Favorite Lecture #3

I very much enjoyed the lecture from May 3rd. We had a fishbowl discussion based on the romantic poems we read for homework for that day. We were then asked by Professor Brady to describe what "True Love" meant to us, what could possibly destroy it, and for words to describe it. I described true love as "putting someone else's feelings, thoughts, and well-being at the level of your own, if not higher." I also said that "you know it's true love when 'the honeymoon phase' ends and you still feel all of the admiration for the person as you did before." It's easy to love someone when nothing seems to be going wrong. However, when reality sets in, opinions start to differ, real personalities are shown, or when events occur that could bend the relationship, that is when the "true love" gets put to the test. I believe that true love is being self-less, comfortable, trusting of the other's judgment, and understanding that you are different people learning to live as one. I've always believed that those who feel love for each other either "grow together or grow apart." In romantic terms this would mean that either the two learn to coexist as one, or they break up since they're not willing to compromise. Similarly, in familial terms this means that either you learn from your parent, child, sibling, friend, etc., or you drift apart due to differences that may be insignificant in the big picture. I enjoyed this in-depth discussion about this topic, and it was very interesting to see which classmates had similar viewpoints to mine and who had drastically different ones.