Saturday 19 April 2008

Love and Hate - Emotions closely related!!!

Love and hate - so close in feelings - extreme's that bring about so many emotions!!!

Emotions run hot and cold as I think of the people who have come and gone in my life. So many thoughts of the hurt, and the love and all that it has encompassed.

It is after all and they are after all what shape us as human beings and who we become. At what point in life do we form these strong emotions and do we ever really know what they mean?

When do we begin to know in our life, what brings about these feelings and how do we finally recognise what love is? We think that well of emotion, that "swallow" that goes on forever, bringing tears to our eyes when thinking about some one person who is in our lives is "the feeling".

How can we know that this is love, not just an infatuation, a temporary fleeting feeling, that will change as things in a relationship (whatever sort) changes?

Wikipedia defines loves as:

Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection.[1] The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my wife"). This diversity of meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

Addressed as an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings."

and yet the dictionary defines hate as:

hate..> (ht)

v. hat·ed, hat·ing, hates
v.tr.
1.
a. To feel hostility or animosity toward.
b. To detest.
2. To feel dislike or distaste for: hates washing dishes.
v.intr.
To feel hatred.
n.
1. Intense animosity or dislike; hatred.
2. An object of detestation or hatred
A NOUN of hate is LOVE

So the parallel between the two emotions is so close yet evoke so many different feelings!!!!

I know that there have been times in my life that I have thought "this is it" this is "the feeling", the thing that finally says I have come to a cross roads in my life where I am ready to change the habits and the "me" space. After 10+yrs alone it is hard to let go of the "me" space and finally let someone else share that space. We let our guard down little by little believing this person may not hurt us, may be aware of what they are doing in playing with our heart in their hands. We watch them whilst they juggle our heart from hand to hand, throwing it in the air, and throwing out words that suggest there just may be something here for us to finally let them do it!!! Let them juggle our hearts, let them bruise it, hurt it, and yet allow them to continue in "our me" space.

You think quietly to yourself that if this one hurts me too much I will leave, I won't let them get under my skin, I won't let them see me cry, I won't let down my guard and finally realise that my years of cold emotion have melted and I have begun to feel.

That like the evolving caterpillar becoming the bright and colorful butterfly they are opening up a part of us that we thought was long gone!!!!

We yell "hang on - I said I wasn't going to let this happen again!!!"

So how do we really know the difference between love and hate after all they really are the same extreme emotion!!!

How do we know that the person we handed our heart to in the hope that in their juggling allowing them to melt the barriers, letting us perhaps feel that it might one day be alright to say "that word", that they will not turn around and throw our heart aside bringing us again to the other emotion the strong distinct feeling of hate - which closes us up and locks us away from the world to avoid anymore?

What do you think, what is your take on love and/or hate? Would love to hear your thoughts on the differences, and how to recognise those feelings?