From "The Book of Questions" by Gregory Stock, PH.D.
Q #19
You have the chance to meet someone with whom you can have the most satisfying love imaginable - the stuff of dreams. Sadly, you know that in six months the person will die. Knowing the pain that would follow, would you still want to meet the person and fall in love?
What if you knew your lover would not die, but instead would betray you?
6 comments:
It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Shakespeare said this a long time ago. In spite of the losses in my life, I have to believe that to have loved and lost has been worth the pain of the loss. To be open to another person, to offer yourself to that person, to have that person to offer himself to you, and to accept each other is to touch Heaven. We are created to be resilient, to endure, to experience. If we don't open ourselves to all that life has to offer, we live a half-life that misses the richness and texture. We cheat.
Betrayal is part and parcel of life. I can only try to live my life as an honest open person. I know I'll fail sometimes, and I have to concentrate on living a life that offers to others honesty. However, I know that others aren't like me. They will pass through my life. Some will enrich me, others will hurt me. However, none who would betray me will last long in my life.
I would go for the 6 month 'satisfying love imaginable'. I don't necessarily buy into the Shakespeare idiom. It's for putz-es.
The death of the other brings closure and finality too that life event, and that is closure enough for me to move on.
If I knew the lover would betray me I wouldn't get involved with that person at all. It would violate me on so many levels that I couldn't begin to describe the devastation that would cause me.
betrayal is worse than death.
I would want the love, and culd accept the death, but would not want the love with the betrayal.
If I knew of the betray in advance, the love would not be meaningful and true.
Oh yes! Love is the greatest of all gifts and once a person is gone, the love you shared is still there. I have always believed people come into our lives for a purpose. You need them or they need you, but there is a need or a lesson that they feel.
I am reading a book right now titled Love by Leo Buscaglia. It is a very touching book that I highly recommend to anyone that is ready for some self-evaluation. One of the passages reads "Love is like a mirror. When you love another you become his mirror and he becomes yours.... And reflecting each other's love you see infinity" Now doesn't that sound WONDERFUL?
Also: "One does not fall 'in' or 'out' of love. One grows in love." Oh, to skip an opportunity to grow in love just because you know it is short term? I don't think that would be a wise choice at all!!!
Learning what I have learned in my life so far, I would have to say I would have to open my heart to that person even if I knew she would pass or even if I knew I would be betrayed. Because regardless of the outcome, its an opportunity to grow, to learn and to love.
This is the gift my wife has given me for which I am forever grateful.
I choose the true love for six months ... even with death on the horizon .... although that would be very hard.
As for betrayal ... no thank you. I would question if anything about that six months was real or was it all a big joke at my expense?
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