Is Love Enough?
Have you ever had a love dream?
Yes, several times. I’ve pictured being the ideal person for my ideal person in an ideal relationship, whatever that means.
It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?
Yes, it is, until it isn’t. You try to superimpose it on what you actually have and it becomes a living nightmare.
How does a love dream become a living nightmare?
We wake up, eventually, to reality and its natural, indelible flaws.
No one is perfect and no one should obsess over being perfect. There are too many things we cannot control. Worlds built of fantasies and fluffy hope don’t last.
Everything bends to what is real, and real is not always pretty.
Who wakes up first?
It doesn’t matter.
Wakefulness is powerfully communicable, spreading so quickly that the difference between waking times is almost imperceptible and absolutely insignificant in the scheme of things.
No one cares who woke up first when everyone is awake and struggling to accept the letdown of reality.
Should we fall in love?
No one falls into anything other than holes.
We make choices. We decide gradually or quickly. We hang in there or leave.
Love is a decision.
Should we choose to love?
Well, can you deal with what it means to love?
What does it mean to love?
Sacrifice. Leave your selfishness at the door.
In loving, there are more things to give up than you can count and your sense of self-preservation will fight you all the way.
See, we weren’t designed for selflessness, sadly, and genetics is a strong force. That sort of disposition is almost inhuman, hardly rational but it exists all around us.
Is love enough?
Enough for what?
Is love enough to keep (a) love going?
Love is enough to keep love going when love flows both ways. It’s not infinite. It needs to be replenished. Even oceans have inlets.
Love dries up without nurturing. And merely appreciating love isn’t nurturing it. Love needs to be loved back to keep loving.
Picture two self-aware people who have chosen to consistently grow beyond the natural state of selfishness toward mutual regard, conscious attention and the willingness to help each other. That’s a healthy, sustainable structure. There’s no magic, it takes work but it works.
Can anyone love?
Anyone can love, but some people can only love themselves.
Why?
I wish I knew.
Maybe genetics won, their souls can’t handle it or they don’t like people enough to try. It’s sad but that’s how it is.
Can love save the world?
Love has saved the world.
Life as we know it wouldn’t exist if there was no love. Love is, and will always remain, the saving grace of humankind.
Do you still have love dreams?
Sometimes. I’m not sure they ever go away.