So...Love

Arthur,

You never fail to amaze me.

Tom

 

gw, interesting how we pick out lyrics from songs. Thanks for sharing. I'm usually private about the lyrics I find haunting, possibly because I'd be embarrassed to share my feelings. So, then, on a continuum, are you more of a practical man or more of an artist?

 

I fundamentally agree with you Greatwhale. Though I think that "love" is a really complex issue in general and much more complex if we speak abaout LGBT people.

Analyzing my case (Unfortunately I cannot read minds yet so I cannot speak for anyone else). I think you are right, I am afraid of letting my defences down, because I kind of believe that I have endured enough. I also have come to the realisation that I have spent most of my life, until a few years ago, in denial (either conciously or unconciously) and trying to prove myself that I didn´t need love. So now it is more difficult to be patient and wait for things to evolve.

I think what makes it more difficult is a combination of:
-Not wanting anyone to hurt you.
-Developing a sense of independance.
-Wanting love to be perfect (maybe as a result of not being happy for a long time)
-Wanting love to be perfect from the beggining (so you just move away from anything else).

I may be completely wrong and it may not be true for people who have been out for a long time or from an early age but well thats my analysis...

 

greatwhale -

I am geuinely moved by your insight. I'd tell let you know I was move to tears, but that's too frequently done these days. We're the captains of our own ships. Love is something taken by both parties. It is as you say an action, God, I love French for having taught me my own tongue. We take it as instinctively as a child, first meeting our needs and then returned meeting the needs of the other, maturing into mutual sharing, and then a caring beyond the self. I'm reminded of a Judy Collins song that ends:

Take the lillies and the lace
of the days of childhood,
All the willow winding paths
leading up and outward.
This is what I give,
this is what I ask you for,
Nothing more.

 

This. This, Greatwhale, is where I shall derive my inspiration, as well as my patience and acceptance, once I finally find myself ready to contemplate the act of loving another again.

What better model than that of the love of a parent for a child? Who in the world tries us to the degree that our children do and yet we continue to love them, as you say, 'without condition'? What better model could there be? I almost find myself wishing that I had experienced such love prior to discovering romantic love.

Unfortunately, the linear path of our lives takes us from the all encompassing, ego-centric, selfish love we experience as children, to our first brushes with romance, at which I am again convinced many of us grasped far too quickly - and naively - for that elusive brass ring and were ill-prepared for the reality of unconditional love. Because it is only the greatest of unconditional loves that can truly survive without end.

Which, as we all know, is such a fleeting time nonetheless. But contrary to your opinion of love being the greatest goal, I have experienced and come to learn that it is only when I am not actively seeking *love* as the end unto itself that I find myself presented with the opportunities to experience such a rare and wonderful thing.

But despite my reputation, I will not be contrary in all things. :icon_wink I too agree that possession is the death-knell to a healthy, buoying, love. Love is the thing that gives rise to the greatest of heights. Not even the most spectacular of winged creatures can reach such heights from within a gilded cage. And isn't that what we all want? To not only reach the greatest of heights ourselves, but to see those we care for most dearly fly even further? And how better to do so than being buoyed by pure, unconditional love?

 

Hi,

I like the parent/child model but it doesn't fit well for me...

I love my sons, I would die for them, but it has boundaries, reasoned boundaries of parent and child.

Love for a partner, romantic love is a wild thing with an ever growing territory. Love for my partner has raging rapids of passion which can seize a moment and carry you both away that other expressions of love lack.

Love for a partner is boundless, beyond all emotional confines.

I long for the day when I can be recklessly, romantically in love again. And even with how society views the public expression of gay love, to be able to sweep my partner up publicly in an expression of love, or to simply be tender or lean into them at the beach or while resting on a hike is a huge desire. Society be damned, I want to be recklessly, romantically in love again.

That thought keeps me moving forward.

Parental love is not reckless, I seek the free abandon of romantic love two people can share.

Tom

 

Greatwhale,

Have you seen this?

The Greeks on love;

The Different Kinds of Love - The FlipSide - YouTube

Tom

 

Tom, I don't think it's presumptuous of me to assume that none of us have any wish to share the parent/child love with a romantic partner or vice versa. I used the example of that love because it was not until I'd experienced the entirely selfless love that I felt for my children that I came to understand that what I had formerly believed to be love was but a pale self-centered shadow in comparison.

I will hopefully - someday - know such love - selfless, boundless, non-possessive love - for a true partner. And yes, without doubt, to qualify as 'romantic love' it will, most certainly also encompass all the wildness, recklessness, passion and fire that you so eloquently describe.

:goodluck: to us all!

 

Beautifully stated, kiddo! The love that we all seek one day would have that same selfless quality as the love that we parents have for our children, where we accept them completely, feel that almost selfish pride, and would absolutely, certainly die for them if we had to. But it would have that added reckless, passionate abandon that makes us want to be pretty much as close in all ways as two people can be--while still being two individuals who bring their own unique parts to the relationship. I have all the faith in the world that if we want it, it's there for us to find.

 

I want GreatWhale to be my therapist! Oh, wait....maybe he already is my on-line therapist....or at least, trusted and wise advisor. I totally agree about your perspective on love. However, I would also add that the version of love that we've been trained to look for comes to us from a hetero-normative world. It may not look exactly the same for LGBT folks and that's okay! Some parts may be similar, but many parts are likely not. It's just another place where we get to define it for ourselves...rather than have the world define it for us.

 

For me a song will come on the radio and stay in my mind forever.

The song is Chasing Cars from Snow Patrol.

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old

One of the lines should resonate with all of us; "Forget what we're told, Before we get too old." you grow up seeing and hearing that love is between a man and a woman but you need to rethink that in your head that love can be between 2 people of the same sex.

 

Oh, Cool Bananas, you just gave me another one of those moments I've been writing about, when I really feel, when my skin tingles, from my scalp to my toes, and I want to weep from the sheer joy of feeling.

Btw, in a lighter vein, would you rather be called Cool or Bananas?

/Ed.

 

Love, self, sex... hmmm, all this does is make me think that perhaps I haven't progressed so far beyond selfish love after all. Oh, wait, you were talking about sex with another!

[Sorry, you had to know the wise ass in me would eventually break free. At lease I decided to be nice and not go down the Greatwhale/lace and lingerie path. ]

But to be serious, it sounds to me like you're describing tantric sex. Which, by the way, offers innumerable mental, physical and emotional health benefits far beyond the obvious benefits to a relationship. Although tantric sex goes a step further, and in addition to not just "going directly to the main event", it also encourages you to enjoy the show and not fast forward to the "grand finale".

Ah, now the longing for a new relationship has hit. Tantrism is just really not meant to be practiced alone. :icon_sad:

 

39. Jesus said, "The Pharisees and scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and hidden them. They have not entered and they have not allowed those who want to enter to do so.

As for you be as sly as snakes and as simple as doves

 

I pretty much agree with everything in your post I just excerpted above. But your last three sentences really got to the core of things for me.

I also think that sex is the sublime realm of romantic love, because it can be the biological expression (to borrow your words) of that deep-seated need to relate intimately with another.

For most species, sex is a biological necessity. For us, it can be a biological expression of an emotional necessity.

The notion that sex is an act of procreation, in the words of Catholic doctrine, is in my mind, an awful demeaning of sex, and love, as human experiences.

I really love these conversations. I haven't had these since, well. Ever.