This essay was written by Jennifer Avalon. She has written many essays and some very good music.
REAL LOVEWe've all experienced emotions from people under the disguise of Love. As children, many of us were chastised, sometimes as we were told "This is for your own good." Well, in many cases it is left up to the discretion of parents and loved ones to decide what discipline is needed and under what circumstances it applies. Some parents do a wonderful job...they provide the foundation and atmosphere needed to stimulate growth and personal well-being, but others, I'm afraid, as many of us know, have no idea how to raise children. In our society we learn from experiences....the giving and receiving of Love in life is something that we accumulate along the way. If the Love is positive it sends us off on a path that can be both rewarding and enlightening. If the disguised Love is negative, we enter a doorway of abuse and torment. These are the two main roadways we travel upon in life. As we continue on our journey, depending on the roadway traveled the weather either becomes clearer or stormier.
As we enter adolescence our exposure to Love expands. Many of us fall in and out of Love throughout our teenage years...those memories, for myself included, are carried with us all through our lives. All of these experiences are stored in memory banks within our minds...they are the pool of knowledge that we draw on to decide what is Love and what isn't. As we continue on our journey we constantly add and subtract to these files of memory...to better understand, from our perspective, what we truly are experiencing.
This is all a wonderful picture if the knowledge and Love is powerful and positive. But problems start to arise with each successive negative experience. Our minds start having difficulties differentiating between the good and the bad. Therein lies, for many of us, the greatest challenge of life....how to learn from our experiences, retaining the positive and learning not to repeat the negative. This becomes more and more important as we evolve into developing new relationships and starting families of our own. The student becomes the teacher. Each teacher imparts knowledge from their own experience.
If we look at our cities, states, and countries many of the problems that exist have been brought about in one form or another by the lack of Real Love. Pockets of people searching for reasons why they feel in pain and alone. Their anger and sadness convinces them to strike out at the society that they feel has abandoned them. Yes there are rules and laws we all have to learn to live by, but a wounded heart has a hard time hearing any message.
Take care of those you love, offer help when needed, give from the heart. This is how the seeds of Real Love are planted. You know, not only are germs and disease contagious....but the spores of Real Love can travel far and wide....across many borders and boundaries. In the words of John Lennon, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one....I hope someday you will join us, and the world will live as one."
Take the time to love
Jennifer Avalon
(c) 1998 Jennifer Avalon
