Love?

Today's Valentine's Day, obviously. It's depressing. The world, or at least America is obsessed with love, and I question the actuality of "love."

My doubt arises from the logical conclusion that love could very well be a simple illusion, created by some natural chemistry or physicality, to make people couple up and procreate. I want to believe in familial love and love between friends, but there are times when I doubt these as well. That old phrase "Sometimes love just isn't enough" has proved true again and again for people, otherwise it wouldn't be a much-used maxim.

People are often selfish and shallow. There are many whom I have met who do not understand how to love, if love really does exist as more than a mechanism to preserve the species and if it is defined as the following: the state of appreciation for another's strengths or beauties as well as his or her flaws, and as the state of acceptance of his or her feelings and needs. Love, in any sort of relationship, is not nor should it be conditional. "Love" is a word too often thrown around in conversation between two people who have not achieved love as defined above. The word "love" is too often bandied between two people who do not equally take part in the relationship or who do not help or even genuinely care for each other in times of dire need.

My other problem with this large, scary concept of love is that for some, it is the sole reason and purpose of being alive. There are people--or empty shells that look like people--who care solely about how loved they are. These people fall in love, often times too easily, and let the other person become the sun, moon, and stars of their private galaxy. The fault in this is such that people are unreliable--I have learned this the hard way, several times--and to let one's life revolve around another, even if this second loves the first in the greatest sense of the word, is negligent. It has been said before but it bears repeating: If one makes another his or her whole life, what does he or she have when their "love" is gone?

I am pretty sure that I have found more holes in this "love" idea, but I am at a loss currently. Should I think of more, I will post again. Till then, question everything and do not, please, give your faith (or love) blindly to a thing or a person...