On Love

I was asked once about the nature of love. I can only say this, True love holds no expectations, only hope. Love cannot be given or taken, only offered or rejected. And we really don't get a choice in either. You do or you don't. Is it possible to quit loving ? No, I don't think so. When we say we fall out of love what we mean is we abandon hope. Without hope, love cannot survive. The love we feel never goes away, only redirected. One can love many things without the necessity of action. Love does not have to be proved.
How do we know if this love is real ? One can only hope for that. You can not make it so. Any attempt to to so leads to expectations, and love has none.
And so love is an enigma. Perplexing in it's existence and complex in description. To give freely without the expectation of return is a foreign thing to us humans. The world has taught us otherwise. We become jaded. To love with a motive is a false love. Consider the first moments of love. Those times when you love and hope for a return of that love. A time when hope is all you have. Is not that love the best of all ? Isn't that the love of fire and passion poets write about ? The intangible.It is the desire to capture that love that gives love it's character. Love is not the promise but the hope. As was famously stated by Alexander Pope, hope springs eternal. And with eternal hope, love abides.