Duality of Meaning

(This is a freelanced work)

 This passed through the transom of my mind this evening - if you've got a second, (and you're not driving), read on and pontificate with me...

It occurs to me that too often we attribute to a word the most convenient meaning for us. We take the meaning that best suits us and put it in our pocket, expecting - insisting, even - that the world conform to our definition.

When we do that, we lose so much more joy and fulfillment than we gain in convenience...

"Love" is such a word. For the ' word nerds' like myself, the ideophone is intriguing in its duality. This magical, life-changing, word has an incredible power... whisper it once and you can change the lives of everyone in the room. Say it loud enough and whole civilizations will go to war to obtain it. Feel it for a single moment and you'll place everything at its altar...

One. Single. Word.

It keeps songwriters busy and essay authors in the limbo between obsession and depression. With it a frail human can fly. Without it a giant tumbles.

We should respect a word with such power. We should speak it only in reverent, whispered tones. We should remember, with all our hearts, that in speaking the phrase 'I love you' we make a solemn, fragile promise; an oath of earth-shattering proportions that, if broken, destroys the soul.

You're nodding along with me... be certain, my friend, that you give weight to your agreement. The soul will pay for the lips' flippancy where this powerful incantation is concerned. When you feel the influential statement "I love you" pushing past your teeth, take a moment to recognize what you're promising to someone's heart. They will count on your actions - with them and with everyone else in the world. To show this to them - always - seeking attention, validation and self worth from no one else; even more, to ACCEPT it from no one else. You are, on your soul, giving your oath that you will do the same.

Classify love as an emotion with no other definition and you will feel it for a very short time before sadly watching it die in your arms.

Define it as both an emotion and a verb and treat it with the respect it deserves as a wonder of magic and celestial power and you will feel it strengthen within you and the recipient...

Emotion, verb, magic...

Love is our definition...
 

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.     ~ Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

R. Henson