Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
How true.
Because never to love at all, is to be denied the greatest feeling of all.
To be loved?
Oh, that's easy enough.
Doesn't take much to accept someone's love.
You learned to do that as a child.
Accept a gift? That's not hard.
But to be loved can be a brackish gift. Because to be loved, when we do not love, is the love of the lotus eater.
We suck it in like a drug, demanding more.
And when we accept love without loving back, it deadens us. And the gift we thought would satisfy us turns to pain.
What we thought was a gift, becomes a burden.
To love and be loved, 'tis still easy.
To be a happy couple bargaining love.
To give and to receive.
But never forget, you get paid.
Do you really believe in Love?
Or just a bargain?
You cannot know the total Euphoria.
The most perfect of sensations.
To love with all your heart and soul.
To bow down in reverent awe before the object of your devotion.
To be prepared to devote your life to one person.
Regardless.
And when they make you feel small, when they spurn you, when they show you that your love for them means nothing,
When you walk away and let that bittersweet pain wash over you,
and you can turn round and look them in the eye, your love for them undiminished and everlasting.
The feeling you have then, is the most perfect of all feelings.
And if you can feel that once in your life, about one person at least, then you are redeemed.
This I believe.
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11 comments:
You have just described unconditional love. I think I have mentioned before this is the only real love!
I see. Guess there's hope for me yet.
Not a particularly optimistic post...
The feeling you have then, is the most perfect of all feelings.
Don't kid yourself Crushed. To be cast aside by a person one loves is the most devastating feeling in the world and it is very unlikely that your love will be undiminished.
I hope it never happens to you because if you can say that it never has.
Love is a billion dollar word. It can mean so many things. It can also mean so many combinations of things. It's interesting how often people throw the word around as if it were so much simpler than it is. Certainly its components can be broken down into simpler things if one has the patience and tenacity to do so but so few take the time for that and that's okay.
In looking for the most perfect of all feelings one would have to define their idea of perfection. Also they would have to ask if they've yet experienced all the feelings that can exist. And how would you ever know?
I can say that the realization of a very fully consolidated state of loving elements between two individuals produces a wonderful pleasing feeling. But I can say with undeniable experience that there are feelings that blow even that away; that completely change your life and leave you feeling like an utterly new person. The state I allude to is rarer than mutual love but actually more accessible. It's just not on the radar for most people.
My only point is this. You don't have to believe what I say. But keep the possibility open. Don't limit your vision. Don't think that mutual love is the ultimate goal or you might miss out on something greater.
Cheers,
Crushed, I re read this post several times. The object of love you describe, showing the behaviour you describe; “ when they make you feel small, when they spurn you, when they show you that your love for them means nothing”, is surely the reverse of the coin you showed us earlier in the post when you say “ to be loved can be a brackish gift (maybe experience talking here?). Because to be loved, when we do not love, is the love of the lotus eater.”
If you want to adore someone then surely the “most perfect of all feelings” would be if you had all those feelings you describe towards someone who did care about you and cherished you.
Sure find someone to worship, if you are happiest worshipping and adoring, if that is your most rewarding expression of love – but if it is not to be destructive in the end, then for goodness sake, it should be a goddess who will ruffle your hair affectionately while you sit at her feet and give you kisses. ^_^
CherryPie- I have, I know. I agree, if it doesn't fulfil the criteria described, it isn't Love, it's just in infatuation. Or an obsession.
I think real love is BOTH those things, but it has added elements, platonic desire and total acceptance.
X-dell- There's hope for us all, if we only learn to hope :)
Bunny- Depends on how you see it. One could say, being able to feel like this, is reward in itself. Anything else is a bonus.
If you love, expecting to be loved back, you probably don't deserve to be. If you love without expecting to be loved back, you DO get a reward.
But not always the one those in the first category would expect.
jmb- 'If you only love those that love you, where is the reward in that?'
Christ died out of love for those who rejected him.
The beauty of the feeling IS in the pain- that's the point.
It's in the huge sense of hurt and rejection that forces itself through you as the tears well up in your eyes, but the real pleasure as in the reflex action as you feel yourself fighting that and suppressing your own subjective sentiments to realise that your own subjective sentiments have no bearing on the objective facts that make you love that person.
The pleasure is in taking the pain they give you and in STILL returning it to them as love.
The pleasure is in rising above the bargain, turning the other cheek and kneeling before them in total subjagation.
It is in knowing you have grasped that most elusive of human conceptual ideals, absolute devotion.
FWG- I actually know what you're talking about.
And I agree wholeheartedly :)
Moggs- Well, I guess so. Yes, I am talking from experience. Ultimately having someone love you, is USUALLY a burden, in fact. Or so it's always proved to me, at least in the sense described here.
Been there, done that, got a wardrobe full of T-shirts.
As regards your last two paragraphs, I guess that's where faith comes in.
Because it IS an act of faith, like a belief in the afterlife. And if what you describe comes to pass, it's kind of like going to Heaven.
It's a bit like Pascal's wager.
What a beautiful post.
There is something delicious in just being overwhelmed in that sorrow, if only for a few seconds.
As I have stated several time before, I'm quite doubtful regading the statement "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
You simply cannot miss something you never had. and i'm with jmb here... sorry lad.
Well-written post.... but I'd still rather not love, if I have to lose, I think...
Princess P- There is, indeed. It is in the knowledge that you would rather be hurt by that person and endure it, than be loved by anyone else.
Crashie- Hardly, because in loving and losing you get to fight and win that most crucial of battles- the battle for yourself.
It gives you strength.
Eve- But the point is, you don't really lose. Being able to handle loving without being loved back, being able to totally supress your desire to own someone, and continue to devote yourself to them enables you to conquer yourself and rise above yourself.
It's a lesson worth learning.
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