Love as a Candle-bearer

If you don’t have anything bad to say about a person, then you don’t have anything to say about him at all. To know a person is to know him in his worst.

More importantly, you cannot say you love a person until you have seen what is most wretched and ugly in him.

Therefore, to those who love, do not be blind to what is repulsive and despicable in the one you love. They say love is blind; I say love sees everything. And love wants to see everything because to love a person is to love totally. There is no other kind of love.

And to those who wish to be loved, do not hide from your potential lover what is most repugnant in you. A person cannot love you until you have shown him all the skeletons in your closet. If someone shuns you because of what is worst in you, then that person does not deserve what is best in you.

But then they also say love is accepting a person for who she is. Again, this is not true. What is love for if it does not make you a better person? It is a worthless love that does not turn your worst weakness into your greatest strength.

So the next time the candle-bearer that is Love knocks at the door of your skeleton-filled closet, do not bother tidying it up and welcome Love at once! It is, after all, Love’s sacred duty to go to the darkest recess of a one’s heart and flood it with some light.

Love, like Friendship, can strengthen and empower you in ways you can seldom fathom.