Answering this questions is rather difficult... for three reasons:
1. The subjectivity of the word "all" can be tested in too many different ways.
2. Individuals that do not fully understand the depth to all the variables of the equation will argue against its proofs.
3. Answering this question requires defining what man has been perplexed by since existence: love. Also a challenge I've been wanting to partake in.
A Quick Definition of True Love (through perspective)
The best, most easily understandable way I can define love is through an analogy. True love is like replenishment for your soul. Your soul is born with and intense sense of hunger, having faith that somewhere along the span of your life, you'll find it nourishment, that you'll find love in another person.
We are not born complete.
Some of us are more aware than others, but collectively, there is a unified understanding...that there is something missing. So the soul waits, and waits...and waits. Patiently. Until it feels something that can't be explained as anything but familiarity.
A lot of people ask, "How do you know when you're in love?" My personal rebuttal would be
if you have to ask yourself that question, then you're not in love. The most common answer would be, "When you know, you know," which can't be any more true. There isn't an easier way to answer that question because the feeling of love is so magnificent that there isn't any proper way to describe it.
Backed by that idea, it's more of, "Well, when your soul knows, you know." Because your soul, and love, are blind. They know nothing but themselves.
So when you meet someone that fulfills that hunger, you will most definitely know. It's not something you see, hear or physically feel. It disregards any things they can ever do or say to you. It disregards time and distance. It's something you know because your soul thanks you by taking away any sense of doubt.
No matter how we can all argue and speculate, love is the most sought after commodity known to man. It can only mean something to two people and cannot be traded for any goods, but the desire for it overshadows that of money or power at any instance.
But concepts of this complexity can't be compared to such trivial things. As clearly as I can try to depict it, I still have no honor in holding any credibility.
Love and WarSo what's love and war? Essentially it is the same thing. They both boil down to a deep passion for life, one being spiritual, and the other physical.
By instinct, man struggles to
stay and feel alive. When we all are fighting for the same thing(s), what is fair and not? Everything is fair game that lies outside the realm of being morally wrong, things that disregard basic human rights.
e.g. killing innocent babiesIs all fair in (true) love and war?
Yes.They are the two things in life that are absolutely worth fighting for.
At the end of the road, what do you have? A mansion? Endless servants? Status?
At the end of the road, what are you
missing? Substance.
When there is one ultimate goal, sacrifice is presumed.
True 
Comments (27)
Okay. So it's fair for me to explode the Earth as an act of war? Let me just go get my missiles...
damn, i gotta read your shit again?! lol jk :o)
Call me crazy, but I don't support the "war" part of that phrase. I don't know if everything is fair in true love. Maybe if it's mutual true love, but what happens when some crazy ex - who's really in love, but also very obsessed - starts fighting? That would resort to what I would suspect to be violent, uninhibited, passionate drama. And that's kind of leaning towards the "CAUTION! DANGER!" side. So maybe I'm one of the individuals who "do not fully understand the depth to all the variables of the equation." Sorry.
I do agree that knowing a person is in love isn't physically sensed. It's a sweet thought, but I'm impatient. Haha. I want to sense it, and I want to sense it now! I'm such a brat ;D.
Just on a little side note, I opened a fortune cookie one day and on the fortune, it said, "That special someone may simply be waiting for you." I thought it was cute. ...Until I realized that it told me my special someone is sitting on his butt, not doing anything. Come on, the one time I want the guy to take initiative, I'm denied? Sad. Hahah =].
@SerenaDante@xanga - war would mean a mutual fight between two or more people or groups of people. because they both agree with the fighting, if the other person or people do something as an act of fighting, then it's fair because they knew what was going on. so using your missile example, if two countries were in a war, then it would be fair to use a missile because the other country should be prepared anyways.
@ivarahBharavi@xanga - Uh, right... So what about all those wars that started off when people randomly got bombed in the middle of the night? Or when some idiots decided to crash a few planes into two towers? I'm sure everyone was prepared for that...
So, since everyone will be prepared for my random and uncalled-for attack on the world at large, then it's perfectly fair for me bomb our Earth to smithereens. Assuming that I'd have the money to do so.
Your ideas are so poetic.
Answer: No.
All is NOT fair in true love OR true war. We've got things like treaties, conventions, rules of engagement, NATO instituted weapons bans, UN imposed restrictions and other things I'm sure I'm forgetting to make sure that NOT all is fair in war.
Total war is a war of soldiers AND civilians. Innocent people dying because those who do care believe that the enemy lies even with the people you aren't fighting against.
No longer can one say that primal instinct rules, not here, not in our society. Our rules, our laws, our societal norms, everything that we as a people have come to identify as socially acceptable, should avoid being violated.
Sure, love is a powerful thing, but one can't use it to violate the laws in place. Because love is such an individual emotion(you defined it "through perspective"), using it as an excuse for doing brash and irrational things more than likely won't make sense to everyone else. Even if the crime of passion does ring true with many people, a crime is still a crime. All crime is is a violation of accepted societal norms and practices.
Justifying that with an emotion would then justify Hitler's mass slaughter of the Jews. It would justify Stalin's starvation of millions of Russians. After all, if all's fair in love and war, that must be okay, right?
@ivarahBharavi@xanga - War is defined as "an armed conflict against an enemy" and makes no mention of the enemy's willingness to participate, whether or not they ARE ready, and whether or not the enemy is equipped to deal with such an attack.
I remember one of my teachers in high school asking the class about nuclear weapons, atomic bombs, etc. and if they should be allowed to be used, stored, or exist altogether.
What I said was this: Why should war have rules? War is not a game. We're not talking about a game of football. War is about conquering the enemy, and if it takes nuclear weapons to win, then so be it.
Don't get me wrong--I'm not an advocate of war. In fact, I think war and killing innocent people for the sake of power is stupid. We're better off without war. But my point is that some people believe that, in the name of love and war, when there is something you want, what you do in order to get it doesn't matter. It's a common misinterpretation of Machiavelli's quote, "The ends justify the means."
You can look at people who believe in "all is fair" in two ways: They're either greedy and self-absorbed and will sacrifice anything to get what they want; or they're passionate, brave and determined to keep their eye on the prize.
Yeah I don't exactly agree.
Wow, I'm totally feeling this blog. I think I fit the description for being in love and I'm willing to fight for it if I have to.
@SerenaDante@xanga - @xxthatsmexx@xanga -
That's why he stated implied disclaimers.
@godofthelost@xanga - great response there.
i saw the title and immediately thought of the rules of war that most countries abide by. obviously you can break them, and it might be advantageous as well, but you end being frowned upon and that has major consequences down the line when there's a UN.
as for love, well, the saying is really just a saying that people use to justify their actions. it doesn't. their value of love simply outweighed their decency. they're not doing it in the name of "love" really, moreso for themselves.
nothing is fair in anything
I think in everything there is a price to pay for it:) whether in love or in war. regardless of whether we agree or disagree, i think in life things are fair..but just that people believe that they are unfair cos the things they treasure a lot, they do not have that.:) but it compensates in other places.
i'm one of those random ppl that believe all is fair?
whether you benefit or not is ultimately up to you, and keep in mind there are 6 billionish ppl on the planet we all share? yea.. now go for it! if ten million ppl are in front of you, then do something those ten million can't. STFU and keep fighting.True love isn't always fair.
War CERTAINLY isn't fair.
So, no. Not all is fair in true love and war.
well said
@Simply_Cynical@xanga - YES!
Poetic, yes, but you sort of talked circles around me and left me lost and alone. I think I missed the point, but it was an interesting time...
i'm not sure if people realize that it took me about 7 minutes to write this post... i bet it took some people longer than that to think of how to rebuttal
@SerenaDante@xanga - okay, well I never said that those wars are fair. or at least, from what I said, the starting off of the war, but once the other country starts attacking too, sure it is. it's still a war, and both sides are trying to win.
@godofthelost@xanga - okay, that's just the dictionary definition. dictionary definitions are also made by just certain people; they don't represent the thoughts and perspectives of all the people in the world. also, why limit yourself to definition? it's all about the interpretation. and even if the enemy isn't prepared, they probably did something to provoke the other side and cause them to attack them, so it could still be fair depending on the situation. not all situations are the same.
@ivarahBharavi@xanga - You said, "war would mean a mutual fight between two or
more people or groups of people. because they both agree with the
fighting, if the other person or people do something as an act of
fighting, then it's fair because they knew what was going on." Wars are not always comprised of "mutual fighting". Terrorism is an act of war, but it's definitely one sided. By your reasoning, I could attack someone because they were breathing the same air I breathe and they should be prepared because the act of breathing the same air I do was enough to provoke me.
You're right, definitions only represent the perceived meaning of a word to a set of individuals. If you believe that definition to be wrong or incomplete, talk to those in charge of writing the definitions.
If we don't limit ourselves to definition, what we perceive the word "apple" to mean could really mean to me is what you call a "grape". "The man went to the store." could really mean "The ants carried away crumbs from the picnic." It's all in interpretation, is it not?
War as a mutual fight between two people(or peoples),but one side obviously did something to provoke the other, making it fair. A schoolyard bully beating up some younger, smaller kid to take his lunch money is fair because the younger kid obviously did something to the bigger one to provoke him and he should have been prepared, right? All's fair in war.
A group of individuals decides that every single blue eyed person in the world should be killed because they have blue eyes and it makes this group mad. The group rounds up all these blue eyed individuals and start killing them off one by one. The blue eyed people should have been prepared for this! They provoked the group! All's fair in war.
I can come up with more. As you can see, definitions are important. Interpretation has it's bounds limited by accepted definitions. Stray too far from one definition, and it becomes another.
To "okay, well I never said that those wars are
fair. or at least, from what I said, the starting off of the war, but
once the other country starts attacking too, sure it is. it's still a
war, and both sides are trying to win." If a war is started unjustly, or without fairness, then one group might not actually be trying to win at all. That group might just be trying to defend itself from the onslaught.
If a woman is being attacked by a thief and she fights back, then the thief rapes her, is that fair? She retaliated, it's war, all's fair, isn't it?
All is NOT fair in war and, by the statement "all's fair in love AND war", not all can be fair in love either.
@dnuwin@xanga - Aren't you just so special. Your arrogance is astounding, both with this statement and in your post. All this proves is that you really didn't put much thought in to what you wrote, and it shows.
You make a lot of presumptions, and many points you make don't even pretain to the argument at hand.
For instance:
"We are not born complete." Says who? Oh, right. You.
You argue the existence of a soul. What proof of a soul is there? Only that you've said we have one.
"No matter how we can all argue and speculate, love is the most sought after commodity known to man." I can very strongly say that not every human seeks your definition of love, and I can strongly say that for many, there are things that outweigh this commodity. I can also argue that love is not a commodity, but a requisite for a proper existence. There are a lot of things wrong here.
Then you end it with a disclaimer that pretty much says, "but I don't know how to talk about what I'm talking about."
"By instinct, man struggles to stay and feel alive." Hack out the "and feel" part. Man does not struggle to feel alive until long after he struggles to stay alive.
"When there is one ultimate goal, sacrifice is presumed." Who's sacrifice, again? Or, can bystanders be sacrificed in the name of an individual's ultimate goal? Is a man driving to marry the one he loves justified in running over a small child walking through a crosswalk because of his strong desire/need/passion/attraction towards/devotion to/etc. love? All's fair, is it not?
No. Not all is fair in love or war.
@dnuwin@xanga - P.S. The correct verb you're looking for would be refute, not rebuttal. Rebuttal is a noun, not a verb.
"i'm not sure if people realize that it took
me about 7 minutes to write this post... i bet it took some people
longer than that to think of how to rebuttal refute"
Bold Italics is correct
Bold is wrong.
Just so you know. It would also still be a fragment. You're missing a subject.
@godofthelost@xanga - HAHA. life!