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This question can be asked in many ways, and answered in many more. There is no definition of love that can cover all possible forms of love. Love is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful human expressions.
Have you ever thought that love builds a society? That with love, the basic unit of society, which is the family, is born?
Nowadays, there is a lot of talk about love, a lot of discussion, but are we wasting time? Are we giving love a real chance to grow and blossom in our spirits? Do we seek to love others sincerely, selflessly, and with an open heart, without expecting “anything in return”?
I am now talking about carnal love. The kind we most readily associate with the word “love.” The love we feel for another person, whom we believe to be our companion on the journey that is life. That love we feel when we are with another person, which makes our heart beat faster... but at the same time keeps us calm despite that rapid heartbeat.
Finding someone who is by our side, with whom we share our life, our fears, our silences, and our anxieties, but also our victories, our joys, and our uncertainties. Someone who is by our side, but who brings with them their own dreams, their desires, their fears, and of course, their flaws. We love them all.
In fact, it is well known that the more we love, the more the other person's flaws seem like mere details. It is when we lose the ability to love the other person, with all due respect, with acceptance, with the willingness to accept them, to discover them, to let ourselves be carried away by life, that the fears, anxieties, and apprehensions that we end up not sharing with the other person... gradually increase.
They may not be in the “light of day,” but these shadows grow, consuming the good we see in others and in ourselves. Love becomes strangled by pride, arrogance, the blind determination to be right, and to give nothing up for the common good.
We cannot allow shadows to occupy any corner of our hearts.
Today's society is always suspicious, always expecting that there is something on the other side that we should fear.... And this happens for one main reason: ignorance.
Yes, ignorance is the mother of many disputes. Often, without really knowing why, we do not seek to understand the other side. We only listen to our own voice, which, inflated with ego, drowns out everything else. We stop looking for the greatest and best feelings in others, to focus only on our inner voice. The one that grows day by day, and increases as our insecurities increase.
Let us stop believing that the world is full of people who wish us ill. Let us stop believing in what actually exists, but fortunately is not the majority. Let us listen more to the voice of our hearts. Let us open our minds to seek the small, faint light that exists in everything around us. That light, which initially seems very weak and almost extinct, can only grow. To do this, we must focus on it. Look at everything like a child. Seek to find a meaning in life amid the imbalance into which this world has plunged.
A sense of sharing, a sense of direction. We must seek to illuminate every corner of our hearts.
Let it expand with a simple smile from a child we pass by, let it grow with a smile from an old man who greets everyone who passes him that morning... Or that simple, delicate flower that surprises us in the garden in front of our house.
Loving is an act of courage.
Believing that we can always see the best in each other and in ourselves. Accepting our own faults and those of others.
If we don't know how to respect those around us, the likelihood of someone else doing so is greater...
Let us fall in love, truly, with life, with ourselves, and with our neighbors. Let the light of day shine in our spirits.
Let us have the courage to wait for the morning, even when the night seems long and cold... If we have darkness, violence, and resentment inside us, let's not let them accumulate... Let's not keep something inside us that will only make us more blind to life!
We believe that remembering something bad that happened one day can protect us from suffering more... But that is something we can never avoid. Suffering is part of life... And we can never stop suffering. We can only shift our focus to the beauty of loving and being loved, without fear of suffering or causing suffering... Because in the end, as long as there is the will and the ability to forgive and be forgiven, life will always bring us light... The hope that there will always be something to enlighten us.
Ignorance, lies, and fear can be overcome. They will be overcome.
I have no doubt about that.
On this day, as we mark the fourth year of one country's brutal invasion of another, let us look to the future and try to see the good in ourselves. The brutality, violence, destruction, and death imposed by a fraction of a people will one day be defeated!
Free image from Pixabay.com
Original text written by me in Portuguese and translated with DeepL.com (free version)
