“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
In my twenty-plus years, I have been privileged to meet a lot of absolutely wonderful people; absolutely wonderful and absolutely varying.
Meeting all of these people has enabled me acknowledge and create certain classes for which one can easily say, describes every last one them… including me.
Prior to hearing peoples opinion on this subject, I had nursed the certainty that there were only two ways people felt about love matters; a person either experiences the proverbial ‘blind’ feeling or they are ‘smart in love’ but no, its so much more complicated!
Anyway, based on their thoughts on ‘the issue’, I successfully categorised them into 4 distinct groups:
#1: Team NO-LOVE
The members of this group opine that “there is nothing like love but there is commitment”.
Try as I might, I find it increasingly hard to understand the logic behind this – why or how people arrive at a point where they can confidently draw such conclusions. It’s simple; those who say that there is no love have either not felt it (because they are not brave enough to let themselves) or have, but will never call that incredible feeling which love is, what it actually is.
For me, all attempts at dissociating love from commitment were/are futile - one births the other. In fact, when I think of the word commitment, another word quickly pops up; sacrifice. Why? Because to be committed to a person, you will jump huddles and crawl through tunnels for the success of that relationship. So is it possible to do this for a person you do not consider worthy – a person you cannot say you love? I doubt that. On the flipside, when you love a person, the emotion eases the gravity of the compromises one may have to make.
Before narrowing the different ideologies into four main groups, I encountered quite a number of people who were on their way to feeling this way… (feeling the same as team 1) they were of the opinion that “love may exist but it does not last, it brings people together and then it fades and so the most important thing is that the parties involved forge a stronger bond; one of understanding.” Now, there is only one problem with this group aside my obvious disagreement that love does exist; it is how people can live together solely on understanding. A million and one relationships are based on understanding; a boss and his employees, the relationship between colleagues, a master and his staff, a mistress and her maid and all these even at their best, fails outside of what they are because something is still missing. So how can a person say that all a relationship (one that is more than cordial) needs is just understanding? Is this perhaps a side to the ‘love is blind’ quote? That you may be standing right at the heart of it yet somehow you manage to miss it?
#2: Team ½ & ½
“Love is not what everyone thinks it is - indeed there is love but it is not that ‘bubbly feeling’, its wise and intelligent”
Up until today, I don’t think I have ever actually searched up the definition of the word love. I have had confidence that because it is what it is, one does not need a general idea to streamline the emotion they feel. It does not have to be what everyone has made it out to be to ascertain that it is what you feel. It has many faces and it generates a myriad of sensations; it could be that bubbly/age-old ‘butterflies-in-the-belly feeling that this group fails to ‘believe’ in, it could be a sudden surge of emotion; mostly passion towards something or a drive to do things or even do a thing better than you used to or a reason to be a different person than you were... there are different ways we feel love. The problem we make is trying desperately for ours to resemble the way other peoples’ look; when we should be more focused on sustaining the feeling that made you identify that person as special in the first place.
In some way, I see through the looking-glass this group views the subject and I am urged to understand but no...
