Number 25 Trying to get a handle on LOVE

I have for as long as I can remember been dealing with some kind of love connection, I think.

I remember being head over heels in "love" since I was a little boy. I loved girls and still do, or do I just like girls because they look pretty, or smell good, or do I like the sounds of their voices? What is it that makes us think that we are in love, or that we love something or some person?

Do I really love LOBSTER or do I just like the taste of lobster more than chicken or pork chops? Do I love the smell of roses or is it that I just like the smell of roses more than honeysuckle? Do we really have the foggiest idea as to what love is, or do we really know if love actually exists? Maybe, we have just become accustomed to using the word "LOVE" because someone in our past made up the word and tried to explain what love felt like to him, then we started relating the word to how we felt. The way you feel may be much different from the way I feel when we think that we are in love, so if we both are in love but feel different does this mean that love is manifested in different ways?

Do you think that we might not have a good idea as to what love really means? After all, I love Jaguars, I love a lot of flowers, and I love a lot of people, I love a lot of music, I love a lot of smells, I love a lot of tastes and I love the way a lot of things feel, but maybe I don't really love anything. Perhaps I just relate to some things more favorably that other things. How can I say that I love anything or love anyone?

Can love actually mean many things. Can love be measured in many degrees such as "I love you more", or "I love peaches more than I love apples"? Do we actually just love something or do we not love at all? Can we turn this feeling that we call love on and off like a switch? Can we analyze a person or thing and decide that we love it more, or that we love it less? Can we decide to not love anything at all?

I have often wondered if love is a form of spirit that decides to penetrate a person at times and then at times decides to abandon this person? If this is so, then, I question why would love abandon anyone? I further ask, do I myself have the capacity to decide to fall in love, or am I powerless to this object of love or object of desire? Do all of the objects of desire or objects of love possess power over me? Can I with valid thinking rise to a level of rational thought and decide for myself whether I shall fall in love, or turn and walk away from it?

When a person believes that he or she has fallen in love, is this feeling conditional or unconditional in nature? If this 'object of love' changes his or her personification toward the negative does your feelings of love diminish? If this object of love starts showing a side of themselves that you find difficult to tolerate, and they are not willing to change does your capacity to love become diminish, and if so, does this indicate that your love is conditional? And if your love is shown to be conditional is this feeling of love more likely to be a selfish desire? If it is a selfish desire do you really believe that your feelings are true love, and what is more important, do you feel that this selfish desire is worthy of your object of love?

Perhaps it is more wise that we not try to understand love because I think that it might be as difficult for you to comprehend infinity, or God.

I believe that I am deeply in love with my wife even though there are times I feel like shaking a knot in her rear end, and I know that she has similar thoughts about me. I do know that I am deeply attracted to her in many ways but are my attractions to her a mark of my selfish desires? Did it just so happened that she and I met and both of our selfish desires became a compatible match? Only time will tell if the match will hold up as she and I change as we grow older. I truly hope so.

I think that it is important to try to understand love because I think that the closer you get to understanding it the better your chance is at surviving a love relationship.

I know that my marital history will show that, obviously, I am a slow learner in the area of love, but it will also bare witness that I have continued the search for the answers defining LOVE. I am not a quitter.

I believe that Love, even with little understanding, is the greatest pastime of all.


Finton