Love... and other tragedies

Quite a bit title there. I mean there have been hundreds of books on the matter. Thousands of songs. Almost 2000 years of more or less known history, yet we still strugle with this matter.

First, let's get one thing straight. I am not pretending to be some sort of expert on the matter. Yes, I have looked up some information on the matter, but in general, this problem gives me as many headaches and sleepless nights as it probably does you. So let's see what brought this on...

I came across this quote byGeorge Bernard Shaw said:

There are two tragedies in life. One is loosing your heart's desire. The other one is loosing it

I must confess these 3 sentences had me pondering for days. Yes, the first tragedy is pretty much obvious. Loosing a loved one is something horrible that unfortunately all of us have to go through at some point. How that person that we care about departs our life, wether it is death, a relationship ending, or some other cause I cannot think of right now, the result is the same: we end un grieving.

But it is the second sentence that gets me. Acording to Mr. Shaw, finding your heart's desire is pretty much a tragedy. Tragedy as in something really bad. Now I know I have you thinking.

Let's beak that train of thought for a second. Have you ever been in love? Chances are, yes. If it was unrequainted love (meaning love not returned by the other person), well... we just found our first meaning. How much of a tragedy is it when you love someone and they don't love you back? It is really bad, I'll tell you from experience. Because just like most feelings, love needs to be shared. But unlike other feelings, it needs to be shared with just that one special person. If they don't mirror you feelings, you just end up feeling worse than you ever did.

But somehow I don't think that's what Mr. Shaw had in mind. It must be awful to be famous and have people interpret your every word and pry out new meaning from between punctuation marks. So let's get back on track here. What he probably meant is falling in love with someone who falls in love with you as well. That person that you just want to stare at all day long, while kissing, holding hands and mumbling silly phrases to eachother. That person whose voice you want to hear behind every corner when they are not around. That person who can lift your heart up with a smile and make it fall down with a few words...

What does psychology tell us we fear as much as something bad or painful happening? The fear of something happening. In other words, we are just as afraid in those fractions of a second when we realise we are actually falling down some stairs, as we are when thinking that we could fall down the stairs. Don't you just love the human brain?

Basically, the same principle can be applied to love itself. The tragedy when finding your heart's desire is the fear of loosing that person. Ironically, that is also one of the best parts of being in love: that feeling you get when you can't wait too see your loved one, a feeling that is partly coming from the fear of loss.

An old saying goes something like this: "A man with nothing to loose is very dangerous". I tend to disagree: "a man with something to loose is more dangerous, because he will do anything in his power not to loose that precious object". Not as catchy, but a little more accurate. But when it comes to this subject... I would much rather be a man with something to loose...