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ShaDragon,

I'm sorry that it took so long for me to get to this. I'm afraid your post got caught in the crossfire. It's time I addressed you.

Certainly, Love is a great equalizer, because once you love someone else truly, how can you think they are any less than you? How can you hurt them? How can you wish them anything less than the best?

And yet...this is not the only kind of Love there is. Certainly, for a romantic love, this might work, like two horses drawing the same carriage, going on together towards a common goal.* I hope everyone gets to experience that.

But there is also the Love between a mentor and a child, or a teacher and a student, where one is greater, in a certain way, but instead of dominating they lesser, teaches them. There is a definite Love that connects the two, as the onee looks up and theother down. And the Love that passes there is as great a lesson as any that might happen otherwise.

Another example is the Love between a mother and her child. A selfless Love that defies all odds, all obstacles, that might even kill her. I've always thought that that Mother-Love is the first that most of us experience, and I was lucky enough to get wrapped in that Love. It is that that first teaches us Love. From her, we learn to receive, to ask for help. It's really a shame that some people think that they need to "grow out of" that Love, as if it is beneath them. It isn't. Sometimes, even the strongest of us need help. Even the Mountains.

Love and Vale,
~Leavaros Dapple

*paraphrased from Robin Hobb's The Liveship Trader Trilogy

You could say that. But...I don't really think it would be true. I think, if you immersed yourself in it, lived in it, breathed it in...I think you would find that it is more than an easier way. I think you might just find that it is a better way.

In any case, I hope all is well with you. Again, regardless of whether or not you need me, I'm here, if you want to talk.

Love and Vale,
-LD

If you lack love, then take steps to cultivate it. You can love without having an object--just live and love.

Don't be ridiculous, Lion. Life will never be easy, even with Love. If anything, it's a challenge to find something you really Love about someone that you could easily despise. But the difficulty doesn't change anything really--Love is worth the effort: gives life the things that really matter. Joy, peace, honesty, kindness, beauty in those things--Love just makes things bettter.

And as for the remark on "practical uses for Love" I disagree entirely. If we Love one another unconditionally, we could eliminate bigotry, sexism, homophobia, naturalism (sounds like a good thing, but isn't), cruelty, and war right off the bat, while encouraging peace, trade, humanism, environmentalism, and enlightenment. A world of Love is one where humans stop their petty disputes and work together towards a brighter tomorrow. And a certainly better today.

It is your reluctance to Love that makes it seem as if there is nothing at the end of that drop. You don't have to give yourself over entirely, or all at once, to Love. Love is a thing that takes time to grow, to take shape, and is rarely entirely one-sided. Trust is a thing that you will have to learn if you will ever truly embrace Love.

You wouldn't be the first to say that the "weak" needed to be "weeded out". But, you know, those people may very well be the artists or poets or writers, scientists or mathematicians, teachers or civic employees--and together, the weak are strong. Certainly, war has never delivered on its promises to keep the peace--why don't we try a new way?

Diving into a world filled with Love may seem unpredictable, but it's better than living in the same ruthless patterns that we have before. Lion, open your heart, and see that I speak true. You aren't broken--not really. Just tarnished and beaten up a bit. But you can be polished and buffed, and, if you let yourself, you can attempt at walking down a new path, and see where it takes you--you wouldn't be walking alone. I'd be there with you, every step of the way.

Love and Vale,
~Leavaros Dapple

Wolfsbane,

I love you, so here I'm going to warn you that Lion has something of a temper when he feels he's being ridiculed. He has already made up his mind about what he will listen to, what he will try. All any of us can do is be there for him. No matter what happens. That, my Wolfsbane, is perhaps the truest way we learn to love--by example. And that, dearling, is a Lesson entirely its own.

But that's not to say that I don't agree with you. There is a healthy pride that has its start and completion in Love, the kind that makes a father smile, or a mother cry. The kind that unfurls like a flower to the light, and creates beauty and happiness in simply being. Pride, that wild and unconditional feeling that says, "I love you, for you, and I'm happy with you just the way you are." And you know? I think we could all use a little more of that too, that best form of accepting someone.

How many lives could that little pride save? How many people would stop feeling depressed if they knew that someone felt that for them? If someone loved them that deeply? How much hurt and pain and anger and sorrow could be eased by just a single dose of that pride?

These are questions that are not mine to answer.

Love and Vale,
~Leavaros Dapple

Yes, ShaDragon, it isn't easy to Love when that Love isn't returned, but I think you might find that while it may be difficult, you can always find something about everyone that you can really Love. And who knows what could come from that Love?

Don't be sorry--I don't really care about your orientation. And there are Loves that know no gender, like those that know no age, or time, or looks.... In some ways, I do love you. Like a student, or a young friend, despite your age. I love your tenacity, in that you haven't yet stopped talking to me, your purity in that I can tell you anything and you'll know I don't mean it in an improper way. I feel pride in how far your poetry has come, and how strong you are to reveal so much of yourself to those who may very well never meet you. And none of that requires gender, or sexual relations.

I think you may find that you can still Love your affianced friend that way, distantly and kindly. Let her know that she can come to you without regrets, if you think you are strong enough. I probably wouldn't be, if it were someone I liked. But...you have a purity to you that I don't. I think you could be a great source of strength to her, in her coming days.

And on a final note, I don't think your "too nerdy". Your nerdiness is a part of you, and...it's kind of grown on me anyway. I can't imagine you without it. (Though I can see why girls might find it cute.)

I hope I helped.

Love and Vale,
~Leavaros Dapple

ah, no, you haven't insulted in any way,

i may misinterpret love myself, though i'm learning to see in other ways, Leavaros, i will try to see as you see though it may not go deep enough and yes i have already let her know she can come to me, i told her the moment i found out she was engaged,

I learn through trial and error, though i love another way, i hope that one day I'll be able to see through love as you do LD.

also to wolfsbanemoon don't apologize for any insults, i count non, though some may see it as a insult and to them i say "it is how we learn, through ourselves, and through others"

also LD. I've kind of opened up since i've started working, telling people stuff about me that i normally wouldn't helps me come out of the depressed mood i've been in for years. so whether it be pm or in the forums, i thank you for every chance.

. . .YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! EVERYBODY'S JUST A LITTLE BIT HAPPIER NOW!!!

It's moments like these I live for whee

I love you both 3nodding

Blessed be forever,
-Wolfsbane

Ah, you bring up a good point, Elv, as always.

What is Love? Well, as with most things, it can only be described as what it is definitely, and what it is defiinitely not. And what comprises it.

Love is the thing that breeds kindness between people, and mercy. Love is the thing that restrains you from hurting someone else, even if it hurts you--so, no, I would say that someone who made the choice to cheat on her boyfriend, and then lies about it isn't exhibiting Love, she's exhibiting lust, and then guilt.

Did you read my journal, Elv? It certainly seems so. I had something where I very briefly discussed the origins of Love. And you are right, respect, admiration, and trust are absolutely necessary for almost all kinds of Love. The only ones exempt from this are the Loves of parents, or at least, so I have learned. If anyone has something to add, or to the contrary, please, be my guest and enlighten me.

Yes. Love requires all of those things to exist, just as a tree needs water and soil and air and light to exist. Some Loves, as written above, don't even require some of these--they just are.

And just as, over a long period of time, a single plant can diversify and multiply, until a whole forest exists, so too, can Love. And just as a tree can grow and flower--or bear cones, etcetera--so too, can Love, in the right environment, when everything is in it's proper place, unfold its beauty, and that beauty lies in the truth of the Love.

And Love changes everything it touches. As a rose unfurls to the light, it attracts bees, and those bees bring birds, and those birds bring cats, and each Love invites a new Love to begin, each as different and as beautiful, as the last, but increasingly more complex.

And here's the most amazing thing to me, Love, like a forest, will eventually enrich the soil's composition, and the air's, and the water's. Eventually, rivers may cut a path there, and expand in new directions. And all of this, too, as experiencing Love over a long time, will expand the scope of new Loves that may come to exist later.

And in the same metaphor, I could bring up the "completion" of earlier goodnesses too. It's all related and interrelated....

So I wouldn't fret so much over not understanding Love--I don't fully understand it myself. But it's something worth exploring. Because, while you are correct, Elv, in a way, that a person can "live" without Love, I would say that the Earth could "exist", without plants or animals or humans. But I think we both know that would be an empty half-truth if ever there was one.

And finally, I will end the metaphor by saying that, when Love is experienced, it is like the birth of a sentient race--because while it is good that there are Loves in our world, it is better when we can see it, and smell it and, yes, touch it too. And understand it. And in that understanding, and in the beauty of that understanding, we find the final two gifts of Love that I know of: Thanksgiving in all that we are, and all that we have, and all that we have had, and Rejoicing in everyone else's Loves, because--and you are completely right, in this--no one Loves the same.

And that, Elv, is beautiful, and true, and good.

Thanks for the question.

Love and Vale!
~Leavaros Dapple