Where do we learn our instinct for self-preservation, outside of simple experience? I'm speaking emotionally, mainly, as opposed to basic physical survival.

Some of us are so gun-shy of exposing ourselves to others in a vulnerable manner that we seem shut-off or insincere.. even untrustworthy to those we would claim as our nearest and dearest. Others can't seem to learn common red flags in matters of trust - always exposing their soft, emotional underbellies to completely sketchy or otherwise harmful people.

Naturally, neither extreme works. Those with so much suspicion and cynicism in their hearts become like a closed fist, with no real love going outward, and any love trying to get in only grazes uselessly at the surface. Others with a a seemingly unyielding open heart eventually get it filled with so many scars it becomes a tragic form of pseudo-masochism.

Granted, we all have scars. The more experienced we get in our relationships with people, the easier it is to see them in people we hardly even know, clear as a spotlight. It's why so many of us are just looking to "have some fun" with others - purely physical encounters with people seem to be easier on us. In these people, it's most apparent how experiences with love have become too emotionally dangerous or hopeless to pursue.

Afterall, when one spends so much time desperately chasing after love, affection, genuine caring and happiness, only to have it betray or not materialize at all... it seems the question would be, "What's the point?"

Why should I pursue something that really, has only hurt? Why am I.. just, completely falling over myself, destroying myself inside, for the sake of this person, of these people?

It's a common root. Alongside influences that have simply never experienced love.

However, once one experiences this.. this unyielding, consuming, fierce and friendly, deeper than ourselves, chest explosion kind of love.. When we find a relationship with somebody with whom we can just pull out and dig into the darkest parts of ourselves and expose it without regret (though not without fear - it is a very terrifying experience to go that far with another for the first time)...

Even if that relationship fails, after experiencing something like that - it becomes almost impossible to pursue anything less, and it's a disservice to ourselves to settle for less.

Seeking simple "fun" can be like drinking a bottle of salt water. Seemingly fulfilling, but our thirst isn't quenched in the end. We still need, and crave, and want, and desire.. Have you ever questioned exactly why you still feel lonely, and unfulfilled, or bored when the afterglow fades?

The physical, alone, is not enough to sustain you.

You have a heart and the capacity to love because you were made to experience so much more than this! The pointless physical may be like bottled sea water, but love, love is an ocean of fresh water - it's clean and deep and all-encompassing.

But if we don't pull out of where we're at, immersed in superficial relationships..

It's the thing
that's making you
SICK.

It's going to slowly hollow out everything inside, until there is only the cold, hard lump in the pit of our stomachs that consists of a mixture of frustration, desperation, and apathy. Until we just sit passively in front of our computer screens, or our televisions, or behind our windshields...completely, utterly empty.

And that thing, that insistent pulling toward the unknown, to a place many of us are fearing to go as we stubbornly throw ourselves into routine? That pull toward seemingly nothing that keeps us up at night? That lull in the shower where we feel a hole in ourselves and wonder if we're missing something?

Dear,
it's love,
it's love.

Whether our hearts have closed themselves as fingers, or wildly open and embracing anything we can get, we secretely..hunger. Crave. Need.

For the one thing that will cover all the bases of ourselves. The thing that finally fills us and quenches this insatiable thirst. The thing that will open the closed and fully embrace the open, the thing we all, every one of us, deserve.

It's the thing I wish for all of you, if not stronger than I wish it for myself.

The most dangerous place to be, it seems, is in love. You must have the boldness to tread, again and again, as long as it takes, because that is the true root of all we do, is in respose to love.

Always, always, Love.