Love. So many beautiful words were written and said about it. A lifetime is not enough to compile those words in a book. Actually words are not enough to thoroughly discuss it. Love is so mysterious that it's difficult for one to explain it clearly. And it is so great that the words of the gods would bend against it and it would even defy the laws of nature when felt. The greatest movies, novels, plays, songs and poems ever made have love as its theme. Love is so good that everyone wants to experience it completely even though we all know that love hurts, we still want it. We even quantify our love with the pain that goes with it. The more it pains us, the more we feel love, as we would often say.
Can love be measured?
“I love you”, “I love you so”, “I love you so much”, and “I love you very much” are words often said to express how we feel. Does saying “I love you very much” far outweighs the feelings of one who simply said “I love you.”? If it can’t be measured in words, how can we then quantify the greatness of our love?
A king and a pauper were trying to win the love of a damsel. To prove their love for the damsel, they were asked what it is that they would sacrifice for love.
The king said, “I will give up my kingdom and all the richness in the world and live the rest of my life as a pauper just to be with you, milady.”
“My love is greater than his, my princess,” said the pauper, “for you, my love, I will give the greatest sacrifice known to mankind - I will lose my life.”
Does the love of the pauper greater than that of the king? For sure, your answer will be a resounding "Yes" for we all have been told that no other love is greater than the love of one who loses his life for another. How can the love of the pauper be greater than that of the king who will be left with nothing but his life, if in three days time after losing his life, the pauper will live again and be king? Again, can love be measured by a sacrifice?
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 and it is not easily angered. It keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
Those were words written about love. What if it's love that causes one to envy? to think of evil against other people? to be greedy, to be selfish, and to be jealous? What if it is love that causes one to doubt, not to trust and to deceive, to murder, to dishonor parents, to steal, to commit adultery and to covet thy neighbor's wife? It is love that has launched a thousand ships and carried out a war that left a thousand children fatherless and a thousand women a widow, isn't it? Does love cease to be love when it is no longer good? When it is the opposite of what’s written about it? When we glimpse the light of love, we do not see its shadow.
Love wrecks a home, shatters one's dream, destroy someone's life and one would kill in the name of love; one would physically and emotionally hurt someone because of love; one would commit suicide because of an unrequited love, or because of a lost love. After a traumatic heartbreak, one would sometimes live a life in solitariness, afraid of loving again knowing how much it can hurt. A woman becomes a mistress to a married man. An illegitimate child was born when two people having an illicit affair had sex as an expression of their love. A teenage girl aborted her baby when she was gotten pregnant by her teenage boyfriend when they thought that having sex was the ultimate symbol of their love for each other. A boy raped a girl when she cannot love him back and he couldn't accept her loving another guy instead of him. A parent becomes corrupt to provide all the good things to his family because he loves them so much. Sibling rivalries occur to win the love of a parent. A friend betrays a friend in exchange for love.
Love is so powerful that it makes one drop his morals and loses his ability to distinguish between what’s right and wrong. Love would overshadow its own beauty and cast its own darkness.
Here is the greatest irony in life: Because of love, one hates.
