Dear students of life,
The following is a test. Please grab a pen and paper and try to answer as accurately as possible. The test comprises 30 pertinent questions. Failing to respond to at least half of them will lead to your obvious dismissal from the love class. Re-examinations are not possible. You are allowed to use any school or text books of your choosing.
I will give you a few indications. These are the best definitions of “love” that I have found on the internet.
-a strong positive emotion of regard and affection; "his love for his work";
-any object of warm affection or devotion; "the theatre was her first love"; "he has a passion for cock fighting";
-have a great affection or liking for; "I love French food"; "She loves her boss and works hard for him";
-used as terms of endearment, get pleasure from; "I love cooking"
After four futile and impersonal definitions the dictionary’s sceptic author decided to bring into discussion a potential counter mate: be enamoured or in love with; "She loves her husband deeply". Of course, it would not be a complete definition of love, if tennis or sex, in this particular order, hadn't been mentioned: a score of zero in tennis or squash; "it was 40 love"; sexual activities (often including sexual intercourse) between two people; "his lovemaking disgusted her"; "he hadn't had any love in months"; "he has a very complicated love life"
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
According to these definitions, love is: work, cock fighting, French food, her boss, cooking, her husband, zero, disgusted, complicated. Obviously we all know is complicated, but, isn't more to it? Please use your personal knowledge and imagination.
1) Is love: a) an impetuous temporary madness, or b) an excuse for irrational behaviour?
2) Is love: a) only for secretaries, or b) for the CEO of nine companies as well, as Jack Lemmon asked in “Avanti”?
3) Is love: a) mankind’s permanent quest and excuse for all its actions or b) something that makes the world go around with a little help from intrinsic angular momentum?
4) Is love like pi: natural, irrational and very important? How important is pi?
5) Does love mean to stay up all night with a sick child? Does love keep winter and loneliness at bay?
6) Does love mean cooking for hours while strenuously arranging the table as you were a chef in a 5* restaurant, looking for new recipes on the Internet or avidly watching BBC food channel, while taking notes on how to make the perfect steak (crispy on the outside and pink and juicy inside)? For additional info provided about a perfect steak you get an extra 0.5 points.
7) Does love mean doing something you don’t enjoy just because it makes the object of your love happy in your own detriment? Doesn’t this sabotage love on a long term?
8) Is love blind, deaf, dumb, and stupid?
9) Is love Mother Nature’s trick to insure the perpetuation of the species?
10) Is love a word invented by men to get free sex?
11) Is love an aware choice?
12) Is there always a fine line, a mental crossroad when our instinct says “it never ends well” (and history brings up irrefutable proofs) and our demoniac nature (the same one that makes us ride an ATV at midnight on a dark and icy road in a forest) that is pushing us into experiencing an amazing amalgam of pleasure, pain, hurt, laughter, crying, stolen moments of happiness, death cheating instants, personal drama, tears- an emotional rollercoaster that takes you up and down to only discard you like an exhausted and useless rag doll? Just answer yes or no, no need to elaborate on this one.
13) Is the moment we decide to cross that road the very instant we volunteer to experience love?
14) Is it always and entirely up to us to cross on the other side?
15) Does the failure come from the fact that our decision to cross the fine line might not coincide with our readiness for it?
16) Can we only appreciate pleasure by comparing it with pain? Or love to hate?
17) Can’t we know sweet is sweet unless we taste the bitter?
18) How much from the love we offer is self love, mirrored to us from our partner, and how much is selfless love?
19) If we fall out of love do we also love ourselves less?
20) Can we live without it and still be good?
21) Is there such thing as “everlasting”? (FYI: according to those lab rat scientists, love is a chemical that lasts two years and when couples move into a stable relationship phase, other hormones take over (such as the “too old and too blasé to move on” hormone). The male hormone, testosterone was also found to increase in love-struck women but to reduce in men when they are in love. In couples older than two years “the love molecules” had gone and were replaced by the so called “cuddle hormone” –oxytocin. So hormones and science contradict the “ever-lasting”) .
22) Does a woman’s IQ drop when she becomes a mother?
23) Does a man’s IQ drop when he makes love?
24) Is it true that “in love people” are less smart and more prone into doing silly and irrational things?
25) Is love just blurred judgment backed by reckless, hormonal and blinded decisions taken on an emotional background doubled by the handicap of an incapacitated reason?
26) If we give up love can we obtain peace of mind, and ultimately a better reasoning?
27) Are people who fall in love less creative and weaker?
28) Is this what it takes to be strong and rational: a total solitude doubled by lack of love?
29) Can we still call it love if we settle for lukewarm and passionless affairs, convenient dinners and comfortable silences?
30) Who needs love if it diminishes (common) sense and exacerbates our sensibility?
Each answer values one point. You have the rest of your life. Good luck! Tic Toc!
