Since I'm at home, I've had a lot of time to do some thinking. I really think too much. But I have looked back at my life and at other people's lives and tried to make sense out of it. I guess it's sort of fun to say what I've learned from this life of mine after my experiences. I know when I'm a lot older, I'll look back at this and laugh. I haven't been through the majority of it yet, or even close. It'd be impossible to say, however, that my life hasn't even begun yet. Becuase it has, and yes, I have learned a few things. I really can't list them, though. They're too complicated and inter-connected to do so. So I'll try to express all those that I've learned.

Number one is that we--any living thing containing a soul--are made of love. I don't care who you are, what you do, what you think, where you were brought up and in which way...you are made of love. What feels good? LOVE! What hurts? A lack thereof. Just take any human being and work to thoroughly understand him or her, and you'll understand how this applies. I can list anything that hurts, and it's a lack of love. I promise. Even if it's self-love.

I can personally classify these into four little groups of what hurts us. I don't mean to sound unfeeling, but there are four ways for someone to have a lack of love. The first, I call void of love. This is basically loneliness, where someone has never had it, and still doesn't. This is the love we yearn for but still can't even begin to understand our yearning for it, because we have never had it. Next, is rejection. This is love that we wish to have, but can't. Third is loss, obviously where we have love and then don't anymore. Finally, barrier love. This usually is love that you do have, but isn't whole because of judgement, dislike, hate, disapproval, or whichever way one might wish to describe it. NO LOVE IS PURE. So, even the love we have is barrier love. When we judge someone, that's a barrier. When our parents disapprove of us (and I don't mean just to help us as guiding parents, more like their not being proud of us for something), that's a barrier. And all in all, we have personal barriers as well, because personal love is important as well.

In fact, personal love is just as important and external love. The amount we can love other people reflects the exact amount we love ourselves. Many try to claim that they can love others more than they love themselves. They may think this because they wish it to be so, but it's not true. Caving to another's personal wishes and sacrificing one's own needs isn't love. That's simply low self-esteem at work. In the end, it hurts both people.

Love doesn't hurt. THE LACK OF LOVE IS WHAT HURTS. Many don't understand this because a great deal of what the American society teaches us is that the primary goal of us as people is to perform. Performing well will make us happy, and performing poorly will make us unhappy. This doesn't shock me at all. If we feel personally inadequate for a low level of success, that results in low levels of self love, and that hurts. If we feel good about ourselves when we are successful, we are consequently more self-loved.

Of course, it's very difficult to break down each situation of a person with simple lack of love explanations. Of course there are love-lacking explanations, but they are far from simple. If they were simple, the fix would be simple as well, and they are not.

And life itself isn't simple. Life weaves all of our little complications together and puts them into a context. Our strengths, weaknesses, and pain are like words--and we use them according to the context of life. In the end, the reason we go through life as painful as it is is to change those words, change them to make us less flawed, more whole as far as love goes, and, in turn, more happy. I can't really go on too much farther than that since it crosses the borderline into religion.

That's the only observation I can make about life, though. People may say it's to obtain success. But every single success we come across in our life will be gone. We die, and all our personal wealth goes elsewhere. We won't be able to keep a hold on any of it, not a single penny. We lose all those we love when we die, and aren't with them anymore. Some may say it's just for the ride. Which, I have to agree, there are many fun aspects to the ride in life. However, when asked what they accomplished throughout these chaotic lives of ours, we will say we learned something.

So what do we learn? Lots and lots and lots and lots.

And wow, I've run out of steam. Life is complicated. I don't think I'll ever be able to figure it all out. Guess that's why I'm here. Because I can't, so I will figure it out piece by piece. Yay! Good reason to be here. :-)