Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    Tina
    
    Love is the strongest of all, and when two people really truly love
    each other, they can over come any obsticle that comes in their way.
    
    hang in there :-)
    
    Lynne S.

    I don't mean to belittle the pain your experiencing because I know how
    tough it can be, however, having examined my feelings over matter
    regarding lost love and the effect that it had on my psyche, I noticed
    after a time that I could divide up the ugly feelings I had the
    following way: 

	10% was missing being with the person
	30% was the pain of having my faith in love shattered
	60% was damaged ego

    Once I overcame the damaged ego by realizing that a dead love was not a
    reflection on me as a person and that I had an identity outside of any
    love I could have for a woman, more than half the pain subsided.  I
    then also realized that my faith in love was more a faith in the rumour
    of love's immortality.  It was a rumour.  A misconception or
    misperception and, like the realization that our parents grow old and
    die, it was a tough reality to face. 

    The last 10% went away by itself.
    
    Love is a potent emotion; maybe the most potent.  But the rumour that
    it is indestructable is dangerous.  Like Achilles who believed himself
    to be indestructable, overlooking the weak points can be fatal. 

    I have never known a love which could overpower neglect or indifference
    for any amount of time.  Love often bows before selfishness, and is
    made weak by dishonesty and ignorance. 

    You hurt, you learn, you grow.  And that's the best that anyone should
    expect. 

    Kris 
    

    Love is intangible and may change. I've known couples that stayed
    together happily when times where hard but had nothing in common
    when life relaxed and they had time to think about each other.

    Here's something from WS on the subject

	    What is love? Tis not hereafter;
	    Present mirth hath present laughter;
		What's to come is still unsure.

    Take your love as you find it. It may not last and I side with the
    "better to have loved and lost" crowd than those who stay "at any
    price". Though I like to pretend that love is all, I don't really
    believe it. liesl

It has to be True Love.  True Love contains in itself all that one could ask
for.  Unfortunately, many of us and our loves are lacking.

Jim.

    I'll add my voice to those who believe that true love does conquer
    all. Unfortunately now adays it appears that not to many people
    know what true love is.
    
    What is it when a parent gives his/her life to save their child,
    or spouse, if not love???? 
    
    But folks, guess what??  It takes two!!!  One person cannot will
    another to love them. 
    
    Nils

I do believe that love is the "strongest of all".  It is certainly more 
valuable than any possessions or power that I have known.  I'm over 30 
and not leading an idyllic existence right now, so I don't think this can 
be discounted as youthful idealism.

That said...  "Closing your eyes" is not a necessary part of love, and love
cannot conquer all, all the time.  "An army of lovers can be beaten", as
Thomas Pynchon wrote in a lucid moment.

Also, although I disagree with the "Love & Money" noters who think that
possessions are more permanent than love, that doesn't mean love is
necessarily permanent either.  You have to make a choice of uncertainties.

I see nothing wrong with making sacrifices for love, unless you feel that
the sacrifices were in vain if the love does not last through your dying
breath.  (And then what happens to the survivors?)  There is a feeling of 
timelessness in romantic love - the feeling is valid but it doesn't 
directly translate to "permanence" in the usual sense, any more than a 
religious person who believes in immortality expects to keep mowing the 
lawn and watching the tube every Sunday for the rest of time.

Hope this wasn't too much of a downer - hang in there,
Ray

    There are people in this world who lose sight of the important things
    in their lives.  In this society we are under a continuous barrage of,
    basically, advertisements.  Advertising agencies hire psychologists to
    make sure that their advertisements break though our defenses so that
    we find ourselves wanting...no...craving things we don't really need. 
    This is followed by the things we use to make those things look better
    and more desirable.  Gotta have a Porsche to get the chicks!  Gotta
    have an impressive stereo so that that 2 mile drive to work in the
    morning isn't boring.  Carphone?  Armorall?  Do we really need it?
    
    We become slaves to our possessions.  Ask anyone who ever owned a boat
    how much time they demand.  If they don't have a boat slip then they
    need a big car or truck to tow it.  More gas.  Bigger tires.  New
    sails.  Bottom paint.  So, you have a swimming pool?  Scrub those
    sidewalls.  Ph balancing, algicides.  Heaven forbid you bought an
    airplane.
    
    So, you get too wrapped up in things that aren't important and you find
    that important things suffer.  Love.  Family. Friends.

    
<    We become slaves to our possessions.  Ask anyone who ever owned a boat

    I suspect there are as many who have been slaves to Love. How many
    of us have suffered because we thought, if only for a while, that
    the loss of some loved one would surely end our life? How many of us
    have perhaps begged, crying and pleading, for a lover not to leave?
    Have you ever cried till you were sick over a VCR? 

    Half the topics in this file concern the endless search for someone
    to love us, or failing that, to understand why we are not loved? Who ever
    would write of a boat

	No man knoweth of our desolation;
	    Memory pales of the old delight;
	While the sad waters of separation
	    Bear us on to the ultimate night.
						Ernest Dowson

    My TV set, much as I may like watching from time to time, just
    doesn't affect me that way. I might indeed cry if I lost all my
    money and was on the streets destitute but it wouldn't rend my heart
    my heart the way my separation from my husband did. This doesn't
    mean I don't like nice things. I like living in comfort, it far
    surpasses living in poverty. It doesn't mean I'm a slave to my
    comforts but given the option I prefer to keep them. liesl

       >     	I'm going through an agonizingly difficult time in my
       >	personal life right now, and would like to know if there is
       >	anyone out there, like me, who believes that love, indeed, is
       >	the strongest of all.  Not possesions, or social "ought-to's"...
       >	That if two people deeply love each other, there's nothing they
       >	can't conquer.   
    
    The strongest of all what? What are you trying to conquer? Is it
    between you two that the problem exists, or is it external?
    
    I find your opening statement too vague to really make any meaningful
    comment.
                                                             
    Sorry
    
    -roger
    

    I agree with .9 that enough info wasn't given.  But I find it hard to
    believe that an emotion can conquer anything and everything, be it
    love, anger, hate, fear, etc,.  It sounds nice to "say" or "think" or
    "believe" so... but I don't believe that this can be or has been
    proven.  
    
    Perhaps people answering here "wish it" to be so.
    
    Dwight

    Of course an emotion like love can't conquer all -- emotions are
    by their very nature transient.  Right now I'm angry because my
    daughter didn't turn out the lights when she left the house this
    morning, at noon I'll be happy because I'm having lunch with my
    spouse, tonight I might be fearful about something going wrong
    during labor.  All intense but all temporary.
    
    The thing we call true love (for want of a better word) isn't an
    emotion, it's an action.  It's a belief that staying together is
    both possible and desirable,  and a determination to live one's
    life according to that belief even when all pragmatic indications
    are that one is totally out of one's mind.
    
    That's what keeps people together even through the darkest times,
    strengthens them and supports them, turns trouble to hope and good
    times to radiant joy.
    
    And that kind of love and commitment don't come out of being a
    slave to love.  They grow out of one's total being, all one's
    strength and loyalty and intelligence and integrity and devotion,
    one's interests and beliefs and even one's weaknesses, all the
    things that go to making you a unique individual. 
    
    I believe, I truly believe, that kind of love will conquer all in
    the long run.  
    
    I also believe that you can't give that kind of love if you aren't
    true to yourself.  How can you be true to another person if you
    can't stand by your own beliefs and values? 
    
    --bonnie

    
    
    	Thanks to all of you for your words of inspiration,
    	...and realism.
    
    	I'm feeling much better, more confident, and in control.
    	
    	Thanks again,
    			Tina

    
    re .0
    
    That all works fine when you are young and your life hasn't been
    complicated by a lot of experience.
    
    But after a few years self preservation takes over and one stops
    falling in love (as they call it) and takes a more serious and
    objective view of a relationship. 
    
    By adulthood one should hopefully have developed some procedure for
    sizing up changes in a relationship and accept the truth of whatever
    kind of situation you are in. 
    
    Believing in love sounds noble, but to actually make serious life 
    decisions on feelings alone, without any objective analysis, is
    foolhardy in my opinion.

    Tina,
    Falling in love with someone is so easy to do, until reality sets in
    and you see that the person you fell in love with is not so perfect!
    We all have our little imperfections and when you really love a person,
    you learn to live with them and take them litehearted. (unless it is a
    serious problem).  Real love is not like the kind you find in a romance
    novel or in the movies, but when two people love each other and trust
    each other, they can overcome just about anything!!!!!
    
    Lynne

    Tina,
    
    I definately believe that with love you can overcome anything.  I loved
    my husband so deeply before we got married (I still am ;-)) that I was
    willing to move hundreds of miles from my family (whom I had never been
    away from).  We had planned a church wedding, but after the pastor
    found out my husband had been married before refused to perform the
    ceremony.  We got married in my sister's house, instead.  We've been
    married for 4 years this month.  We've just about lost everything at
    one time, after my husband got a bum deal on a job, we've been so broke
    we couldn't buy anything but bread and milk at the grocery, but still
    we've hung on.  Not once did I ever think "things are getting too
    rough, maybe I ought to get out."  I just love him too much.

    
    
    
     RE: .14
    
     I can relate to a "T" what you stated and I agree 100%
    
     Melinda