Relationships and the dangers of modern ideals
Morbid I know,
I am sorry to write this blog at this time in the height of summer when everyone should be spending it with their special someone enjoying the warmth both externally and internally. But these words need to be written and the message told. Humanity uses love like an excuse, they think of it like its some fleeting, object you can pick up and use and give away to whomever.
Modern ideals have told us that we cannot control love and that we can't be blamed for what it does and yet let us look at the truth. We've heard it being used as an excuse too long when someone breaks up with someone they say "Well I just don't love you anymore" or "we fell in love it just happens" if another person is involved. I know the idea of monogamy sounds bad in this day and age and maybe its not the human way but then maybe its us and our use of the word.
Firstly let's look at the definiton of love (here is the definition according to the oxford english dictionary)
NOUN
mass noun
-
1An intense feeling of deep affection.
‘babies fill parents with feelings of love’‘their love for their country’- 1.1 A strong feeling of affection and sexual attraction for someone.
‘they were both in love with her’‘we were slowly falling in love’
- 1.2 Affectionate greetings conveyed to someone on one's behalf.
‘give her my love’
- 1.3 A formula for ending an affectionate letter.
‘take care, lots of love, Judy’
- 1.4 A personified figure of love, often represented as Cupid.
- 1.1 A strong feeling of affection and sexual attraction for someone.
-
2A great interest and pleasure in something.
‘his love for football’‘we share a love of music’ -
3count noun A person or thing that one loves.
‘she was the love of his life’‘their two great loves are tobacco and whisky’- 3.1British informal A friendly form of address.
‘it's all right, love’
- 3.2a loveinformal Used in affectionate requests.
‘don't fret, there's a love’
- 3.1British informal A friendly form of address.
-
4(in tennis, squash, and some other sports) a score of zero; nil.
‘love fifteen’
This is just from the use of the NOUN section, what should this tell us? That we as a species are getting lazy with our use of the word, we've applied it to mean almost anything, this here is the first problem, generalization. Secondly meaning, if we try to understand WHAT a person means when they use the word love we can easily attribute it to a number of different but similar feelings, desire, lust, adoration as examples.
Maybe its time grew up and took an objective look as to the reason the word is being used instead of being lazy and using it to either keep someone, want sex or just see them as someone close. We need to establish what IS love and what circumstances make it happen. The first to consider is family, now most of us (if we are honest) would say we love our family members, does that mean we want to have sex with them, I'd hope not. Sometimes we even utter the dredded line, "Sis I love you but..." but as my parents wisely pointed out, love, and by extension marriage, isn't about just the good but also how we handle the bad within love so really there is not but in that example sentence. Now what other situation would precipitate love, in my opinion that is only in a single circumstance, when one find their soul mate and the cycle continues, in making the family. What should this mean? That love should be reserved and kept as the ace in the hole, not as a means to get laid or to keep someone around but when the feeling is genuine.
This here comes to the other point, I believe Love (rather than lust, desire, adoration, etc is first a foeremost a neutral emotion for as I said it is meant to encompass the good and the bad, but also it is mutual like a chord between two people, both feel the same and that becomes obvious when you see couples in love, they don't even have to say it, a keen eye can see the signs. Subtle hints like behaviour, mannerisms etc
Now here comes where older ideals and even what people call archaic ideas play a part, I am sure you've heard stories of people dying of broken hearts and might have thought "Boy what a bunch of cry babies" maybe you thought they committed suicide and blamed them for being dramam queens or attention seeking but oddly enough here are some details regarding what is being known as broken heart syndrome
https://heartmdinstitute.com/heart-health/broken-heart-syndrome-stress-heart-disease/
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/Cardiomyopathy/Is-Broken-Heart-Syndrome-Real_UCM_448547_Article.jsp#.WU63-zLytjU
These are a couple of examples that indicate the stress caused to the heart under times of intense......well strain. A loss has been known to case intense tramua to the heart muscles just like is one exercises too much on another other muscle and tears it.
So now I bet you are wondering what I wrote this for and why is he bringing this up?
Well the answer is simple, we, as a species, either need to accept our anti monogamous ways but remove love from the equation and stop using the word or we relearn what love is and when discovered stick with it, no matter what the problems faced. IIf people want mutiple partners but another doesn't, that should be a sure sign there is no love. If there are other requirements on ones time thn love then there again is a sure sign that the love is strained (if it existed at all). So yeah here I am on a rant, saying humanity needs to own its shit, we are either a polyamourous species or we are monogamous species and therefore need to behave accordingly. Do a believe there is ways to romantically love more than one person at the same time? No Do I believe there is more than one CHANCE to? Yes but again if you truly loved someone would you want to hurt them? No. So for all the cheaters out there with your excuses let me ask you this, would you allow yourself to be hurt by someone if they are meant to love you? No then don't do it to them.