Plato

“I broke into your house last night, and left a note at your bedside.”
-Spitting Games by Snow Patrol

“I've been walking erect since the moment we met.”
-Shiksa (Girlfriend) by Say Anything

“Dim my eyes if they should compromise our fulcrum what you need divides me then I might as well be gone.”
-Jambi by Tool

Love is, as far as I can tell, in the eyes of the beholder. Who can define love? Love is... horrible. It can ruin people's lives. People kill and get killed because of love. We wake up in tears, screaming at the ceiling and clawing at our beds because of love. We die, because we know it's impossible to wake up without it. Love is calming. Love is holding hands and knowing she's never going to run away. It's holding one another with under a darkening sky as the lake continues to ripple. As we wake up, it's the smile knowing they're waking up next to you. Love is nervous. Love is shaking at the school dance. Love is erasing the second line of the poem over and over again. Love is growing roses because buying them isn't good enough. Love is learning her name, and love is whispering it to her. Love cannot be rationally explained. Love can save the planet, and love can tear the city down around the lovers.

Now, I understand that Plato is a universally accepted intelligent person. Mostly everyone can at least say with confidence that he was a smart Greek. That is something in and of itself, to survive for so long with that simple idea. I am not going to say that he isn't exactly what he is known to be: one of the most quoted and most acknowledged thinkers of this planet. That said, I think he's very wrong about love. Love is not universal. Love is not the same for anyone, let alone everyone. I don't think I've experienced love, but what little I have experienced scratching at the great maw of life is more than what he described. I don't believe love is some great understanding that comes akin to an enlightenment. It's the most wonderful brutality that people can experience, and it must be experienced kicking and screaming. All love has its trials, which make it all the better.

I hate to be the cynic, but it's so much more romantic to think of the desperation that love can bring rather than penning it off to proper meditation. I'd rather be broken by it any day over realizing it through proper study.