-be?
There also exists individuals who, after experiencing a debilitating separation, choose to wait for the perfect partner and the perfect relationship before taking the plunge. My question to these individuals would be: How do you know?
Some love the concept of love, the idea of being in love, and so could not live with the fact that for the moment, they are single. They have to be in a relationship, and they have to be in one (or more) now! These individuals and the first in my little list may be one and the same, but not necessarily. The main difference between two such individuals would be that with the former, the choice to stay within the realm of shallow relationships is conscious, while with the latter, it's a hit-or-miss thing. If the latter chances upon the love-of-a-lifetime, then lucky lucky. Else, who cares?
There are more, but it seems I no longer have the drive to dwell on the matter.
I must come clean, though. I have shared my life with such individuals, and at some points in the said life, I was counted among them. I do not criticize... but I pity.
Love is more than the chemistry, the spark, the kilig. Love is more than just the overwhelming emotions that flood you when you are in the other's presence or company. Love is a choice. If you truly love, then you choose to love. You choose to work through problems, and you choose to stick with the other. If you are given the option to back out of the relationship and sever all ties for one reason or another, and you choose to leave, then it was your choice that it be not love. No matter how hard the other pushes, if you truly believe that it is love, then with all your heart and mind, no second-thoughts whatsoever, you will choose to be together, for better or worse. Til death do you part.
Saying the words is not enough. You have to do it. Live it. Be it.