Love isn't a thing which either is or isn't. It's not absolute, because people aren't absolute. At least the interesting ones aren't.
Love isn't static, it's dynamic. It's a thing which grows, a thing that has a life- it flows, it ebbs, it gets deeper, it goes away, there are different genus' of it, but it's all of a species...
Ok- so it's a dynamic, living thing, or at least a dynamic construct of living things.
Well- so this means it needs maintenance. Like a car or a house- both built by living things. It needs oiled sometimes, cleaned up and cleaned out sometimes, flushed out at times, repaired at times.
It needs nourishment, like any truly dynamic, growing thing does. It needs to have acts commited in it's name, which feed it, which help it grow. Like a tree or a watermelon vine, it needs fertilizer- the good stuff, not the synthesized stuff- that shit works, but you get a huge, overblown, relatively diluted and tasteless fruit.
You have to do some things sometimes you would rather not do- whether you want to get all semantic or not, distinguish between love and the one you love or not, doesn't matter- the one you love- they want to do something, you don't. Too bad Sparky, do it. Not all the time- Love is pretty strong in the first place, when it's sprouted in the right climate and soil, but sometimes- it needs feeding sometimes- fairly regularly, you know?
So- love is a thing, a construct. It is mindless- who knows why you love this and not that, her but not her, that guy but not that other guy, red but not yellow....
So it needs fed, tended, cared for, believed in, just like the person from whom it flows, or any person for that matter. Some of the things that feed it, seemingly, are kisses, touches, a great courage to believe, to trust, doing the laundry, respect, not doing or buying big things without mutual consent, fights, coming back after the fights, sorries, jokes and laughs, lots of laughs, a willingness to try things out, to do things even if you don't want to..., passion, effort to enflame passion if it is waning...admiration. Admiration is important...the guts to not juddge or lecture too much, but to be instead supportive...
Love is also the things you do in support of it. This is a tangible demonstration of the intangible thing- love is not homogenous- it is intangible, and it is tangible..this part is complicated, I don't know if I am doing it justice.... It's like a person, any living thing- there is a huge part you cannot see, cannot touch, can't smell or tickle...and that really *is* the person...
But then that *person*, or dog, or cat, or salmon in the ocean or whatever, also has this 'body'- this means of making the *person* a tangible thing, a means of expressing the person, a vehicle for the persons growth, for their adventure, for their development....
You see? The touchable and the untouchable. The thing and the expression of the thing, and that expression in effect being that thing.
So, then there is probably a big difference between love and a cup of coffee. A person and a rock. A fish and a stream.
And if I am to love, I need to take that little feeling at the start, and surround it, cherish it, protect it, feed and water it, take it to the bathroom, change it's diapers and potty train it. Make it a big-ass romantic dinner sometimes, clean the damn living room for it sometimes...go to a for-gods-sake football game without throwing up for it sometimes... put up with skidmarks in the underwear without comment, just do the damn laundry...watch a stupid movie...
You get the idea.
so to me, it's feeling, it's action- and with me, often there is no conscious decision before action- I just know 'this, I want to do', or 'this I dont' want to do' without thinking about it, and do the thing, or don't do the thing...and it's all shades of grey in between those simple extremes...but yes, at times, there is conscious decision..
but love is far more than a decision making process, although it is certainly that in part...
I have a headache.
