“Love alone brings a human being to full awareness of personal existence. For it is in love alone that [we] find room enough to be what [we are].”

The most beautiful gift of life is to love and be loved.

If love is willing the good of the other as other, then, love is by nature, a force that propels us to go out of ourselves, in an outward orientation. Our actions, attention, and care are directed toward the object of our love (i.e. the one we love).

We tend to reduce love when we see it as transactional: “I give to you in the measure you give to me.” But this way of thinking is exactly the root of conflict. It does not foster peace, or growth. It grasps, and finds nothing. It takes away from who we are because of that incessant and futile striving to get even, which tends to favour our end of the scale. (Survival of the fittest, they say). And in the end we are unhappy, and resentful. Why? Becuase we seek love, but our understanding of what love is, is untrue, or half true( which is essentially, also untrue).

True Love sees, and stays. It does not relent.
It is patient, and kind. It is not envious, boastful, or proud. It does not dishonour others, nor is it self-seeking, keeping no record of wrongs.

It is no passive or weak sentiment, but a roaring lion of a force. With no place for cowards.

In this light, love is the fertile ground in which we can grow. It removes the obstacles, the weeds, so to speak. So that, through love, we, along with the one we love, grow together to become more of who we truly are.

To love and be loved. In complete freedom, to breed freedom.