Real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect yourself. The greater the love, the greater the chaos. It’s a given and that’s the secret.
Interpretation
Real love can be overwhelming and chaotic, affecting one's sense of control and safety.
This quote by Jonathan Carroll emphasizes the intense and often tumultuous nature of true love. It suggests that real love involves a deep emotional entanglement that can lead to losing control and perspective, indicating that the intensity of love is often accompanied by an equally intense sense of chaos and uncertainty. The mention of chaos as a 'given' reflects the idea that such experiences are an inherent part of loving deeply.
In practice
In a speech on relationships, to illustrate the often complicated nature of love.
Part of life is a quest to find that one essential person who will understand our story. But we choose wrongly so often. Over the ensuing years that person we thought understood us best ends up regarding us with pity, indifference, or active dislike. Those who truly care can be divided into two categories: those who understand us, and those who forgive our worst sins. Rarely do we find someone capable of both.
Dogs are minor angels, and I don't mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally , forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy
I have never heard anyone say This is it. I know right now is the high point of my life. It will never get any better. Only in retrospect do we recognize the best times and of course then it is too late.
When you love someone deeply, you know secrets they haven't told you yet. Or secrets they aren't even aware of themselves. ... She was also the person I wanted to share the trivia of my life with, because that too is part of the magic of concern: Whatever you live is important to them and they will help you through it.
It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and senseless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart.
Writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage.
Every beloved object is the center point of a paradise.
What does it mean when a man falls in love with a radiant face across the room? It may mean that he has some soul work to do. His soul is the issue. Instead of pursuing the woman and trying to get her alone, away from her husband, he needs to go alone himself, perhaps to a mountain cabin, for three months, write poetry, canoe down a river, and dream. That would save some women a lot of trouble.
And my heart springs up anew,_x000D_ _x000D_ Bright and confident and true,_x000D_ _x000D_ And the old love comes to meet me, in the dawning and the dew.
Great lovers will always be unhappy, because, for them, love is of supreme importance. Consequently they demand of their beloved the same intensity of thought as they have for her, otherwise they feel betrayed.
Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made.
There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don't expect you to save the world I do think it's not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.
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