The Price Of I-Love-Yous

I prefer shopping at stores with clearly tagged goods. It helps me make my purchase decisions better. Once I know the price of things, every grey area goes away and Black and White resume their place as colours of the day. But not everything comes with tags. And not everything should come with tags.


Take Love, for instance. Love, once tagged changes form. It differs from what it used to be – pure, selfless, innocent, giving – and becomes something so foreign that those who know it in its earlier form, recognize it not.

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He: I love you.

She: I love you, too. *smiles*

He: You better.

And with that the special moment shared
between the two, is gone – ruined.

She: *smile falters* You can't say that. Why do you say that? There's no such thing as me having to love you back. This isn't barter trading. I don't have to love you if you love me. You don't deserve my love. I CHOSE to give you my love.

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You see, tagging puts a price to things. It doesn't give it value (the importance and preciousness of something), it gives is price (payment expected, required or given for something) – two very different concepts. And when there's a price, it means you need to give something up in order to get something back. In this case, Love demands that you pay up and make its investment worth its time before you get to receive and keep it.

But then, that's not Love... is it?
Because if it is, I don't recognize it.

Is it that difficult to understand that love is something you have within you to give... and not something for you to just look forward to receiving from, from somebody else? If all you want is to absorb, then where is the love in that? And if you need to receive in order to justify your giving, then doesn't that make what you have CONDITIONAL love then? Conditional love is NOT love. Because real love comes with no conditions.

Sigh. I'm very rarely at a loss for words.
But every time I come to this, words fail me.

Today, I finally read something from someone who seems to get what I'm feeling on the inside. Somebody finally put to words something I've always tried saying (or thinking) but also always somehow failing to come up with anything that sounds remotely eloquent enough for such a 'big deal' statement. So here it is. The winning statement that says it all (and very nicely, too).

"To love is a privilege for me,
it's never a gift from me."

– k0k s3n w4i, 23 January 2008.

This love-struck (yes, he's taken), doctor-in-the-making writes the kinda stuff I like reading in a way I like reading it. Go check out his blog. Ever since Innit, it's latched itself onto my short list of must-reads. It's good stuff. Oh, and he's a real funny one when it comes to Photoshop-play.