
Welcome to the most complicated and yet the easiest post I have yet to do so far! It is easy in the aspects of how I could take the cheap way out and just say God=Love and be done with it, but I already gave you a short post for this week and you deserve the complicated ramblings and rantings of a mad man with a blog (+5 points if you get the reference), so just remember you asked for this! :) Before we get started, I need to define what love is to me. In the world of Mark, I believe there are 6 different types of love and they are as followed in the given order:
- Love of God: This is probably one of the most difficult loves to understand, it is beyond our world's measures and even now I still don't understand it and probably never will.
- Love of self: I've talked about this topic many times in the past, so I won't go into too much detail, but it is knowing who you are, seeing what you believe in and loving yourself regardless of your flaws. You are the one person you will be with for the rest of your life, might as well become friends with who that is!
- Love of a significant other: Although this love can sometimes come before yourself, you must first love yourself before you love anyone else. I feel like I have gotten close to this, but have fallen flat MANY times. It is very easy to fall for someone or have a crush on them, but it is not true love until they can love you unconditionally in return. Maybe it is just because I'm a hopeless romantic who has seen too many Disney films and has an unrealistic grasp on reality, but this is someone who you are always thinking about, you put them before yourself, and you hold that special connection with that person that no one else could ever understand.
- Love of family: I love my sister, mom, dad, extended family, and even dog. No matter where I go in life, I know they will be with me and will be my automatic support system.
- Love of friends: My love of friends is a fairly simple concept, it is slightly below family, but they know you at such a deep level and can really make your life worth living!
- Love of things: I love chocolate, I love ultimate Frisbee, I love Disney and basically anything that will make me smile.
* Please note there is also lust, but this will never be a form of love.
Although family, friends and things fall in the bottom of the pile, I must stress that this does not mean they are any less important. They are just different kinds of love. I know I can personally say that I would be a very different person if I had not placed value in these things over the past 25 years. It is important to focus on all six in order to create that support system and find true love in this world.
Take these loves (and maybe any other kind of love that you can come up with) and give as much of it to others as often as you can. Life is a very precious thing and you never know when your last words will be to someone. Make sure it is "I love you". For those that don't know, I have always loved the movie Mary Poppins and the values she stands by. I was listening to the soundtrack earlier today on Spotify and found a special commentary by Bob and Dick Sherman, writers of the Poppins songs, in the commentary they bring a "new" set of ideas toward the song "Feed the Birds" that I never considered. The brothers talk about how it was one of Disney's favorite songs, there were times he even had the brothers just play the song to remind him why he did what he did for a living. Feed the birds symbolizes that it doesn't take very much to give that extra dimension, to give that extra love, and tuppence signifies that little amount, hardly anything. Feeding the birds means giving to the people that need that love (the Banks children) to help them along the way. If you are interested in this commentary, you can find it on Youtube here. I always like listening to these kind of audio tracks because you learn so much more behind the music. So here are my final words of wisdom: give your love everyday to the ones you love, let it become who you are as a person and let your love open the door to the hearts of others as well as yourself.