Dollars and Sense

Innocence

Since I’ve been at college I’ve come to the conclusion that the most evil thing someone can do to someone else is to rob them of their innocence.  While that might sound like a huge claim, considering the terrible, disgusting things that people do to each other, I feel like in this world the only thing that we really, truely have is our innocence.

When we’re young, we are raised to think of things as right and wrong, black and right, the good and the bad.  This idea is perpetuated by the media, by our parents, and by society at large.  They use this idea to teach us morals, to teach us how to live our lives based on a strict code.  As we grow older, however, we learn that things are not just black and white, but shades of grey.  We learn that some of the things we learned were wrong when we were young, might have justifications.  We come to wonder, if killing is wrong, how are soldiers right?

The same idea goes for our ability to love when we are young.  The most pure and innocence love that a person can have is love for one’s parents.  Without thinking, without knowing, most people love their parents for the simple reason that they nurtured them and cared for them when they were too small and weak to do so themselves.  We do not think of why our parents had us, what they want from us, or anything besides the overwhelming feeling of love for the person who cradles us to sleep at night.

This sort of relationship is the most pure and loving, from both sides, the parent and the child.  The parent has nothing to gain from the child, besides the satisfaction of recreating and passing down the lineage, and the child has not the ability to ask of anything from the parents other than love and care.

As we age, however, we learn that individuals are often only out for their own advancement.  This shift toward selfishness really begins when we enter school, with individuals who are competing with us for good grades, for accolades, for the glory of man.  We come to realize that the innocent love and care that we receive and give to our parents is not the same manner in which we must regard these individuals.

Early in our lives, searching for companionship, we might come across another, and latch onto them with the same might that we might latch onto our parent.  This relationship, left to fester, can lead to love.  This love, the “puppy love” that many call the love of the young, is perhaps more true than the love of the old.  For when we love at a young age, we know not of hiding our hearts for fear of harm, but only to open ourselves up to another person.

The first time a person falls in love, and the first time their heart is broken, are paramount times in a person’s life.  The way that this situation occurs, by whom, and all the details concerning this shape the way individuals love and perceive love throughout their lives.  These moments teach us that even the most true and beautiful of emotions, love, can be turned dirty by the selfishness of others, and their inability to reciprocate.

To those who avoid this cruel fate, however, might be said to enjoy true, untainted love.  Love unsullied by the pain and sadness of a broken heart.  How can this love, however, be called true, be called pure, without the knowledge of impurity?  Does not the absence of black mean white?  Without sadness would we know joy?

The duality of these emotions begs the question whether the true purity of love lies in an unsullied heart, or the ability to find love and happiness in a heart that has been shown sadness.

meanzuga asked: stop drinking by yourself. (invite me instead! HAHA JK jk jk jkjkjkjkjk)
btw, you fucked up my dinner/lunch! :( that rice tasted like SHIT.

haha dont lie you know you’re down.  yeah it wasn’t my fault i told you to get pasta, the rice was way undercooked :(

Love

To love and to be loved is an amazing feeling.  To know that someone somewhere cares about you no matter what you do is something every person in the world should experience some time in their lives.  I feel as though today this simple thing which has existed for so long is so hard to come by.  In our material world, where people are valued by the amount of money they bring home every year, or the type of car they drive, or the power they wield, love seems more and more difficult to obtain.

Let me rephrase.  Not just love.  Love can be manufactured, Hallmark does a pretty good job of that.  Feelings can be faked.  Sentiments can be created.  I mean real, honest, pure love.  The type that you see in movies.  The type that tears at your heart no matter what you do.  Love like that today seems so difficult to grasp, so difficult to control.  That all-consuming love.  That is what every person should enjoy at some point.

No, enjoy is the wrong word.  For that type of feeling one does not enjoy at all times.  That type of feeling burns, aches, scratches, claws.  It leaves scars.  When people let their guards down and simply allow someone into their hearts, they open themselves up to the most powerful of pains.  The pain that never goes away.  That type of love is something that people sing about.  The type that never leaves their mind, or their heart.

To those that have experienced this type of love.  Be grateful.  No matter how it ended, or if it has.  To those of you who currently feel this, enjoy it, for it is the most pure and honest emotion a human being can experience.  For those who have felt this but for whatever reason have let this love go, although it might seem like a simple anecdote, it truly is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved.  And for those searching, never give up.  Never stop trying.  One day one person will see you for who you really are, and you will rejoice that you refused to abandon this most sublime of feelings.