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emeraldembersI love you!
Seriously though :), although the article only suggests saying "I love you" and doesn't require any other thought, I want to give it some. When I was growing up and new to LJ I used to go off on one quite a lot about my adoration of the people in my life; sometimes in a funny way, sometimes in a weepy way, sometimes in an over the top soppy way, and always in an inevitably cringeworthy way because, well, I was a kid, I was hormonal, and I was head over heels in love with my friends and not always especially coherent or eloquent about it all. Not that I'm much better now.
Anyway, yes.
With roughly five exceptions, my flist is a fannish thing now where I don't actually interact with anyone from it in real life. Some of you I've known for years, some since last week, some on/off as you've left LJ and come back and left it again and come back again.
I'm not going to go too deeply into it, but the fact is I was raised in a Christian household and continue to be a Christian to this day. And while I certainly don't believe Christians have dibs on love or any special insight into it, the way I was raised did shape my life so that the entirety of my moral structure is based around love, or how I perceive it.
I think that love - real love - is that gut instinct that makes you want to do good, and to be good. The gut instinct that lets you know it's wrong to hurt someone, wrong to steal; that makes you feel that sick twist in the pit of your stomach when you know you did something to upset someone needlessly. The gut instinct that makes you happy when the people you love are happy; that makes you feel warm when you've done something good for someone.
Love is the invisible cuddle you feel when you've given a stranger tissues and a shoulder to cry on.
By that logic, loving someone is doing or wanting to do things for the people around you that give you that same invisible cuddle. It's wanting to be there for people and to do things that make them happy, even if that thing is as silly as teasing them IN ALL CAPS or sighing dramatically alongside them at how gorgeous a character is or writing them porn for no real reason other than that you know they'll enjoy it.
And that being said, I can now also say that I love you, the daft, wonderful, epic lot of you, and rest comfortably assured that I mean it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Seriously though :), although the article only suggests saying "I love you" and doesn't require any other thought, I want to give it some. When I was growing up and new to LJ I used to go off on one quite a lot about my adoration of the people in my life; sometimes in a funny way, sometimes in a weepy way, sometimes in an over the top soppy way, and always in an inevitably cringeworthy way because, well, I was a kid, I was hormonal, and I was head over heels in love with my friends and not always especially coherent or eloquent about it all. Not that I'm much better now.
Anyway, yes.
With roughly five exceptions, my flist is a fannish thing now where I don't actually interact with anyone from it in real life. Some of you I've known for years, some since last week, some on/off as you've left LJ and come back and left it again and come back again.
I'm not going to go too deeply into it, but the fact is I was raised in a Christian household and continue to be a Christian to this day. And while I certainly don't believe Christians have dibs on love or any special insight into it, the way I was raised did shape my life so that the entirety of my moral structure is based around love, or how I perceive it.
I think that love - real love - is that gut instinct that makes you want to do good, and to be good. The gut instinct that lets you know it's wrong to hurt someone, wrong to steal; that makes you feel that sick twist in the pit of your stomach when you know you did something to upset someone needlessly. The gut instinct that makes you happy when the people you love are happy; that makes you feel warm when you've done something good for someone.
Love is the invisible cuddle you feel when you've given a stranger tissues and a shoulder to cry on.
By that logic, loving someone is doing or wanting to do things for the people around you that give you that same invisible cuddle. It's wanting to be there for people and to do things that make them happy, even if that thing is as silly as teasing them IN ALL CAPS or sighing dramatically alongside them at how gorgeous a character is or writing them porn for no real reason other than that you know they'll enjoy it.
And that being said, I can now also say that I love you, the daft, wonderful, epic lot of you, and rest comfortably assured that I mean it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
