Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all - St. Augustine

Is it?? We came across this quote & began wondering about the wisdom of that statement. Is it really better to have loved & lost?

With love comes passion & feeling alive. All is right with the world, in most respects at least. With love comes excitement & sharing. With love comes joyousness. With love comes sense of worth & giving. All the postive emotions & explanations of love have filled countless books. But love is for the moment.

The emotions of losing a love, through any circumstance, are the antithesis of having one. A lost love is depression & sorrow. A lost love can be rage & hurt. A lost love is tears & pain. A lost love can be recrimination & hate. A lost love can be forever. Unless it's replaced with a new love.

For some, the pain of a lost love is assuaged by the fond memories of that love. For others, the joy of a love is overshadowed by the pain of losing it.

We guess it all depends on the intensity of the love - for every action, there is an equal & opposite reaction, to steal from a law of physics...& then some. It depends on the emotional make up of the person...the strong, the weak, the independent, the clinging, etc., etc., we guess.

Through personal experiences, we seem to side on never having loved.

Simon & Garfunkel's song, "I Am A Rock" has something to be said for never having loved:

Don’t talk of love,
But I’ve heard the words before;
It’s sleeping in my memory.
I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.


What say you?