Shouts From Down Under

Love

Are we better people for having thought about, explored, written, said our piece, about love?

I love my country.



Some folks love tractors. Or potatoes. Or farming. Or work. Their job.

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YouTube gave me Haddaway - What Is Love. "Don't hurt me no more". Is this a clue that if you stop punching someone then that's it? That's Lerv? https://youtu.be/xhrBDcQq2DM

Love is only something if "you are here with me" and "if it's guaranteed" if you listen to V Bozeman. https://youtu.be/SRC6NEdSLIA

Can we express, even come close, anywhere near, what love really is?

Demanding that Google Define love!, I read this: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=define+love&oq=define+love&aqs=chrome..69i57....

deep affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, intimacy, attachment, endearment; devotion, adoration, doting, idolization, worship; passion, ardour, desire, lust, yearning, infatuation, adulation, besottedness
"his friendship with Helen grew into love"
compassion, care, caring, regard, solicitude, concern, warmth, friendliness, friendship, kindness, charity, goodwill, sympathy, kindliness, altruism, philanthropy, unselfishness, benevolence, brotherliness, sisterliness, fellow feeling, humanity
"their love for their fellow human beings"
relationship, love affair, affair, romance, liaison, affair of the heart, intrigue, amour
"he is confident that their love can survive"

and / or / also:

"liking, weakness, partiality, bent, leaning, proclivity, inclination, disposition; enjoyment, appreciation, soft spot, taste, delight, relish, passion, zeal, appetite, zest, enthusiasm, keenness, predilection, penchant, fondness
"her love of fashion"

Plus:

"be in love with, be infatuated with, be smitten with, be besotted with, be passionate about; care very much for, feel deep affection for, hold very dear, adore, think the world of, be devoted to, dote on, cherish, worship, idolize, treasure, prize; informalbe mad/crazy/nuts/wild/potty about, have a pash on, carry a torch for
"I love you, Rory"

That's a fair bit of stuff going on; a lot to think about and study, much to occupy our minds. It all seems so complex, yet love seems so basic and unstoppable.

Love can be gentle, and soft as rain. It can be steady, enduring, spanning immense passages of time, cross vast distance, encompass aeons of beings, flow deeply, strongly, powerfully, passionately.

It can withstand graffiti artists. It can repel and stop determined enemies in their tracks. It can bloom the hardest flint face with the flush of a change of mind, change of heart, redirected soul.

It can bond together until there is no seam, until there never was a join. It can overwrite history, change the past, occupy a future that hasn't happened yet, and remove a future when it is removed. When Love is removed the replacement material is darkness and something unspeakably lost. Loneliness.

Love can be also act like a giant tree stump that could bring a loaded speeding freight train to an instant cataclysmic halt.

Is this thing, is it when we can't be without someone, something? When we miss what might have been?



What is happening when the material that contains this thing called love, is torn?
How can something be so painful when we comprehend absence of it?



The online Bible is fairly clear what it is, containing 547 References to love over 19 pages.

http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1-John-4-8/

"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

Blame is heaped on God by people for bad things that happen in life. Example, the church shootings that occurred in Charleston yesterday.

That way of thinking doesn't make sense. And it underestimates who and what God really is, who we are, how small we are, and how little we understand the power of love.

I believe from the beginning that the only times disaster struck was when mankind took away love. As soon as love was removed and ended, trouble began.

Otherwise it isn't love, is it? You can't have it both ways. But apart from being everything good, what is love when applied on days when things aren't so rosy? Is that the source of people being disgruntled, murmuring against a God we barely come close to comprehending, even the ones, humans, you'd expect to know him intimately.

I could go on all day about that line of thinking. But there's already a book written on that subject that adequately sets out what love is, what it means, how to obtain it, how to use it, how to grow it, how to share it, how to increase it, how to cherish it, how to value it, how to love it. How to love love.

There are times when love does struggle to shine through. Humans happen. Mistakes. Problems. Broken people and situations less than ideal. But there's that cliché- "Love will find a way".

Example. Loving someone who can't remember.

http://www.adhdmarriage.com/content/non-rhetorical-question-how-can-i-apologize-...

Example. Loving people who can never return it. Something in us humans, perhaps it's love granted to us, gifted and poured into us, into you, into folks, so that they can continue to do things way beyond what is reasonable. People really put themselves out there.

Will you give your life for someone else's? It's easy to say, but would we do it?

For children, perhaps this is taken out of our hands. Mothers and Fathers know what it is to have unconditional love for their children. There is something autochthonous, primal, savage, instinctual, protective, that rises up like something out of Jurassic Park, when our children or other loved ones are facing some sort of harm.
The most timid and placid mother becomes a tower of ferocity, if her litter is threatened.



Love is so strong. Yet, there is another "entity"; is that the right term for it? This thing is shyness.

SHYNESS.

How can love be so strong, yet shyness so preventative, so isolating, so sapping of desire or purpose, so emptying of nerve and courage, that love can sit forever unrequited, unanswered, unfulfilled, futile, fruitless, useless, vain, unrecognised and barren.

There are human traits that aren't that profitable, namely: pride, jealousy, covetousness, anger, malice and all those barb wire peculiarities.

But shyness. This has to be the weakest appearing, yet most invisibly threatening attributes we can, sadly, possess.

Are we better people, better writers, for having written about shyness?

Is it a warning to act? Look at what can be missed because of being frightened, anxious, reluctant, shy.

I step up to admit I've had this debilitating reward thief, this pride and fear that rob people of happier futures.

I respect men (and women) far more readily that go out of their way to help someone shy to feel included, that don't treat that person as if they are being stupid, or that there is something wrong with them, or that they are acting.
It's a far greater heroism that reaches out to help those on the fringes, those on the periphery where they can easily be so discouraged they shrink away into the dark, to hide forever from attempting anything with reject potential, ever again.



http://www.wikihow.com/Overcome-Shyness

http://thinksimplenow.com/happiness/20-ways-to-attack-shyness/comment-page-1/

Old habits die hard. Love. Shyness.

They don't go together that well.

http://www.seducewithpersonality.com/why-we-feel-shy-around-women-and-how-to-ove...

http://www.shynessanxietyhub.com/are-you-shy-around-girls/

Anxiety is another subject I feel hardly able to write about without feeling anxious about it. Ironic.

Will talking about things like this, and writing about it, discussing it openly, will that help people get over it?
You know, if there's a shadow of a change of someone feeling more able for having read about it in something I've written, then yes! I will talk about it. The awkwardness can just take a flying leap.

One anxiety difficulty I've heard about recently is that of the bathroom. Stuff like this may seem comical, until you see a side of life that is a nightmare for someone. There's the slap up the chops. Not so funny now.

http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/signs/peeing-problems

How did I get here, from talking about LOVE?

Perhaps it is because I love writing. I love the idea of writing to help people. I love to love people. Seems simple enough in theory but not easy to do. Easy to say. Not easy to push through shyness and all the negatives to realise our deeper purpose, our deeper needs met.

It all comes back to love doesn't it?

I'd much rather write and think and read about love than the alternative, any time.






Sparky