All the time, I hear people, when comparing life tales or discussing their experiences, talk as if they have been stranded in some isolated portion of the cosmos and whatever is occurring is only happening to them. But one of the biggest concepts we can grasp as human beings is how interconnected our lives and experiences really are. There's a good possibility that, if you're going through it, someone else has done so as well. It's recognizing this connection, and taking something from that recognition, that makes us truly human.
So I decided to start writing about things that we can all relate to. And the first thing that came to me was love.
Love is simply love. Or at least, it should be.
Chances are, if you've been living on this planet for at least a handful of years, you're experienced some form of love or another. Even the most miserable people manage to soften their heart for someone. But often we take love for granted, exploit it for selfish reasons, or never really grasp its power or potential, until it is far too late.
I've been in each of these instances, and have come to understand a life lesson that we all should embrace. Love is given, period. It shouldn't need to be reciprocated, returned, justified, validated, or any of the other one-sided things we are constantly guilty of doing to it. When you love somebody, like Nike, you just do it.
Now don't get me wrong. It sucks to love someone who doesn't love you back. But if your love is genuine, it still remains. Even when you can't be with a person you love, it doesn't erase it. I think one of the biggest flaws in the way we love is that we place expectations on it, which immediately diminishes it. I still have love for all of my ex's, even though it's not the same type of love. I still have love for family members who I haven't seen in years. Love can change. There's no law that says you have to love someone the same way forever. If you do, you're probably loving wrong.
I think this picture kind of sums it up. The heart is love, or our capacity of love, and the water represents all of our expectations and presumptions about how love should be. But the more we cover our love with those things, the more it washes it away. Until soon, we're left with nothing, except a whole lot of longing.
Love is a powerful thing. It motivates our actions, alters our moods, and factors into our measure of our life as a whole. But until we learn to love, wholeheartedly and without presumption, we are cheating ourselves out of life's most rewarding experience.
Love. Without exception.
Marcus Jamison, the Rare Poet
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