Love and Fear

5 February 2012

“The half life of love is forever.” –Junot Diaz

            It’s difficult – seemingly impossible – to talk about love without saying one of the one million clichés surrounding it. Upon reading this quote, I had a moment of disappointment. Fantastic. Another typical collection of words that attempts to capture the entire essence of this thing in one short idea. But the reason these annoying clichés exist is because they are true.

            Two of the most powerful things of the human experience have to be love and fear. They are themes that have existed in our world library of literature since the first novels. Our politicians and people in power play upon these things to move us, and with great success. They instill within us this sense of fear – fear that some outside force will invade our borders and take away the things that we cherish. Or fear that those invaders are actually within our government. They implant within our brains this love for liberty in such a way that we will act in any way to ensure that those liberties are not stripped away from us. These are the two great motivators. Their power encompasses our entire being. It’s a big thing.

            What is love? It’s a metaphysical question. There is no clean-cut, 100% accurate definition for it. Yes, we can taste it, smell it, feel it, hear it, see it. But what we sense to be love doesn’t translate to the same thing from each human. It’s quite silly that we even attempt to describe such things with words such as, “The half life of love is forever”. But then again, that’s all we have.

-KR