Sunday, June 24, 2007

6/23/2007 How To Know If You're In Love

6/23/2007 How To Know If You're In Love



This is a question that I forgot to address in my earlier posts. Contrary to popular belief, it is not difficult to ascertain if you are in love.

First, you have to define love. There are two basic definitions of love. The first one is caring very deeply about someone. If that's the definition that you go by, then fine. All you have to do is take emotional inventory. How much do you feel you care about the person? Furthermore, this definition of love can apply to anyone and is not limited to a romantic context. Lastly, there is not guarantee from this definition that love will last forever. One day, the person you care about may violate your values and you will not love him anymore. Also, you may meet someone you care about more.

The definition of romantic love that most of us mean when we use the word “love” is the one the mistrals sang of in the medieval period. Love that is “meant to be”, two souls who were one in heaven and split to come to earth. Then on earth the two halves seek each other out. IF you believe this about your mate, then you are in love.

The dirty truth about love is that many people today simply lack the imagination to truly believe in such a concept. Thus many of us are incapable of love. The root of this lack of imagination is not education or modern science, but rather fear. And the cause of that fear is safety. While many of the previous generations had more danger in their lives and thus had to confront their fears on a daily basis, we in the modern world go days, if not years, without being physically threatened. We all would rather believe in the safe world of logic and rationality, it's predictable. But we soon grow bored. We long for the pleasure of our own belief, and we long for love the love we cannot have without belief.

No comments: