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Our BetterMost Community => The Polling Place => Topic started by: Kerry on March 20, 2009, 01:06:54 am

Title: Love, Death and the Whole Damn Thing
Post by: Kerry on March 20, 2009, 01:06:54 am

Is it better to have loved passionately and died of a broken heart or never to have loved at all?

Earlier today, I was listening to Jessye Norman singing Dido's Lament from Henry Purcell's opera, "Dido and Aeneas." It occurred to me, "Is it better to have loved passionately and died of a broken heart or never to have loved at all?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnzXbx97_UI

Ms Norman sings, "When I am laid in earth, may my wrongs create no trouble. Remember me, but ah, forget my fate."

Title: Re: Love, Death and the Whole Damn Thing
Post by: Katie77 on March 20, 2009, 02:17:31 am

Anyone who has ever loved passionatly, would never give up that experience.

Even if it meant dying of a broken heart, to have missed having had that love would be worse than never having felt it at all.

In my opinion, anyone who has never loved would feel just as bad as having a broken heart anyway.

Title: Re: Love, Death and the Whole Damn Thing
Post by: pnwDUDE on March 20, 2009, 02:52:45 am

Quote from: Kerry on March 20, 2009, 01:06:54 am

Earlier today, I was listening to Jessye Norman singing Dido's Lament from Henry Purcell's opera, Dido and Aeneas." It occurred to me, "Is it better to have loved passionately and died of a broken heart or never to have loved at all?"

To have loved is to experience something those who have never loved have not. Simply put, one who dies experiencing love is far better than one who has never loved. The prior has the experience, the later not.

Which makes me think. When so much about the gay lifestyle has nothing to do with love but everything to do with sex, what becomes of those who 'fucked' the years away? I know many, many gay men that did just that. Passionate love was never a motivation. It was all about how many and how often and most aren't around to discover what love is all about. 

Jack and Ennis certainly experienced passionate love. Despite fatherhood and such, they found love in each other. That which they would have never found in Lureen and Alma. Would it have been better for them to marry and have kids like they did and never love passionately like only they could do (with another man)? Of course not.

Brad

Title: Re: Love, Death and the Whole Damn Thing
Post by: injest on March 20, 2009, 08:52:22 am

doesnt' EVERYONE that loves passionately die with a broken heart? I cant see how you couldn't...the odds of dying at the exact moment in peace with your loved one are vanishingly small. I can't think of what it would be like to be the survivor, if something happened to Don.

but I know my heart would be broken.

Title: Re: Love, Death and the Whole Damn Thing
Post by: Kerry on March 20, 2009, 09:24:51 am

I voted for "Love passionately and die of a broken heart."  It appears to be firmly in the lead.

Title: Re: Love, Death and the Whole Damn Thing
Post by: mariez on March 20, 2009, 04:11:40 pm

Quote from: Katie77 on March 20, 2009, 02:17:31 am

Anyone who has ever loved passionatly, would never give up that experience.

Even if it meant dying of a broken heart, to have missed having had that love would be worse than never having felt it at all.

In my opinion, anyone who has never loved would feel just as bad as having a broken heart anyway.

Yes, so well said!  Regret is the worst feeling of all.

Title: Re: Love, Death and the Whole Damn Thing
Post by: delalluvia on March 21, 2009, 09:32:21 pm

I voted other.  Why does passionate love have to lead to loss and death?  Why does the alternative have to be a lifetime without love?

In other words - why does it have to be so black and white?

Whatever happened to a happy ending?  Whatever happened to marrying one's best friend because we all know passion dies and what is left is the best love of all?  Passionate Love is the Drama Queen of Love.  The best we all can hope for is that we die in the arms of a loved one.  What's wrong with that?  SOMEone has to be left behind (unless they have some sort of sick suicide pact going) and I would be the last to wish unrelenting grief and pain on someone I loved.  I would want them to recover and move on and enjoy what's left of their life.  Not grieve over me so much that they die.  That's a horrible thing to want to happen or to experience.  In fact if it looks as if someone is going to do that, we act as if it's a mental illness and we try to treat such people.

Aeneas and Dido are a bad example.  They would have been together save for the gods' interference and Destiny, and after Dido commits suicide Aeneas is shocked to see her in his journey through Hades.  She rebuffs him and flies off with her deceased husband who she claims never left her.  So even passionate love was 2nd to loyalty and steadfastness in love.

Title: Re: Love, Death and the Whole Damn Thing
Post by: Front-Ranger on March 24, 2009, 10:53:43 pm

Hehe, I had a poll like this about a year ago:

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,22288.0/all.html (http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,22288.0/all.html)

Yours is more ruthless with only three choices!

Title: Re: Love, Death and the Whole Damn Thing
Post by: Kerry on March 24, 2009, 10:59:33 pm

Quote from: Front-Ranger on March 24, 2009, 10:53:43 pm

Hehe, I had a poll like this about a year ago:

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,22288.0/all.html (http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,22288.0/all.html)

Yours is more ruthless with only three choices!

Blame it on Henry Purcell. I love that aria.   :'(    :'(    :'(