There is no bigger mystery package out there in the world than being a teenager. Between bouts of acne, growth spurts which refuse to come and major life decisions which could possibly affect the rest of our lives (college, anyone?), both Shakespeare and Freud are sure to have fun field days with any 13-to-19 year old out there. [incidentally, I have no idea if that sentence was even, in the remotest sense, properly constructed.]
The most tragic teenage dilemma in my opinion, however, is presicely that which refuses to affect us years after we pass the great two-decades of trying to figure out how to survive. 5, 10, or 20 years down the road, I highly doubt if our hormone-driven existential thoughts which are now keeping us up until 4 in the morning will have some great and profound effect in our lives. What we are now thinking of, or considering to be love, or not love, will definitely change and grow. However, our (or at least my) fixation with finding a clear distinguishing feature between infatuation and love will, time and again, keep me up till the wee hours of morning.
I truly believe that we all go through this during our teenage years- you know, trying to find out for ourselves what love really is, or what it really means. It's just that while most people will learn it the empirical way, I elect to stay at home, read and observe, and try to uncover some fundamental truths through my musings on theoretical and hypothetical situations. Tonight, this is what I uncovered, and, as usual, there are more questions than answers:
"Love is just a term made to attempt to define an amalgamation of feelings and behaviors we generally find pleasurable. Affection, caring, kisses goodnight, sex, never-ending conversations, dinners for two, diamond rings, kisses in the rain, staying up until morning on the off chance that you will be needed, and a whole list of things we enjoy and cherish, all are brought down to a simple four letter word to save us from having to enumerate such a long list each time. It's easy enough to fall in love, or even to stay in love primarily because its definition is perfectly malleable, and is dependent only on the one feeling it.
In some ways, it becomes a matter of self-esteem and self-confidence, doesn't it? If you feel that what you are and where you are at a certain time is the pinnacle of devotion or what-have-you, then it is more than justifiable to say that you are in love, no? But then, at the other end of it, if you feel that there can be more, or more importantly, that love is an ever-elusive goal exemplified by some perfect sacrifice that can never be truly attained by man, then are you really in love? Can you even ever really be in love? The prefixes we love to add to love-- filial, unrequited, puppy, platonic, romantic, etc. etc.- do they in a way try to justify or truncate that which we feel?
If someone you know is in love, and is in a very different definition of love from what you have, does that subtract from the quality and possibility of your experiencing the same emotion? If you love different people for different reasons, is it really that bad? You can love your family one way, and your friends another- why not love one person for a set of reasons, and another for a whole other set?
What's to say that it is wrong to devote yourself to two completely different people or ideas based upon the idea that "your heart is meant for one"? She takes care of me when I'm sick, He doesn't mind my morning breath, She has me like a puppet on strings. If the definition of love is as intangible and indefinite as we have proven it to be over time, then so must its forgiveness and leniency to acceptance be.
Moreover, if we must believe that our emotions are justified by what good behaviors come out of it, then we must equally accept the subjectivity of our morality. If at the very end of it, she rests on your bare shoulder at 3am in the morning sleeping peacefully and happy, or if he wants to be a better person by virtue of your being there at his worst, then no one should subtract from the value of your behaviors, ergo, your love. right? If you are both male, or if she is significantly younger than you, is it so much the fault of your "augmented sense of morality" as it is (or should be) the fault of society's conventions? If, at 30, you gawk at your definition of love at 22 (and maybe even what "infatuation" you may have had with your then girl/boyfriend), does it discredit what you felt and experienced once upon a time?
On the other hand, as George said in My Best Friend's Wedding, if you're chasing someone and no one's chasing you, should we get that no good deed will come out of this? Is this behavior therefore not one born out of love? If this is so, then what do you have of Michaelangelo's depiction of the ever-reaching god? of Florentino Ariza's chasing Fermina Daza in Love in the Time of Cholera? of the millions of poems written over the thousands of years that we have known language, dedicated to unsung muses meeting Dante in Paradiso or uniting Florante and Laura?
Is love dependent on the person receiving and (hopefully) reciprocating our desire and affection, or is love borne out of our own perspective and opinion? Ironically enough, I believe that we operate only within our own constraints and are free insofar as we allow ourselves to be free. We define what love means to us, and dispense its elusive fulfillment only to ourselves.
No one can ever know of love but the person who is in love. Have I, by my own definitions, ever been in love? Do I know what love is?"
The most tragic teenage dilemma in my opinion, however, is presicely that which refuses to affect us years after we pass the great two-decades of trying to figure out how to survive. 5, 10, or 20 years down the road, I highly doubt if our hormone-driven existential thoughts which are now keeping us up until 4 in the morning will have some great and profound effect in our lives. What we are now thinking of, or considering to be love, or not love, will definitely change and grow. However, our (or at least my) fixation with finding a clear distinguishing feature between infatuation and love will, time and again, keep me up till the wee hours of morning.
I truly believe that we all go through this during our teenage years- you know, trying to find out for ourselves what love really is, or what it really means. It's just that while most people will learn it the empirical way, I elect to stay at home, read and observe, and try to uncover some fundamental truths through my musings on theoretical and hypothetical situations. Tonight, this is what I uncovered, and, as usual, there are more questions than answers:
"Love is just a term made to attempt to define an amalgamation of feelings and behaviors we generally find pleasurable. Affection, caring, kisses goodnight, sex, never-ending conversations, dinners for two, diamond rings, kisses in the rain, staying up until morning on the off chance that you will be needed, and a whole list of things we enjoy and cherish, all are brought down to a simple four letter word to save us from having to enumerate such a long list each time. It's easy enough to fall in love, or even to stay in love primarily because its definition is perfectly malleable, and is dependent only on the one feeling it.
In some ways, it becomes a matter of self-esteem and self-confidence, doesn't it? If you feel that what you are and where you are at a certain time is the pinnacle of devotion or what-have-you, then it is more than justifiable to say that you are in love, no? But then, at the other end of it, if you feel that there can be more, or more importantly, that love is an ever-elusive goal exemplified by some perfect sacrifice that can never be truly attained by man, then are you really in love? Can you even ever really be in love? The prefixes we love to add to love-- filial, unrequited, puppy, platonic, romantic, etc. etc.- do they in a way try to justify or truncate that which we feel?
If someone you know is in love, and is in a very different definition of love from what you have, does that subtract from the quality and possibility of your experiencing the same emotion? If you love different people for different reasons, is it really that bad? You can love your family one way, and your friends another- why not love one person for a set of reasons, and another for a whole other set?
What's to say that it is wrong to devote yourself to two completely different people or ideas based upon the idea that "your heart is meant for one"? She takes care of me when I'm sick, He doesn't mind my morning breath, She has me like a puppet on strings. If the definition of love is as intangible and indefinite as we have proven it to be over time, then so must its forgiveness and leniency to acceptance be.
Moreover, if we must believe that our emotions are justified by what good behaviors come out of it, then we must equally accept the subjectivity of our morality. If at the very end of it, she rests on your bare shoulder at 3am in the morning sleeping peacefully and happy, or if he wants to be a better person by virtue of your being there at his worst, then no one should subtract from the value of your behaviors, ergo, your love. right? If you are both male, or if she is significantly younger than you, is it so much the fault of your "augmented sense of morality" as it is (or should be) the fault of society's conventions? If, at 30, you gawk at your definition of love at 22 (and maybe even what "infatuation" you may have had with your then girl/boyfriend), does it discredit what you felt and experienced once upon a time?
On the other hand, as George said in My Best Friend's Wedding, if you're chasing someone and no one's chasing you, should we get that no good deed will come out of this? Is this behavior therefore not one born out of love? If this is so, then what do you have of Michaelangelo's depiction of the ever-reaching god? of Florentino Ariza's chasing Fermina Daza in Love in the Time of Cholera? of the millions of poems written over the thousands of years that we have known language, dedicated to unsung muses meeting Dante in Paradiso or uniting Florante and Laura?
Is love dependent on the person receiving and (hopefully) reciprocating our desire and affection, or is love borne out of our own perspective and opinion? Ironically enough, I believe that we operate only within our own constraints and are free insofar as we allow ourselves to be free. We define what love means to us, and dispense its elusive fulfillment only to ourselves.
No one can ever know of love but the person who is in love. Have I, by my own definitions, ever been in love? Do I know what love is?"
4 comments:
If you were to summarize that entire entry in one sentence, would it be something like:
"just love, don't attempt to understand. love just is."
Hillary Duff reference? XD
hmmm... maybe. based on this entry, I can't discredit you for thinking that. HOWEVER if I were to summarize this into one sentence, it would probably be:
"go ahead and love as you want to love, because I can't define what love means to you- nor you for me"
ps. you wrote two sentences :D
GOSH DARN IT.
what?
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