Is it better to love or to be loved? This is a question that as a young girl I always answered with the later; For to be loved is to be cherished, to be made a princess, to be the center of someone’s world. Who does not want to be that? But if I am asked today my answer would be the former. I would much rather have loved and even lost to love than not at all.
To love someone was and in many was still is an abstract thought. Not only was it abstract but it was elusive too. For you see I was a cynic. To me love didn’t exist. My standard statement was love is a series of emotional needs that you project on someone and fulfill with that person. So basically fulfill the needs and you have found love. If the needs change and the relationship doesn’t evolve with that change you fall out of love. So for me it was better to be the recipient of someone’s affections. It was all about supply and demand, and if it was on offer and someone wanted to give me their attention love and their affection, then hey why not?!
But that all changed drastically the day cupid shot his arrow and hit a bull’s-eye. I was a casualty, still am, for I have entered a whole other world. To experience love is something I never imagined or dreamed of in my wildest, most cynical dreams. Something I theorized about, but never expected. And so the irony of ironies happened and the cynic became a fool. And to this fool, to love is to feel and experience the world at a whole other level. You go through all the colors of emotion. You become someone you never were. You ache in anticipation and pain, you soar in thought and fulfillment.
It doesn’t matter if you lose to love because, in the end, you become alive. Alive with every touch, sound, smell, taste and sight around you; the jasmine in the air, the silkiness of a cat’s fur, the sweetness of chocolate, the twittering of birds at sunrise, the sunrise itself all take on new meanings. You notice what was obscure. You emit an energy, a rosy glow that can only be love. To feel all that is to know there is blood coursing through your veins, you are alive.
So if I am to be asked today would I love or be loved? I would say I want both, and for the person to be one and the same. But life doesn’t always give you everything you want, and so I would choose to love. I would rather be alive with the love of another than burdened with the love of another.
March 12, 2008 at 6:33 pm
To love.
March 12, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Oh forgot to mention…Love sucks! Life sucks, so we need to get over it and move on with our lives….this is from someone who just got out of a long relation
March 12, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Everyone must have loved and have been loved, the thing is we might be inside it but never notice, or have some self neural programming effect from bad experiences in the past that acts like a vaccine against emotional driven reactions.
What I want to say is, love is a mysterious mixture of feelings that comes from both personal needs and chemicals with some help of a subconscious retrieving of memories. All of that makes the initial trigger for love called crush or attraction, then love is exactly what we do next. I believe that love is an action that we decide to take based on the emotions starting as a mandatory crush or attraction.
I choose to be loved, because then I can decide to go for love actions as a response when I can overcome the vaccine effect with less risk fears.
March 17, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I really think that the need or the crave for love is always there. However, after our first experience (which usually takes a form of a very callow relationship, during our adolescence) we are normally hurt. And thus, we start redefining our perceptions on love. Add to this, that TV shows, Valentine’s, sappy love songs, etc. all have contributed a great deal to commercialize love. So many of us (myself included) start throwing stones at love. Humans naturally tend to knock down things that may have resulted in creating unpleasant experiences as a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from falling for the same mistake again.
We start referring to ourselves as cynics, just because we do not subscribe to the commercialized view of love, although deep down we believe in it. I’ve found that cynicism has little to do with love to be frank. I’ve found that some people who find it hard to be with someone, or do not buy into the concept start referring to themselves as cynics. However, not being naive (and thus not believing in this teenage romantic view of love), does not qualify as being a cynic; get my drift? What I’m trying to say that the word cynic takes a more intellectual angle rather than an emotional one.
Anyway, just thought of finally stopping by and leaving a comment! Keep it up Shalabieh.
March 18, 2008 at 2:54 pm
We need to be loved or else why do we keep seraching for it. In the begining of the statement you said that love doesnt exist in your life, but you do love certain things in life. just as your cat, your firends, the spring;) But when the damn arrow hits us then khalas, u just fall in love, and love does take us to places we havent been there before. It lifts up, and it brings us down