Now you sound like a sith...RAKtheUndead said:
'Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.'
Listen to Yoda, youngling, else you fall to the dark side.
What is Love? Does it exist?
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'Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.'
Listen to Yoda, youngling, else you fall to the dark side.
I would take her away from you if i could...such a perfect relationship *cries*Daystar Clarion said:
OT: I believe in love but i disagree with the whole marriage thing. Im going to get married because if i love someone I'll prove to them that I love them and am going to be with them. I feel more as though if it wasnt such a society norm then it wouldnt be such a big problem. I feel that sometimes marriage destroys relationships and leaves people trapped. Im again not saying that marriage never works would be a bold faced lie. I just feel its unneeded. I can prove my love without being connected to this person legally. This whole paragraph is so contradicting to itself though!
i'm truly sorry to hear about that. i just lost a girlfriend because her mum died, which changed everything and brought all her doubts into the open - she stopped loving me. but i think the real reason was something different.Fawcks said:
in my life i've loved three people romantically, the first when i was 11. she was a friend of my sisters and she was simply like no-one i'd ever seen before. see, throughout my childhoold i lived in small villages around people who i could best describe as the british equivalent to rednecks. i lived with my older sister and our foreign, single mother. the cultural differences among everything else made us generally disliked and my sister took her insecurities out on me. all this and, i realised many years later, my dad's leaving (though he did/does keep in touch) gave me a desperate need to be loved and accepted which, of course, made me more and more alienated - while my sister was hated by her whole year, i was hated by the whole school. so for the first 11 years of my life i would do anything to fit in and deny all difference i had to anyone else.
so the first person i fell in love with was, of course, the exact opposite of this. she wasn't an individualist or anything stupid like that. those things just didn't matter to her so much. she (my sister's age) and her brother (my age) were both hated much like we had been but she handled it completely differently. she had even more insecurities than either of us and thought of herself as a "goth" (the stereotype exaggerates a lot - i don't know a single goth with that hypocritical delusion that they're "non-conformist" or anything. they just understand who they are and are comfortable (and, yeah, a little proud) with it.) anyway, this was exactly the kind of person i needed in my life. her personality was the perfect inspiration while her insecurity was the perfect thing to empathise with and want to be there through all the hardships etc. i constantly confessed my love to her for two years and she never reciprocated. she was sought after by everyone and while she would go out with practically every guy who so much as looked at her (and dumped them with in weeks, mostly) she never did the same to me. the optimist in me says it was because she actually gave a crap about me unlike them. i knew she'd given signals but neither of us acted on them.
so on meeting this girl, i changed myself completely and went through my first "rebirth" so to speak. though this was more like my first birth because i finally gave myself an identity. i became a goth and felt truly empowered. i still wear the clothes sometimes and it feels good but i'm comfortable with myself enough now not to have to do it often. and in the first year i was incredibly happy - it wasn't reciprocated but i was in love and she and i became close friends. after a while, though, i became more and more unhappy. she, my sister and their boyfriends made a sort of clique together and i was never really welcome. i became incredibly lonely and some of my old habits started to show themselves again
i was snapped out of my stupor by a girl i met who came on to me pretty much instantly and we started going out and fell in love very quickly. i was 13, she was 15 and we lost our virginities to eachother. i was too young and messed it up. i still feel that it was the right time for it in spite of that - i think i just had to learn that the hard way. after that i went into a guilt fuelled emotional lockdown for over a year. i knew full well it was totally my fault i'd ruined that relationship and it had been the first time i'd ever felt truly loved by a person. i completely shut myself emotionally. i couldn't cry and the worst part was that it was all just guilt for myself, not her. i was selfishly feeling sorry for myself. many times, i'd wanted to contact her and say how sorry i was for it all but it would have been for my benefit, not hers. i never got the balls to do it anyway.
it was then that i met my last girlfriend. we made friends quickly and fell deeply in love. this opened me up emotionally and triggered a second rebirth, (which i'm just starting to see the end of now). the relationship was filled with so many lessons i had to learn. it was a very serious relationship and there was barely a month where we weren't going through one crisis or another. we were together for over a year and it was filled with all these problems. yet the odd thing is i'm still glad i had it.
here's where i FINALLY get to my point, which is that i can't really define what love is but i have a theory as to why it's there. i'm a beleiver in interconnectivity and the collective subconscious etc. and i recently came to a thought. see, at the time of meeting my last girlfriend, i was starting to get into a lot of deep thinking and philosophy. this made me, of course more knowledgable etc. but also began to make me more selfrighteous and dogmatic. my last girlfriend is, in many ways, the exact opposite from me as a person. what i thought shouldn't be done, she did. what i hated, she loved. and i think i met her and fell in love with her because i neededt learn from her that things weren't as black and white as i thought they were. that thought got me thinking about my other loves, not just romantically but all other kinds and i realised that all the people i ever do/have loved in any way, from my family to my best friend to my girlfriends, i have always learned from. always.
so what i came to theorise is that we love and are loved for the purpose of spiritual growth, and intellectual growth etc. of course, it's always a two way thing - as they say "in teaching you will learn, in learning you will teach". that's why my latest ex-girlfriend is so perfect for me - she always says and does exactly what i don't want to see/hear, and that's what i need. so i'm glad we're still friends, even though i'm still in love with her (i guess i had a couple more lessons to learn about unreciprocated love lol)
sorry to spill my guts out on this but i think i needed to unload all this to the world one way or another. so for those who sat through this whole comment, thank you. it really means a lot
i'm 16 years old, single and, with no modesty, probably have more experience than many 30 year olds. i hope someone learns something from this too, in which case, my main tips are, watch the film "I <3 Huckabees" and listen to the band tool. they have both changed my way of thinking entirely.
Oh, I'm sorry, I just thought that since you're so dark and edgy you would be into that kind of thing.RAKtheUndead said:
It's the human name we've given to a collection of perfectly rational chemical and electrical processes making up our desire to spend time with and ultimately live with a person or persons.
That being said, the way it works (in a rational sense) is so far beyond our understanding at the moment that the law of "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" [sub]-Arthur C. Clarke[/sub] Applies:
As such, it may as well be an irrational thing for the time being.
A physicist would explain to you how (almost) everything we take as a 'law of the universe' is only a model we are using to best replicate the results given the variables. For example, how we imagine electromagnetic waves in the same way we do water. However, that this model doesn't work all the time, and we need to use other models to explain certain activities, shows us that the actual process occurring is not the model at all. We counteract this by teaching different models as science progresses, and as our ability to learn such science progresses.
This applies to love like this: we cannot understand the real thing, only model it - and at the moment our best model is that it seems to be irrational. This will change, and we will develop better, more accurate models that come closer to explaining the real thing.
In theory.
The problem with our universe, is that we're not able to understand it all: you've probably often heard that nobody really comprehends quantum physics - and the reason for that is that our minds are simple not able to deal with the concepts involved. We can have the knowledge that something is in two places at once, and we can have the knowledge that something phases in and out of existence - but if you try to picture what is (say, beyond the edge our our universe) you can't. It doesn't work.
Love may be one of those things.
So go ahead, take your pick =)
[sub]These are all just my thoughts, so I may also be wrong. Either way, thank you for reading them.[/sub]
That being said, the way it works (in a rational sense) is so far beyond our understanding at the moment that the law of "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" [sub]-Arthur C. Clarke[/sub] Applies:
As such, it may as well be an irrational thing for the time being.
A physicist would explain to you how (almost) everything we take as a 'law of the universe' is only a model we are using to best replicate the results given the variables. For example, how we imagine electromagnetic waves in the same way we do water. However, that this model doesn't work all the time, and we need to use other models to explain certain activities, shows us that the actual process occurring is not the model at all. We counteract this by teaching different models as science progresses, and as our ability to learn such science progresses.
This applies to love like this: we cannot understand the real thing, only model it - and at the moment our best model is that it seems to be irrational. This will change, and we will develop better, more accurate models that come closer to explaining the real thing.
In theory.
The problem with our universe, is that we're not able to understand it all: you've probably often heard that nobody really comprehends quantum physics - and the reason for that is that our minds are simple not able to deal with the concepts involved. We can have the knowledge that something is in two places at once, and we can have the knowledge that something phases in and out of existence - but if you try to picture what is (say, beyond the edge our our universe) you can't. It doesn't work.
Love may be one of those things.
So go ahead, take your pick =)
[sub]These are all just my thoughts, so I may also be wrong. Either way, thank you for reading them.[/sub]
First, Hadaway was the first thing that came to my mind as well. Second, Congrats on 7 years with the hubby! My wife and I are about to celebrate 3 years as husband and wife, as well as 3 months of parenthood (a lot more fun than some people make you think).Eleima said:
OT: Love, in the sense of "true love" with a partner, is being such good friends that you don't mind the foibles of the other person and just want to be around them all the time anyway. It means helping each other become better people every day. Basically, you accept the person for who they are, despite any quirks or "flaws", and want to be with them for the rest of your life.
The idealist in me says, "Love is handing the one you love a gun and hoping (s)he doesn't shoot."
Both the cynic and pessimist in me say, "Love is a joke without a punchline."
Science says, "Love is basically pheromones and adrenaline."
I say, "Silly rabbit, love is for idealists and kids."
Both the cynic and pessimist in me say, "Love is a joke without a punchline."
Science says, "Love is basically pheromones and adrenaline."
I say, "Silly rabbit, love is for idealists and kids."
Well, I'm married. What drove me to do it? I admire the person I married - I believe she is an exquisite person who deserves a man who treats her well. I decided that the only way I could guarantee this was if I married her and treated her as well as I possibly could for my entire life. It's against my human nature to do this if I have no personal gain ... and I can't say that there aren't personal gains involved, don't get me wrong. But when I married her, I made the very real decision and vowed to 'love' her, that is do selfless things to benefit her, even when she in no way deserved it. I realize that one day I might not feel the emotions often associated with love for her. But at that point, I'm going to keep 'loving' her, because that's what I committed to do and I'm a man of my word. In conclusion, what drove me to marry her? I wanted her to be loved for her entire life, and I wanted to commit to do that. Not for my gain. For hers. It's definitely counter-society right now, which generally encourages each of us to make decisions that benefit, at the very least, ourselves. The decision I've made to 'love' her is one that I'll keep even when I see no benefit for myself in doing so.Fawcks said:
It exists.
You either have to find it, or hope like hell it finds you.
How do I know this? Well, I've been in love. I just hope its something everyone can find.
You either have to find it, or hope like hell it finds you.
How do I know this? Well, I've been in love. I just hope its something everyone can find.
Did your parents throw you out into a gutter after you were born?
No?
Okay then.
(with apologies to all those who did have that happen)
No?
Okay then.
(with apologies to all those who did have that happen)
You are too pragmatic about this. Don't try to reason with all of your emotions and all emotional phenomena. If you do that you can't stop and have to conclude that your whole thought process is nothing more then a bunch of electrical signals flying across cells in your head due to a potential difference caused by a chemical inequality. And where does that leaves us at the whole, what's the point of everything?