Thursday, 12 May 2011
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Love in Action
In a recent comment-discussion about the meaning of love, several people agreed that love is more about action that it is about emotion. To love is a verb, after all. A doing word. You can say you love me all day long, but at the end of it, what are you willing to do for that love?Last night John and I were slurping noodles at a Vietnamese restaurant and watching people pass by on the sidewalk outside. The conversation evolved from living in New York to the peculiarities of city-living in general, and how everything that surrounded us at that moment was entirely man-made.
Then John said: "Isn't it kind of scary to realize that you could potentially live your whole life surrounded by cowards, and never even know it? Because nothing really tests people anymore. We don't have to do very much in order to survive," he said, lapsing into silence as we watched the waiter hand a plastic bag to a man who had come in for take-out.
It's true - unless you're signing up for the military, there's not a whole lot of danger inherent to modern life in the US. We need to eat, so we go to the supermarket and pay for food with the money we made at our job, where we have to wear a uniform or a blouse or a tie. It's not like humans have any real predators, other than each other and the occasional display of wrath from Mother Nature. Here we are, bumbling about at the top of the food chain.
"You could be married to someone for twenty years," John went on, "and think you know them inside and out, think you know without a doubt that they would lay down their life for you, if they had to. But more likely than not, they'll never have to - so you could live your whole life married to a coward, someone who would desert you at the last second, when it really counts - and you would never know."
Hooo!
Has your love ever been tested in a real way? What's the most meaningful sacrifice a lover has ever made for you, or you for them?
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About the Author
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- From: ThatBirdisAbsurd
- About Me: I just moved to New York after studying and living abroad for five years in Canada, Europe and India. One amazing thing about being back in America: knowing EXACTLY how to say what you want to say, RIGHT when you want to say it. English makes dating a lot easier.
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Comments (10)
It has many times. I think love as both an emotion and a action word. Of course it has, but not in the most favorable way but it has happened. A lot of times, my bf has stuck up for me with his family despite their threatening words.
My boyfriend pushed me out of the way of a car that didn't stop while exiting a freeway. He got hit instead and then the car drove off, but she stupidly parked in the school parking lot where all the people parked for the dorms and we knew that since it was like 11pm. We were walking to get food haha. So, anyways, we found her car and called the cops and blahblahblah. I'm pretty sure that was proof enough that he would sacrifice his life for me. I could probably learn a thing or two from him when it comes to standing up for our relationship when people put it down due to the distance or to how they think our personalities are too different for each other.
My boyfriend is in the Navy and we met in high school but started dating long-distance six years after we graduated. We both made the effort to visit each other but then I offered to move to the town he's stationed out of, and I said I'd just get a roommate. He instead said we could share an apartment, even though we knew he'd be on deployment shortly after I got here.
I moved here and he went on deployment ten days later. So I dropped everything in my life to come be with him, and he's paying for half of an apartment he wouldn't need if I wasn't here. It's not really a life-threatening sacrifice, but they're pretty huge sacrifices/commitments, I think.My bf dumped me when shit got hard so I question all the time how "real" the love he professed to me was. At the end of the day, I don't want a fair weather friend. I have plenty of those already. To me, love starts as a feeling but more often than not, it's a choice. You have to choose to love your partner at their best (which usually is easy) AND at their worst too (when it becomes harder to love them). What you invest your time, money and energy on is where your heart is and if you won't invest in the person you supposedly "love" then you don't really love them at all.
my boyfriend and i were several hours out in the mountains once when we saw a mountain lion running. we both instinctively tried to get in front of each other to block the mountain lion, as if it were charging us-- nevermind the lion was running the other direction, haha! it was a sweet moment none the less that we were both willing to fight a mountain lion for each other.
though, scouts training says we were both stupid - i should have sat on his shoulders and thrown rocks.
@haltija@xanga - ...I just wanted to say I love that last sentence. XD I feel like there's a metaphor in there, somewhere.
My boyfriend drove two and a half hours to see me for three hours. With the way gas prices are these days, that's love, ya know what I'm sayin'.
Hmm. Have to disagree. We are tested on a slower, more perpetual basis in regards to things that don't physically endanger us, but certainly destroy our sense of identity. Yes, a rattlesnake bite isn't really a concern for most people any more - however, that doesn't mean that our existential battles haven't gotten a little more intense. We now operate in the same sort "comfort" that you'll find the writer of Ecclesiastes talk about. So, tests? We got plenty.
@thatsnotarealword@xanga - agreeed 100% Nicely worded too
@sunflowersforlove@xanga - that's such a cute story! I hope he made a great recovery!