What is love? What is fear? Love is fear and fear is love. It is a breathless insecurity, of palpitations, of hot flushes and cold sweats. In both there is danger, an uncertainty about one's future welfare. Love is worse than fear; to love is added the torture of lust. Love is like a violent ride on a rollercoaster. To be in love is to be sick, it is a dysentery in which your bowels turn to water and your stomach heaves. In love there is the fear of being rejected, of being embarrassed, humiliated.

Love is a stampede of hormones, a drive to reproduce, more lust than love. Lust is a rosy filter through which the desired one looks perfection; who looks in the cold, clear light of morn sadly diminished.

True love is the feeling that comes once the hormones have run themselves out, withered to dust. It is a pleasurably warm feeling for the other person, a concern for the loved one's wellbeing and contentment. It is that magnanimity of spirit that flows when giving of oneself without the least thought of receiving in return, though that flow is reward in itself.

Love too can develop entirely without lust. Love such as this is that which grows from close friendship with any other person of whatever gender and stage of life.

Love is a benison. Love spices life. True love knows no lust, no fear.