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Friday, August 13, 2010

love? really?

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I was in my car today, with the radio on, and I started listening to the lyrics of this certain song that was playing (you should try this sometime, if you don’t already practice the art of Critical Listening. It’s fascinating). It’s a popular song, by a popular guy, which means that people at large are responding in some way to his music. But the more I listened to the words, the more sad I got. I realized this dude is all confused about LOVE and what it actually looks like, but he doesn't know he's confused. He kept referring to LOVE as these ridiculous things that are only by-products of love and not real LOVE at all. And then he kept talking about how awesome he is, because he is awesome, and this girl is never going to know "real love" (not a direct quote) until she was with him, because is he awesome (also not a direct quote). And then I started to think about all the people that comfort themselves after a breakup by saying that the other person doesn't know what they're missing by breaking up with ME!!! Finally, I started to wonder if we are all just as confused as pop culture is currently indicating that we are.

If popular culture (read: all forms of media) is indicative of a generation or a society’s ideals, then I think our culture has some pretty scary indicators in it…namely, what we as a young society seem to think this thing called LOVE is. Blanket statements don’t work, I realize. But what if (can you imagine?) we could each recognize our own tendencies towards a blanket-statement life? Our own tendencies towards acting like we've got it all figured out, when we're poking ourselves in the eye just as frequently as the next person?

Maybe instead of assuming that we understand what LOVE is, we should assume that properly defined and genuinely acted LOVE is something we will always need to chip away at. Maybe we need to work hard to understand and adopt real LOVE-ingness, daily and hourly and minutely. Maybe the only way you really get it is by admitting that you are only good enough to try. I have more often felt loved by the statement “I don’t know how to love you well, teach me how” than by this one, “You are going to love being loved by me, because I am awesome at it.”

Dramatic sentences all, and likely rediculous. Who knew a car ride with some well disguised lyrics could turn into a blog post?



1 comment:

Mama said...

You hit the nail on the head.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

♥♥♥