The Rose - sung by Bette Midler
*Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
And you its only seed.
[lyrics snipped]*
I snipped the lyrics for copyright issues. Please do not post full lyrics. You can link to them instead.
I was being serious, in my two-line reply.
Sometimes things are pretty simple.
Waitaminute. It’s NOT “nose?”
*Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust.
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie. *
Sir Walter Raleigh, The Lie
Ah, then Ian Anderson cribbed from Raleigh in Velvet Green,
Now, I may tell you
That it’s love and not just lust
And if we live the lie, let’s lie in trust
The rest of that stanza is the most elegant vulgarity I can ever remember hearing.
Love.
You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
That could fall under the illusion aspect of love, how it is said that it plays a trick on the mind. The more that I analyze love and pick it apart the less magical and positive it seems. It seems like the paragraph I mentioned about love being an illusion might be right. That we love the concepts in our head that we project outward rather than the people themselves. In a sense it’s like meaning and construction.
I have known love, but I have also known that it’s not the force for good that people think it is. The more evidence I read that supports that the more that I have to agree. Sure it feels good, but most illusions tend to do so.
Okay, so you feel shitty, but there’s no need to spread your bad vibes around with us, dude. We’re mostly happy here, and love has worked out pretty well for most of us.
Nice, Dung, nice.
Why would your nose grow when it is on the vine? You got some kind of Pinocchio think going on when you drink?
Yes, love has worked out quite well here too. Machinaforce is very cynical about love, unfortunately.
Unfortunately, Machinaforce is like a person who is tone-deaf arguing that music is overrated.
Or like a person who is colour-blind saying, ‘What’s the big deal with different wavelengths of light? Colour perception happens in the brain, so it’s all an illusion anyway.’
We can only feel sorry for him.
How is this different from your other threads? You question a Human’s ability to believe in anything they experience, yes?
Humans are frail. Yes. One can only choose How to Live in a way that works for them. That often includes Love. Your call.
I’m not sure Harlan Ellison is the best go-to for advice on love. A story circulating fandom has a tall blonde woman getting on an elevator with Ellison already on board. As the doors close he looks her up and down before saying, “What would you say to a little fuck?” She looks down at him and replies, “I’d say, ‘How ya doin’, little fuck?'”
Love was out to get me. That’s just the way it seemed.
Love *is *overrated in pop culture though. What we need are more songs about like.
I’ll start:
I like beer.
It makes me a jolly good fellooooow…
Which nobody can deny!
some people love beer, though
Yes, but do they love beer too much to ever start liking it?