CallaFirestormBW
Posts: 3651
Joined: 6/29/2008 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DomImus A couple of thoughts on this. First, this is a fairly common refrain that pops up when the subject of love is discussed. I have always considered the "you never loved if you no longer love" angle to be a cop out. Just my opinion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and sometimes the most effective tool for communication is the phrase "We agree to disagree." quote:
Secondly, do you ever really know someone completely? Or to rephrase, at what point can you be sure that you know them completely? Does a little buzzer go off somewhere like the timer on a microwave? Is it after a certain number of years together? Would Ed McMahon (if he were still alive) show up at your door with a certificate proclaiming such? I concede this point -- I think, though, that there has been, IME, a point at which illusion falls away, and the people in a relationship see one another for who they truly are -- no decoration, no pretense. To me, if you can embrace this person -- the one whose flaws are exposed and whose most irritating features are visible and noticeable, then that, to me, shows the presence of what _I_ call "love". Part of the problem, though, is that love is an 'undefined' term... or more accurately, an individually-defined term. So that opens up the definition of 'love' to anything a person wants it to be. Maybe we can't truly know another person -- I suspect that's probably true -- but I guess that, for me, I won't call it "love" until I know that I can embrace the person not -despite- hir flaws, but fully inclusive of them -- until I know the person well enough to be able to trust that that is the case, I suppose that I withhold defining what we have as "love", because, to me, it feels superficial without the capacity to embrace everything that that person has revealed about hirself, good, bad or ugly. Dame Calla
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*** Said to me recently: "Look, I know you're the "voice of reason"... but dammit, I LIKE being unreasonable!!!!" "Your mind is more interested in the challenge of becoming than the challenge of doing." Jon Benson, Bodybuilder/Trainer
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