Aaron Gamble
12-11-15
English 1101
Research Paper draft #1

Love.

Love. What happened to it? What went wrong throughout time? Why is it nowadays that love is so tainted and fragile? From the Shakespearean era to the latest of the 2000s, love has changed drastically. The human race has gone from praising and accepting only the highest form of love to disowning it, downing it, and more often than none, ignoring it. It has been pushed down further into the depths of the heart, and even further into the most sacred realms of the human mind. So much so that it barely exists. As of right now, no one wants to be in love and when they claim that they are, they usually only have a mere understanding of what is to actually love and be in love with someone.
Not to put rules and regulations on the act of love, but in most cases, they don’t even know how to love properly. Real, genuine, and unconditional love is rare. Most of us can only relate to that when regarding the type of love our grandparents have or had; an undisputed commitment and willingness to understand one another before volunteering our own ideas of what love is. We find it shallow and sometimes even regretful to marry young, at an age like seventeen; furthermore, we think it nearly impossible to remain married for fifty years or sometimes shorter. That’s because we’re a younger generation, we’re a lot more selfish and consumed with the idea of things, rather than what they are. We parlay too much with our imagination, and forget to embrace and cherish our reality.
What is my definition of true love, you ask? When I think about love, the first thing that comes to mind is Romeo and Juliet, two of my most favorite characters created from Shakespeare’s imagination. Though their story faced a tragic ending, their love prevailed before and after their death. It is understood that they were so infatuated, so emotionally aroused by one another that they would’ve killed to be together or had rather died than to be apart. And even though their existence derived from Shakespeare’s imagination, he writes it as vividly as he envisioned it because he believed in the strength and existence of true love. To compare his understanding of love to what most do now is almost impossible. Not many are selfless enough to even ponder the thought of giving their life for someone they truly love. People aren’t genuinely interested in a life-changing experience, such as falling in love.
How many times a day do you think you encounter someone that would rather cherish a genuine, long-lasting relationship than something that only benefits them for the moment or time being. That’s another thing that confuses what love is. Everyone wants a temporary fuse and to be someone’s center of attention without being willing to give or receive something worth focusing on. They make love a materialistic ideal or happening, belittling the nature of what it is initially. Like rapper, J. Cole, once referenced in an interview, “What I realize is that the monetary, the material, even the success – like the things you place your importance on, never can satisfy you and ever make you happy because they never end. There’s no amount of money that can ever make you stop if money is what you care about. You’ll keep going – ‘Ah, I got a million, gotta get ten. Got ten, gotta get a hundred. Got a hundred, gotta get five. Got five, gotta get a billion.’ If it’s cars, you’ll never have enough cars. If it’s women, you’ll never have enough; you’ll be chasing them forever. If it’s success, you can never get enough of that. I realized that. It doesn’t stop, it keeps calling you, it’s like a drug. It’s a hamster wheel. You’re never satisfied. But, if you place your importance on this, which is like appreciation – love – you know, it’s like that is enough. There’s enough of that in everybody’s life right now if they just took the time to look.” The rapper went on the state throughout the interview.
When did the drop off in love occur? When did the meaning of love switch up? What is your definition of love? What is the real definition of love? All of those questions have yet to be answered and as time continues to pass by, the answers to those question will fade. Where did the word come from, who decided one day to make up that word and just attach it to a certain feeling. What if, that’s the big question… What if..

Works Cited.
Jermaine Lamarr Cole. “2014 Forest Hills Drive Interview” Published by, Angie Martinez, Power 105.1
William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet.” 1597.
Complex Magazine July 2014 issue.