Young Writers Society

Love is something that has changed drastically within the past few years. Originally, love was something you didn't talk about, like it was a secret. There was no real teenage melodrama; adults fell in love, not kids. If you were in love, you were probably married with kids, or planning to do so. And really early on, you may have been married even if you didn't really love the person.

But somewhere in the sixties, things changed. Maybe it was just the changing times, maybe it was all the rights people were getting, maybe it was a sort of protest against tradition, or maybe it was just all the drugs. But somehow, love changed; it got a new meaning. Love change from something that was preserved to a way of life. The new generation was one full of love. They loved everyone: they loved their partners, they loved each other, they loved people everywhere, and they loved people who hated them. To quote Frank Zappa, "I will love everyone, I will love the cops as the beat the shit outta me on the streets." And they did! They gave flowers to the cops who would sometimes kill them when they protested! And yet, this new sort of love had something it didn't have before. Somehow, even though it was being shared like there was no tomorrow, it still had more meaning. It was heart-felt, and became something sacred and divine.

But then it changed again. As the hippies began to vanish, so did the love. The hippies were replaced by punks, and love with hate. The love was still there, just the hate was more apparent. And I suppose disco was there, and well as the '80s techno bands and such, but that too changed the meaning of love. Love came to mean sex. If you loved someone, and you were old enough, it meant you had sex. And that's still around today. Love began to lose it's sacredness and divinity. Just a few short years after Woodstock, love had changed into something else.

And the by the turn of the century, it was still transforming! Not only did you have all the previous cultures preaching mixed messages telling you to simultaneously love everyone, hate everyone, to make love, and have abstinence only, but you had yet another group come in! You got the emo group! Now this group is by far the most difficult to understand. In their world, love became synonymous with suffering and depression. If you were in love, you suffered. You suffered when you started to love someone, you suffered when you didn't know if that person loved you, and you suffered even more when you found out they didn't. And even if they did, somehow, you still suffered!

And through so many generations and cultures with their own meaning of love, you get a confused generation who doesn't know what to do. They start dating at the age of ten, and some of them start having sex at the age of thirteen. Thirteen. Just think about what that says about America and what love has become. Love has become something you use for a few days and throw away. You go out with someone you don't really like for a few days, hold hands maybe, and then you break up. And in some cases, it's in reverse! You're best friends, you go out, you don't talk to each other, and then you break up and hate each other. While you suffer the entire time.

And yet somehow, through all this abuse, it's survived. It's desperate and abused, like a candle about to burn out, but it's still there. Somehow, it's still maintained some of it's sacredness and divinity. It's still that idea of that one person who is your world, the one. The person you almost need to be with, because you've almost become dependent on them. And it's not about suffering or sex, it's about love. It's about that one person who has that incredible ability to make you smile. And it's still survived, through STDs, gay rights movements, civil rights movements, womens' rights movements, an era of increased divorce, an era of cutting and depression, an era of hate, an era of abstinence, and so much more.

Love is still love.

Please tear apart, I'm not really sure why I wrote this. It was just a few ideas floating around in my head, and I've just been in that sort of mood lately.