Re-Imaginaing: My Life is All About Love
An Excerpt from bell hooks’ All About Love:
Imagine a mother living in poverty who has always taught her children the difference between right and wrong, who has taught them to value being honest because she wants to provide them with a moral and ethical universe, who suddenly accepts a child selling drugs because it brings into the home financial resources for both necessary and unnecessary expenses. Her ethical values are eroded by the intensity of longing and lack. But she no longer sees herself as living at odds with the consumer culture she lives in; she has become connected, one with the culture of consumption and driven by its demands.
Love is not a topic she thinks about. Her life has been characterized by a lack of love. She has found it makes life easier when she hardens her heart and turns her attention toward more attainable goals—acquiring shelter and food, making ends meet, and finding ways to satisfy desires for little material luxuries. Thinking about love may simply cause her pain. She, and hordes of women like her, have had enough pain. She may even turn to addiction to experience the pleasure and satisfaction she never found when seeking love.”
“Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know genuine love we have to invest time and commitment.”“committed to creating a culture where love can flourish”
a re-imagining: my life is all about love…
imagine a worldly twenty something living in abundance. she’s always learning and un-learning and re-learning, which requires almost constant reminders that she’s powerful enough to shape her reality, in fact, she has shaped her reality beautifully for much time now. she moves in gratitude, honoring the shoulders of the giants—the amazonian women— who laid her foundation. lately, she’s been teaching herself the differences between love and care, and the similarities between lust and attraction. her way of life, her gratitude, is rewarded by affirmed prayers. she no longer cares if her existence is at odds. she’s shaping worlds where creation is cultivated and celebrated. she has become connected to those she loved, one with her satisfactions and driven by the strengths around her. love is a topic she thinks about often. her life has been characterized by an abundance of love. she has found it makes life easier when she opens her heart and turns her attention towards attainable goals—creating with friends, collaborating with lovers, and growing with family. thinking about love brought her much joy. she, and hordes of lovers like her, have found abundance in romanticizing their lives. she doesn’t seek love, she magnetizes it. she thinks intently on what she loves about the love in her life and focuses on how this love breathes life into her relationships, passions, and dreams. she invests and commits to love, so that she can know genuine pleasure and satisfaction; and so that her loved ones can know genuine pleasure and satisfaction; and so that her community can know genuine pleasure and satisfaction; and so that, her world could flourish in genuine love, pleasure, and satisfaction.
