[00:15.88]First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons - but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean
[00:25.42]that it is a similar experience of the two people involved.
[00:30.16]There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries.
[00:36.94]Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored up love which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto.
[00:46.61]And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing.
[00:55.92]He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer.
[01:03.23]So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can;
[01:11.41]he must create for himself a whole new inward world - a world intense and strange, complete in himself.
[01:21.55]Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man
[01:27.77]saving for a wedding ring - this lover can be a man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.
[01:37.68]Now, the beloved can also be of any description.
[01:42.49]The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love.
[01:47.72]A man may be a doddering great grandfather and still love only a strange girl
[01:53.03]he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past.
[01:58.58]The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous,
[02:05.44]greasy headed, and given to evil habits.
[02:09.03]Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else -
[02:15.07]but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit.
[02:19.93]A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild,
[02:25.11]extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies in the swamp.
[02:32.15]A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased,
[02:37.56]or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll.
[02:43.99]Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.
[02:51.79]It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved.
[02:58.29]Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way,
[03:05.17]the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover,
[03:11.98]and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved.
[03:18.96]The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.
