08.04.04, 8:33 PM

Lately I've been redefining my holistic view of love. While it's true that the word gets tossed around pretty casualy these days, I think that as a society we grossly underestimate it's potential.

There are so many layers to it's depths. We love on so many levels... family, friends, lovers, selves, passions, ect and so on. Most of us (myself included here, folks!) concentrate on no more than one or two of those, and likely for selfish reasons. Typicaly the idea of self-sacrifice is palatable only to parents as pertaining to their children, and even those are rapidly dwindling.

So what about love anyway? Well, the essence of love is self-sacrifice. The desire of love is to uplift another at the risk of self. Parents know this desire for their children. In close families we know of this for siblings and cousins. A handful of people know this for their close friends. Most people never get past loving themselves, if they ever get that far.

So let's be hypothetical and whatnot. Let's look at love from a purely selfish angle. How many people do you think show you love? I mean REAL love? At most a half dozen or so, right? If you've got an awsome family like mine, it may be as many as a dozen. Still, that's not many. But the payoff is that you don't have to love all that many people, and let's be honest, the less self-sacrifice, the better, right? But let's take it up a notch... wouldn't it be nice if everyone you knew loved you? How about everyone in your school or workplace? Town? State? Country? WORLD?

Okay, now EVERYONE is willing to throw themselves in front of a train for you... pretty unrealistic, but that level of devotion would at bare minimum produce some positive results. Suddenly no one is cutting you off, or taking the last doughnut, or flipping you off because you forgot to signal, or sleeping with your wife, or stealing your money or whatever else they may be doing under normal circumstances.

Wouldn't that be nice?

It would be, but as we all know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

If you want to be loved, then you first must love.

WHAT?? Hang on there!

Yeah, that's what I said. And think on this: You know that guy you hate and think absolutely unlovable? Yeah, well he hates you too, so be the bigger man. Love him anyway.

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