Lifestyle Seminar, here today: Love

[isnotimportant.livejournal.com]

The professor has, astonishingly enough, interested the mice in cricket, and they've taken jobs as umpires. At the moment Frankie is at the bowler's end, and Benjy is at square leg. Occasional croaks and squeaks can be heard from the table.

Oh, look, it's time for our Lifestyle seminar again. As you're aware, our topic for today is love. Please share your insights with the group, and we'll see what we can learn from each other about this complex topic.

Comments

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

*Hamlet takes a seat and watches the unusual cricket game. He laughs bitterly upon hearing the topic for the lecture.*

'Love', hmm? There's a whole mess right there.

[isnotimportant.livejournal.com]

So you don't have a positive view of love, then? That's a pity. Oh, I didn't see your parents at the weekend, were they in town?

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

Definitely not. People may swear their love by the stars, the moon, the whole heavens, but given a more promising offer, they'll betray their supposed 'beloved' without a second thought. It causes nothing but pain and deception. People are altogether better off without declarations of love.


My Father decided to drop by the mixer on Saturday evening. He berated me for the things I've not yet done, possessed my roommate, and made me swear vengeance on a soup ladle. I really wish he'd stop doing these sorts of things to me. I don't think he had the time to visit you, Professor.

[isnotimportant.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure now whether I'm sorry to have missed him. Do you have any views on what Miss Evans has to say?

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

It's probably better that you missed him. My Father is still a very demanding person, despite having been dead for over half a year now. And I do have a reply to Miss Evans (http://www.livejournal.com/community/fandomhigh/298111.html?thread=14562943#t14562943).

[http://users.livejournal.com/___lily_evans_/]

Well there's the difference - 'declarations of love' are quite meaningless. But truly loving someone will show in one's actions.

[ihatedenmark.livejournal.com]

And if a woman loved a man for twenty years, made many declarations to that intent, bore him a son, followed him wherever he went on business, showed him the intimate physical bounty that love brings on a nightly basis -- and then was happily married to his brother not two months after her first husband's death? Pray, would you call that love?

[http://users.livejournal.com/___lily_evans_/]

It doesn't matter what I would call it. Who am I to judge? Only that woman can know why she did what she did and how she felt about either man. There could be a myriad of other factors in play in that situation, especially depending on the time period. Perhaps she needed to be married for the protection of herself or her child. Perhaps she felt that her first husband who loved her would want her to move on and find happiness rather than mourning indefinitely. Perhaps she is not as 'happily married' to the second man as she appears to be.

[isnotimportant.livejournal.com]

That's an intriguing position, that another person's state of love is not accessible to the outsider. That could be a topic for a whole seminar in its own right.

[http://users.livejournal.com/___lily_evans_/]

Love is the strongest possible bond between two people.

[isnotimportant.livejournal.com]

How much more encouraging your view is, when compared to our Danish friend.

[the4thsister.livejournal.com]

Paige looks a little uncomfortable with the topic she still loved Geoff, but she didn't really want to talk about him

"erm I think the post important kind of love is that between members of family, like my sisters and I" she says

[isnotimportant.livejournal.com]

Ah, we're looking at two different kinds of love, then -- what the Greeks called αγάπη, the kind that Miss Evans describes, and φιλιά, the kind that you describe. That's perhaps a little deeper than I'd anticipated, for today at least. Would you like to elaborate on the diferences, for the benefit of the group?

[the4thsister.livejournal.com]

"You mean romantic love and family love? Well romantic love is something that changes, something that has to be worked on, family love well that's just there isn't it? I mean I've only known my sisters a short while but I already love them so much that I'd do anything for them."