Wednesday, 07 October 2009
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Love Is Merely The Go-To Term?
Love is about control. Control is everything. Whether it be unrequited or reciprocated, love is about control. Self-control, emotional control. For unrequited love, it is a matter of schooling yourself so that your eyes don't shine so bright, your smile isn't so wide. It comes down to how much you want to hurt when you're around that person who has gained your affections and then tossed you aside like a ragdoll; how much you want them to see. So shutting down merely becomes a specialist's tool of self-preservation and ultimately, control. When it comes to a love reciprocated, it is a game of self-control: be careful not to show how much you care about the other person lest you frighten them away, therefore control yourself and have it appear as though your affections are growing proportionally to the other person's.
However, love is not control.
Control is everything.
Therefore, love is not everything.
Scholars and poets have tried for centuries to describe what love is, how one should love, its origins, as well as the rate at which love should grow. "Love is not love which alters when in it, alteration finds" (Shakespeare).
Love is affection, but affection is not love. Love is the slowest form of suicide; it may not be deep but it is always true. Love is trust - trusting someone not to break you entirely even though you have given then such power, such control. You give someone such control over you even if you know that ultimately they will betray it. Maybe Orwell had been onto something in 1984 - not being alowed to marry someone you "love". It saves frustration, anxiety and in the end, pain. But would you come to love the person you didn't love when you married them? Or would it grow to tolerance? Maybe love is tolerance.
Love is when a woman who has been married to the same man for fifty years dies, and then five years later her husband follows because he literally cannot live without her. Is that love? Being so intoxicated by someone that they become essential for one to continue on with daily activities? Or is that obsession? Perhaps love is obsession.
Love is merely the go-to term that people use to describe a strong feeling for another person but are too caught up and blinded to try and determine what it really is. Love and loathe are probably the two strongest things that one person can feel toward another, and yet it is "love" that is thrown around so flippantly. Throughout history and time countless men have told women about their undying love and faithfulness, but also throughout time, men and women alike have lied. So does that, therefore, mean that throughout time, love has lost power and meaning? Yes.. and no.
Yes, in that it has lost meaning because as time went by, as the centuries changed love has been taken lighter and lighter. Where once a sign of love was a woman giving herself wholly to her husband on their wedding night, it is now a trifling matter of whether or not she will swallow.
No, in that it has not lost its power. Love has always had the power to steal the breath from one's lips, and shake the foundations on which they have built their defenses, and cause one to make rash decisions that may be regretted later.
It is not fleeting or fickle, it is steadfast and strong. It is a fairytale told by mothers to their daughters. It is never giving up even when it seems all is lost. When you would rather nurse your broken heart than keep the pain at bay by running on hatred.
Love is about control. Control is everything. Love is Sacrifice. Obsession. Tolerance. Understanding. Abstract. Fear. Lie. Truth. Pain. Transcendental. Blind. Timeless. Short. Long. Real. Fake. Love is love...
A calming oasis in the desert of life.... Am I just a cynic?
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About the Author
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- From: TakenAVowofSilence@xanga
- Name: Kirstie
- Location: Stow, Ohio, United States
- About Me: It's not important to me whether you are a dreamer, a writer, a painter, a gas station clerk, or if you're living off food stamps. I don't give a shit if you're a hippie or a half assed hipster, an athiest, a devoted Christian, weathy, dirty, Catholic, homeless, Jewish, Buddhist, a smoker, a drinker, clean or shy. I will not judge you. It doesn't matter to me how extensive your vocabulary is, which independent films you've seen, what books you read, how high your IQ is... I will still open the door for you, I promise. And I will let you sit near me if another seat is unavailable. Even if you don't like what I believe in and even if I disagree with some of your ideas, I will fucking respect you. I will offer you some common decency, and not because it's right, and not because you deserve it, but because that is what makes sense to me. I'm a shadow. Neurotic, opaque and drunk with fascination. I'm your friend, and you don't have to impress me, because I'm not here to impress you.
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Comments (18)
I think you've got it all backwards.
Love is everything.
Control is an illusion.
@brokenheartedboi@xanga - I agree.
third.
I fourth the above said.
Fifth.
the self control thing is ideal because one does not want the other person to get a restraining order because he/she felt the other person is a crazy stalker. love is wasted sometimes to those undeserving of our love and that's where unrequited love chimes in. love is simple. love is complicated. love fills my heart with joy. love fills my heart with pain. love hurts. love is sweet. be prepared to endure everything that comes along with it. love is constant. love is fleeting. love is immeasurable.
Beautifully written post, I agree with most of it. Its difficult not to because it portrays conflicting views over and over.
About control though... Love can also be freedom...
ditto
@brokenheartedboi@xanga - agreed.
Love is everything. Love is serving another with happiness. Love is wanting to be a witness to someone else's life, and to be a participant, not just a spectator. Love is sharing. Love saves. Love forgives and is altruistic. Love is putting your heart on the line and trusting that the other person takes care of it, so yes, love can lead to ultimate pain but the good parts are worth it, I'd say.
The love you're describing seems to hint at one that is unrequited to a female. That's only one kind of love, there are many more.
Anyway, I think you're talented in the way you write, but I'd have to say, I don't think I've read a more wrong post on Xanga.
"Love is not fusion because fusion is quickly confusion. Love is not you and I losing our identity. To love is "I am I and you are you. And we come together - you are different from me and we can love each other and we can be one body in one family."
"Love is not just to do something for someone - love is not a sort of sentimentality and kissing each other and so on. Love is to enter into covenant - to know that you accept me as I am, that you see my gift, but also that you see my wound. That you won't abandon me when you see my wound, that you won't just flatter me when you see my gift. But you accept me as I am with all that is fragile, all that is broken, all that is beautiful, too."
- Jean Vanier
I think love can be simply be described as acceptance of a person.
It always seems to end up being that love in its entirety is nothing more than a four letter lie...
@brokenheartedboi@xanga - wow, none of us have to even reply anymore, this is the best answer!
beautifully written!! relate to everything you said
Without love, what is the point?
Sort of funny - I read through your post and was surprised when you ended it with, "...am I just a cynic?"
(I thought it was just a very well thought out entry about love - careful thinking that most people should do anyway haha)
Anyway, I remember reading in a book the quote, "Love is a greedy toddler that knows only the word mine."
And this all sounds very possessive and negative, etc. Because we are taught that "love is not merely possessing someone like property."
But of course - one does not have to mean "mine" in that same way. The lady climbing up in social status who married her CEO husband would think of him as property in that way. Whereas a couple who genuinely "love" each other could just as easily say to each other "mine" and mean all sorts of wonderful things by that.
Anyway, when it comes down to it - when two people are together, and they make each other happy, and they want to continue to make each other happy - I conclude that is the simplest answer that one can give as to what love is. That each one is each other's drug.
And when some conflict arises, they do their best to work it out with each other so they can continue using each other for happiness.
As to what someone else posted - love can also be freedom. It's when you're not afraid to show affection anymore because everything is out in the open.
True, there's always the great debate for when to say "I love you" - and the controls that people exert so that they do not say it so soon that their partners would be scared off by it. Controls that, in a sense, have been put there because every time people feel infatuated by someone (which does not necessarily mean they just want to have sex with the person - infatuation goes all the way to 'I want to marry that person and be with that person forever even though I just met this person' etc.) they feel that that is what love is and that they need to say it. But you don't (haha). If you can show someone you love him/her by acting what you think is what someone who loves someone else acts - and you can communicate your own wishes for the other person without ever having to say "I love you" (until after 6 mos.- to a year), it shouldn't be that big of a deal.
However, the big thing to watch out for is that everyone talks about love in that "is this real"? Like it's some magical thing that the gods bestow upon two people when it is something formed - or rather, you make - but it should be easy to make (personally, I think a lot of people are too immature for relationships in the first place).
Then again, everyone knows that already - some are just too impatient -
Some try to twist everything - all the "signs" to make it "real love" (like how it happens in the movies). Sigh.
Hopefully my rambling made some kind of sense and I did not seem to uppity up.
@brokenheartedboi@xanga - well said.
I agree with you on a lot of this. But I already know I'm a cynic.
People think love is nothing but beauty. But I know love is what keeps people in abusive relationships. I know love makes people do things that are detrimental to themselves. The fact is, love has an ugly side to it. Whether people want to choose to believe it or not, it's true. The proof is all around. Love can be beautiful and love can be ugly.
@brokenheartedboi@xanga - Love is not everything. Well, it is to some people, but it shouldn't be. Like my previous example, is love everything in an abusive relationship? Because if that's true, then I guess that person should stay no matter how many bones get broken. Love is important, but it should not be everything. People ruin their lives by making love everything.