East of Eden

My favorite part of my favorite novel, East of Eden, is one that occurs soon after Adam returns to the Trask farm from the army and his travels. Charles confronts Adam about how although Adam did not love Cyrus, yet Cyrus had more love for Adam than Charles. Adam goes on to explain that when you do not love someone, you tend to have more faith in them. How when you love someone, you grow suspicious of them, hurt them...

Personally, I agree. When you do not love someone, their actions will not affect you; you invest your faith in them, because you know if they let you down there is a shorter distance you will fall. It's just the same with most every situation, human nature tells us to pick the easiest route, and the more we fight against it, the more we end up losing; our faith always goes with our losses each time as well.

Loving someone is like jumping into open water, senses cut off, defenses lost. We rely all too much on our senses, and we are defenseless without them, but when you love someone, you have to learn how to use those senses all over again. It's scary as Hell, or so I've heard....

Well I'm still trying to figure out if I believe that loving someone who did not love you back counts when someone asks, "Have you ever been in love?".

The way I could explain it would be:

I've loved someone with all my heart and soul, but I have never been in love.


what do you think?