Down the Rabbit Hole

Love is Madness and Courage

Day 2492--February 14, 2022
Prompt:
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
Lao Tzu
What are your opinions on the subject?

Loving someone means letting down the walls and opening the doors that we so often hide behind. It means taking a risk with our hearts and that grows exponentially harder the more times we have been hurt. Courage begets courage, I suppose that is what Lao Tzu might mean. I believe it is always harder to love someone than to be loved by someone...at least that has always been the case for me. It may be the case that I have forever been pulled toward difficult loves, that they are loves shrouded by challenges, compromises and complications. My loves have always felt harder than they needed to be but they have shaped me, ultimately made me stronger and braver in the end. On the whole, I would have to agree with with Lao Tzu here.


Blogging Circle of Friends
Day 3385: February 14, 2022
Prompt: What is your favorite quote about love? Why is it your favorite? Who said it?

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't have many quotes on love in my repertoire. I supposed I lived a large swath of my life in a jaded landscape of difficult loves and as such, I tend to be less romantic than some. I like to think I am a realist when it comes to love and so the Nietzsche quote appeals to me a lot. Love so often feels like madness itself. It can turn you inside out. One minute you can be deliriously happy and the next, you can find yourself lost in hopelessness. Sometimes I think that love is made to take us on a unforgiving up/down journey I think, because without those lows, maybe we could never appreciate the highs. There is so much we are exposed to today, so much potential to become desensitized that life seems most well-lived in the manic ups and downs...where we "feel" the very most. Otherwise, how could it be true that my most passionate relationships were also the ones that brought me the most anguish and pain? The line between love and hate can be so razor-thin at times. Love is a complex thing for a reason, it really does require more than just largely commercial holiday to honor it...