Congratulations! You are now one more step ahead in life. With more experience and wisdom you can now overcome many more obstacles. Life is a beautiful gift and I know that with your great optimism you will never fail to see the wonders of your life... family, friends... they will always be there for you because of who you are. You never fail to ensure the happiness of others. Its a beautiful quality thats awfully difficult to find in this world. And because you bear this special gift, the light will always be shining for you through good and bad times. We all have our seasons, and after all those droughts the flowers will be blooming once again. You have proven yourself to be far stronger than you are weak Robert. You are determined- Choosing the path of your will. Absolutely nothing will stop you from getting what you want and deserve, and you deserve far much more than just a life followed by social rules but of course, you wont have any trouble finding what makes you truly happy... I know that for a fact. With your strong desires I promise you that success will not disappoint you. Its far closer than what you think. You hold no room for failure... it doesn't exist in your case. You have this magnetic aspect thats going to take you farther than the ends of this universe. This striking capacity to blow others’ minds, this grandeur brilliance, this opulence. You give everything new meaning through your actions. You are the winner in all others’ eyes, the honorable one who stumbles yet still works arduous. The one who stands out so that everyone’s head in the room turns. You radiate this electric pulse that brings those around you to life. You have this gentle charm that lures so many to you. There is no misgiving in what you offer or give. I don’t know how else to convince you of the fact that your star is going to shine brighter than any others’. 

You are so intelligent. You see truth in a world consumed by darkness. We are all born blind and only a few are able to gain a true understanding of what life really means. You happen to be one of the few brave enough to accept this truth. You know what it takes to come alive, what it means to really live, experience, and _____ . To know these things you know without a doubt that your life has meaningful purpose. You create promising differences in everybody’s lives everyday including yours. Its ever clear that your energy is not just inherited. Heaven has a plan for everyone who is willing to take it from God’s hands. Grasp yours and you’ll find where ultimate happiness lies. 

Your honesty makes you purer than anyone I know. Its a daily challenge you must keep despite whatever temptations that come into play. You can never just trust anyone. Your word however, is golden and not stained like others’. You are willing to face any consequences resulting from your actions and you accept whatever faults there may be. You probably think Im really crazy for calling you brave... but you really are. It is so easy for many to get caught up in a life infested with lies and unfortunately those become ignorant of the fact that they too are lying to themselves. I find it as a sin... not living who you are supposed to be...the happy person you were supposed to be... as yourself. Truth is angelic and respected highly for it brings happiness and joy to the world and your honesty contributes much to the longing fight for peace and tranquility amongst ourselves.

You are more true to yourself than anyone living on this planet. You don’t ever find yourself hiding because you are not afraid to show who you are. You boast and shout all your vivid colors to the entire vast world. You force those who cant hear to listen and discover the paradise in themselves just as you have. 

Although, what is even more difficult than giving the truth is accepting it. Reality can really bite you hard in the ass at times and drain you from your life and living it. Living with pain you are forced to hide is difficult. You wish to re-live the past, re-live those emotions, re-live the happiest moments of your life and you try your best to hang onto those memories with the most intricate detail possible. After a while, you find yourself back at the same place you once were and you feel completely miserable. Almost like you can literally feel the pain that burns inside you. You beg for it to stop and for it to all go away but you wake up and realize there is no way back, you can only look forward, and you can only hope that all things will become better in time. Forgetting is never the way, neither is denying the truth. You just feel the imprint thats left on you. That is what matters most, what gives you true knowledge, what makes up part of you today. What you have been taught stays and lives within you. Those scars are what keeps all of us moving, what makes us strive to be the better person we want and were taught to be. Never forget what they have done for you. They gave you the greatest knowledge there is to give, the greatest advice, the ultimate greatest gift. That imprint was never intended to dim your luminosity, that imprint only wishes to brighten your gleaming radiance.

Those are just a few wonderful aspects that you carry and there are so much more that Im sure absolutely anyone can go on and on talking about. Its endless. Most of all, you’re just such a beautiful person. And you can deny it all you want if you feel like so but that would be lying to yourself. You possess this charisma in which you can’t contain yourself. Like why do you even care? Why are others’ personal happiness so vital to you? You even come to care for those who are selfish and careless never expecting anything in return. Its the mystery I cannot come to solve. Thats what is so appealing about you. I guess sometimes there are no answers, just existence living side by side with divine reason. You pride yourself of this existence/talent in you... the power to give comfort and light in such hopeless times. And never did I hear you ask for absolutely anything in return. You simply live with what life offers you. Even those around you thrive off your lively presence... so humble, so kind, so unparalleled, so breathtaking, so persevering, so perfect... You rejoice with the truth. And we all have a past/side that we come to regret at some point in our lives, and your past should be no one’s business but your own. So don’t ever let anyone or anything bring you down. Your imperfection is what makes you the perfect human being. So don’t you ever worry and promise me that you’ll continue to live life the way you were inspired to. And remember success is shy- it won’t come out while your watching. 

Keep in mind that I kept all personal feelings out of this. Im not gonna lie, it would have been much more beautiful if I allowed myself to express all my emotions but according to our situation, that would be extremely inappropriate. Especially since... 

And this time I sent you a return address because the last time I didn’t you freaked out. But you have to realize that these are my very own words that I created myself... they are not lies. I know how much you adore words and what I say is absolutely and completely true. I swore I wasn’t going to do this but I just couldn’t hold myself from doing so. Here it goes... Why must you do this to me? I just don’t understand why you had to throw me away. I feel like such a pest in your eyes, and it really hurts me. Please do not continue to cut me off, I cannot stand it. I can’t withstand this any longer. But in the end, whatever decision you make, I can only respect. You are so much more intelligent than I am therefore you know whats best. Whatever decision you choose, I still want to wish you Happy Birthday!!! :) ! 

• Your Friend,

  Nicole

Nicole Garza

Shirley

General Philosophy

9 October 2012

Nicole Garza’s Term

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). “What is love?” many ask to this day. For all we know this question has been asked ever since our beginning and over many centuries. Yet the only answer we ever seem to get is “Love is the greatest mystery of them all”. But we are all too stubborn to take that for an answer. Love is our greatest motivation in life because it brings us  so-called unending happiness. Love is what drives us in life, to continue living in hopes of that one day when we find our ultimate happiness in life. As free thinking individuals, we know that love has a greater, deeper feeling than just being a mystery. Although many well acknowledged people claim that love is just a sexual attraction one feels for another, a mere idea that humans have a psychological obsession over, I choose to believe that love is a divine gift for us to share sent from God because love raises the same amount of mystery that the idea of God does.

There are really no answers to prove that true unconditional love exists just as there are really no answers to prove that an all supreme perfect deity exists. Philosophy or any such genre of the sort has not been able to offer a concrete explanation to what love is or why it even exists in the first place and of course there are those who claim to have had divine experiences with God but, there is never really proof or someone to prove that these experiences ever actually came into play. We can only rely on our intuition, and decide for ourselves whether or not there is a loving God. A vast majority of the Earth’s population is rather convinced that there is indeed a loving God who constantly teaches us to love unconditionally. This is where faith and religion come in. Primarily focusing on the traditional Judeo-Christian view, humans “are like divine beings because they contain something of the ability to love and know that characterizes their creator” also known as God (Velasquez, pg.57). God has given us the privilege of life and the opportunity to experience and learn the meaning of true love. Love amongst ourselves, amongst nature, friendships, leisures, personal interests, art, music, life, through God himself and so much more. God’s purpose is to teach us human beings the meaning of life which is love. The love that we experience from day to day is a divine love that God shares with us giving reason as to why we none of us can really display hard evidence of love being more than just physical attraction amongst ourselves especially since there is also no hard evidence to proof the existence of God. Why else would such strong feelings of affection exist? 

As stated earlier, throughout the centuries of our existence, many well acknowledged philosophers such as Aristotle have been meaning to answer the question “What is love?” From Aristotle’s point of view, love is practically a true friendship among two persons. “It is based on two people’s mutual recognition of the goodness of the other” (Velasquez, Pg.473). Once we see the goodness in others and realize their passion to follow certain ethical codes and morals, we become happy individuals in their presence because we appreciate others’ ethical and moral codes. We see them as good hearted individuals and therefore we look forward to spending more time with them. Sooner or later we begin to discover that this person starts to make us feel good about ourselves. When two people receive the same reaction from one another they then begin to embrace and share these feelings with which we call love. And because we have these such strong feelings for another, we want the other to receive the best and what’s good due to the fact that they have such high value to us. The higher value a person has to a certain individual, the more needy it is for the individual to have the other safe so that the individual may feel good in return. As when Aristotle says “a friend is one who wishes good to his friend and who does what is good or seems good for his friend... and wishes to spend time with his friend” (Velasquez, pg.475). In conclusion to Aristotle’s perspective on love, love is just a mutual feeling that allows us to feel good about ourselves, that feeling is what we thrive off of and nothing more. 

The scientific perspective on love is a sexual attraction between two individuals, so that we may pass on our genes through many generations by reproducing. Its just the humans’ way of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Psychologists argue that many people constantly confuse mere feelings of attraction with an nonexistent subject called love. They argue that our body/brain is responsible for releasing natural drugs throughout our body systems to make us more excited in the presence of certain others. In other words, its our own benefit that we care about and not the other’s disproving the fact that true love exists. But if that is the case, it still doesn’t explain why some lovers are still willing to give up their lives for the other. If all we care about is ourselves, our benefits, our survival, then why are some willing to throw all that away. Why not just move on with life and find another who can benefit us just the same? Yet we choose death over life for the people we love. We have nothing to benefit from and practically everything to lose. Science really has no answers as to why these situations happen. There is no doubt that what science has to say about love isn’t true, biological anatomy has a lot to do with amorous feelings, but at the same time it isn’t entirely true either. Therefore we cannot totally rely on science to answer what love is. 

My personal experience with love has very much to do with my faith and religion. I have seen what love can do. It has greatly changed me as a person and many others as well. It all started when I participated in a church group retreat to the st. Nicholas camp in Frasier Park. At the time I lacked much faith in God, probably the most out of the two hundred people that were there. Nothing exciting occurred while we were all camping out, so there was absolutely no reason to be rather happy. In fact many found themselves doing boring activities. Yet for many of us, it was the most amazing and happiest experience in our lifetimes, especially for me. For the very first time I cried tears of joy. I never thought that was even possible for the type of person I was. I strongly believe that I was the happiest person in the world that day. I have never been so happy throughout my lifetime and I always find myself wanting to go back in time and repeat all those wonderful moments that I had experienced. For the very first time I believed in God, I felt God, and felt true love. I learned what love is through God. After that experience, I have never been the same... I completely changed along with many others. I now find myself following a greater ethical/moral code, reading the Bible every night, praying every night, attending mass every sunday, appreciating/loving life, and loving God. I am a much happier loving person now. Never in a million years would I have imagined myself to come to this transformation. I too now volunteer for my church in order to help lost teens find love through God. I do it out of the good of my own heart. I want them to find and learn true love just as I have. It is the most beautiful thing ever. Which brings me to my conclusion on what love is. 

My definition of love is God, and God is love. Meaning you know you love someone or something when you are willing to go through pain and suffering and ultimately give up your life for what you most love the same way Jesus of Nazareth gave up his life, suffered and died for us. Did he have reason to?... No. He even died for those who hated him and brought him to his own death. He did it. Now we have been given the wonderful gift of life so that we may be able to love just as God does. God is my love. A perfect example to this conclusion is Lana Del Rey’s song “Born to Die” in which Lana Del Rey explains how she found God and her strong relationship with him and also how through God, she realized that she was indeed born with a purpose in life which is to die for the one she loves the exact same way Jesus was born for the purpose to die for us. 

Resources: Philosophy textbook by Manuel Velasquez, my personal experience, http://www.allaboutgod.com/god-is-love.htm     57-60, 277, 473-476