Love

What is love? Love is intensified attention, intensified appreciation. We can appreciate someone, we can really like someone and then, finally we can love them. Our loving someone is for us. It is a beautiful thing when that person loves us in return, but there isn't any guarantee that this is going to happen. Sometimes we try to make it happen. We think that if we love someone enough, if we give them attention to an intense-enough degree, that they will have to love us in return. It rarely works that way. We may guilt someone into loving us, but that is what it will be. And eventually it will be seen for what it is. It is rare for two people to love each other equally at the same time, for a long-enough period of time for them both to gain and grow from the experience. And eventually the difference in the degree of their respective love becomes evident.

When we come to love someone, the love we feel is really for ourselves, to gratify and stroke our own ego. All love is ultimately directed toward the self, the ego.

The fact that we love someone is no concern of theirs. In fact, it is a real measure of a person's maturity to be able to say:

The fact that I love you is no concern of yours.