Love makes the world go round

Sunday, February 12, 2012

“IT IS better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” This statement, which was relevant at the time when Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, came to mind while hearing the words the leading character in the hit movie, My Best Friend’s Wedding: “If you love someone you say it. You say it right then, out loud, or the moment just passes you by.”

A person will never know true happiness until he has truly loved, and he will never understand what pain really is until he has lost it. This is the reason why love will never be out of fashion. It will stay forever. As Vincent van Gogh puts it, “Love is something eternal. The aspect may change, but not the essence.”

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Willi Hoffsuemmer tells the story of an intelligent young king who ordered all the learned professors of his kingdom to gather and write down all the wisdom of the world. They got right down to work and forty years later, they had a thousand books packed with wisdom.

The king, who had meantime reached sixty years of age, told them, “I cannot possibly read a thousand books. Reduce all that wisdom to basics.”

After ten more years, the professors reduced the world’s wisdom to a hundred volumes. “That’s still too much,” the king said. “I’m already seventy years old. Condense all that wisdom into absolute essentials.”

So the wise men tried again and squeezed al the wisdom of the world into just one book. But by that time, the king was lying on his deathbed. So, the leader of the committee summarized the condensed book to just one sentence: “People live, they suffer, they die. The only thing that outlives them is love.”

Everyone knows what love is. But to put them into words, love defies description. To Fernando de Pujas, “Love is a hidden fire, a pleasant sore, a delicious poison, a delectable pain, an agreeable torment, a sweet and throbbing wound, a gentle death.”

British actor Peter Ustinov defines love as “an endless act of forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.” Jules Renard compares love to an hourglass “with the heart filling up as the brain empties.”

“Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration,” penned D.H. Lawrence. John Lennon composed, “Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.”

The first book of Corinthians gives us a complete list of what love is and what is not: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Like death and taxes, no one can escape from love. “Love is within us,” Ernest Holmes pointed out. “It cannot be destroyed. It can be ignored. To the extent that we abandon love we will feel it has abandoned us. Denying love is our only problem, and embracing it is the only answer. Through the power of love, we can let go of past history and begin again. Love heals, forgives, and makes whole.”

When it comes to love, the words of author Emmet Fox is unrivaled: “There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem. It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble; how hopeless the outlook; how muddled the tangle; how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world.”

So, when you love someone, be sure to follow your own heart – especially if you intend to spend your whole life with that someone. Don’t listen to what others say. It is your love that is at stake, not theirs. So, when you fall in love, be sure you are in your right senses. Humorist Henry L. Mencken reminds, “A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses.”

In love, there is no such thing as age. A 70-year-old man can marry a 25-year-old woman or the other way around. Age doesn’t matter, so the say. French actress Jeanne Moreau was very precise when she said, “Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.”