I believe in love. I believe in the multitudes of love that drive humanity to greatness.
As I watch and listen to the world move around me, I observe love’s influence from the subtle to the grand. There is the romantic love that almost everyone can relate to. This is the love that can bring a man to the limits of his creativity in an attempt to woo and find favor in a smile. This is the same love that has given countless couples the courage to stand up tall and proud in who they are to demand the equality that they rightly deserve in the face of discrimination and fear. I have seen the love of an idea or ideal drive people to devotion and sacrifice that no other emotion can inspire.
Through love there is hope, and hope is one of the most precious things we can ever have. The love of parents is hope for a brighter future for their children, and every child deserves to feel this love.
For all of the love and hope that I see and feel in the world, there exists a darker side. There is a dark and festering sickness in the soul of humanity. There is hate. I do not know how it will happen, and perhaps it is not for me to figure out, but I know that humanity must fight this hatred with love.
I myself have known the many splendors and horrors of love and hate. I have felt the quickening rush of new enraptured love, and have seen it blind my sight to the faults of others. I have felt the deep seated passion that comes with commitment and devotion to the exclusion of all other things. I have felt the pain-filled, unrequited love that often drives people to wit’s end. Sadly, I have felt love turn against itself and descend into petty jealousy and hate. Even more disturbing than that is the death of love… Not the change from love to hate or some other feeling, but the slow suffocation of emotion into an empty void. That is something that no one should ever have to feel.
I have given my heart to others before, and even now after all that has been said and done, even after the pain of loss and rejection, I still love each and every one of them. The love has grown from that of romantic intentions into the love from which the wellsprings of acceptance and forgiveness flow. It has become the divine love that Plato once wrote about.
I believe in love because without it, Humanity would be lost.
I believe in love because I love you.