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Fair warning to all readers and my Followers who might get uncomfortable or nauseated when a man gets sappy, romantic, and emotional. I am about to bear my heart and soul as if this were my private journal. BEWARE you anti-romantics, you cold-hearted corpses and anti-passionates to uncontrollable love! I am getting this off my chest, out of my heart and head… and out there for the world to read. I don’t care one way or the other what comes of it because THIS is therapy for me!
My Ridiculous Obsession with Fiery Passion
Beginning in 2002 those were three principles (at the top) I began living by no matter what. I have tried to maintain the courage they require every day and every night. To mean it and live it in their purest and most honest form. They are sometimes intense, and they are frank (perhaps blunt? overwhelming?) emotions from a man and his lifestyle that can make some uncomfortable and others liberated. In some cases reborn and other cases scared shitless. Either way I live my life deeply, sucking out as much marrow as possible as Henry David Thoreau wrote. For me, it is the best way to live and only way to live fully. This is one of those times.
The last two or three weeks I have suffered once again the crushing abandonment of a remarkably special heart, mind, and soul. Unfortunately, she became overwhelmed by the purest, rawest, most honest, wide open, liberating energy she had ever experienced. Her words. After three years she freaked out, unable to reconcile me with her previous life and so slowly withdrew in utter fear.
Safe mediocrity is a powerful, hypnotizing, binding influence on some, especially if children are involved. However, there is a side to rare, atypical passion and love that is not shown, hidden from children, to their (lifetime?) detriment. It’s terribly sad. How else will they recognize atomic, re-energizing love, passion, and commitment if their own parents don’t live it and model it in pure raw honesty? I am baffled by this. Timidness puzzles me when it comes to life’s beautiful experiences. It is one of humanity’s most enduring connections. Why be so scared to let it happen and let it fill you!?
Alright, alright, you may be asking what am I really talking about? I’ll tell you. Some people and friends can’t fathom what I am describing here. They might be too afraid that a human connection can feel like a hypnotic drug. But that isn’t all of it. For me, when intense soul-mate/twin-flame chemistry is choked, drowned, repressed, or removed it feels like the most insurmountable betrayal and ripping-out of life’s marrow one can ever hope to experience. It’s a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. But I know freak-outs, for whatever reason, are always based in fear. Fear that is fabricated like the Great Wizard of Oz behind his green curtain. Ironically, everyone survives in the end and life goes on.
Because I have less and less fear, and more and more courage to travel this crazy, rocky love-road of a minefield and have done it a number of times, each time gaining more wisdom and more boldness, more confidence, I can keep being exactly, unabashedly who I am! It gets easier each time. When things take an unexpected leap off the cliff, it’s okay. I’ll be fine. Why? Lord Tennyson answers with profound perfection:
“‘Tis better to have loved [fully] and lost
—Lord alfred tennyson
than never to have loved [fully] at all.”
Truer words have never been uttered or written. As we’d sometimes repeat in the world of athletic competition, you can’t become a world-class footballer (soccer) while sitting on the bench or spectating in the stands. You must get in the game! You’ll win some and you will lose some, but you will improve every time. Maybe, just maybe you’ll become world-class if you are a Starter each game, every season, and not quit, and keep learning, keep improving. That’s the only way you become world-class—without fear or self-doubt.
When I first “fell in love” 1980 Halloween night, I was 17-yrs old and felt like the world was my oyster and I had found my precious pearl. Yes, seventeen years very young and so very inexperienced.
Wow, did I have a boat-load to learn!
There is a large difference between self-confidence bordering on audacious, and refined wisdom and eloquent technique gained through honest hard lessons and precision refinement, let me tell you. At seventeen—well hell, even 18 through 30 years of age—I was about as smooth, refined, and romantic as Pepé Le Pew the deluded eccentric skunk of Warner Brothers cartoon fame.
Now over 40-yrs later I have actually come a very, very long way to exquisite refinement in matters of amore, if I can say so myself and generally have all my Ladies, past and present, also chime in. With no doubt, in the Game of Amore, I am certainly not “on the bench!”
Those three above initial quotes at the very top are the only way one has a chance of finding their true, natural soul mate(s), in my opinion and experience. It is not reckless. It is not insanity. It is simply honest and raw. It is about accepting the fact that people YOU LOVE fully without fear will hurt you, intentionally and unintentionally. That’s life. That’s human nature. The real question is how will you learn from it, how to keep living, keep loving fully better, learning to fail better at times, and keep moving forward with courage, staying true to yourself without flinching… every single time. That’s how you live Tennyson’s words and those above quotes.
But enough about my abilities, understanding matters of the heart and libido, and vast experience gained. Let’s get to the Greatest Love Stories, shall we? Or at least those stories on cinematic celluloid.
Here are my Top Four Love Stories on film:
#4 — Silver Linings Playbook (2012):
#3 — Her (2013):
#2 — Out of Africa (1985), sorry, ignore the subtitles:
#1 — About Time (2013):
There are several other scenes I absolutely adore and crack-up about in this exceptional love movie and seizing the moment, seizing the present invitations for the fullest life led and sucking its marrow out completely. But I reluctantly and happily chose the single above scene. There’s at least 4-5 more great, profound scenes. But oh well.
What are your four all-time favorite, Greatest Love Stories… on film or in literature? Share them below.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
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The Professor's Convatorium 
Obviously this is the greatest love scene ever in all film:
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I had no idea you were a big Star Wars fan CS! And I wouldn’t have pegged you as SUCH a big fan of remarkable love scenes and intense romance! 😍 Some days are just full of surprises, huh? 😁
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Heh. The example from the SW prequels was a joke. It’s pretty bad and cringey stuff.
I am a huge SW fan though. When I was in middle school, I remember going to the library and getting all the Star Wars Extended Universe Novels I could get my hands on: the Timothy Zahn trilogy, the Kevin Anderson trilogy, etc. It was what I enjoyed reading at the time. Even if I have mixed feelings about the prequels and the sequels, although I like the Mandolorian.
I like romance in art and real life. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite novels and would be one of my serious examples to add to your list. If there is one thing I definitely believe in it is love. However, in real life while intense can be good, sometimes it’s the quieter moments that are more important.
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Ah, I too like and enjoyed Pride & Prejudice. Austen’s four most well-known and popular novels (P&P included) cover the transition of late English 18th-century aristocratic culture into Victorian Age culture, the latter I am exceedingly fond about. And I might contend that Austen’s era and the Victorian era give me much pleasure today with how refined and so well-read (educated?) the higher middle-class and nobility of Britain preached and expected exceptional decorum and (reserved?) moderation, all of which I appreciate dearly when it came to matters of affection (in public), courting, and romance—the “quieter moments” if you will. 😉
However, I have also deduced from those societal time-periods their drawbacks, their falling short of embracing our genetic natures for moments and periods of euphoria, childish joys & laughter as adults, and falling head over heels with one’s true Soul Mate and Twin-flame. I’ve found that in order to accurately recognize that person/Lover, one must have intimate knowledge and some experience in it, living it, both the good and the not-so good or painful parts. That’s me. 🙂
Thank you very much CS for your thoughts and comment Sir! 😁
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Each to our own, Professor. Being autistic, I live in a very intense, often overwhelming world, so when it comes to matters of the heart, my yearning is radically different. For me, romance is not about passion, but companionship. My attempts at normal socialising are extremely clumsy at best and usually rejected as it’s too much like hard work for others to meet me part way, so anything remotely like flirting is out of the question, even if I had the desire to do so.
I met my soulmate fifty years ago, and as I’m alexithymic I can’t be sure that it was love I felt. It definitely wasn’t passion, but it felt right somehow. Neither The Wife nor I can imagine what falling head over heels in love might be like, and have no desire to find out. Instead we have grown into love. It suits us perfectly, but as I said at the beginning of this comment: each to our own 🙂
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Barry,
Apologies for the delay in responding and apologies for any degree of naivety on my part for not considering the “wonderfully different” among us. ❤️ I am a former Special Ed teacher and I’ve had several autistic students in my classes and I received SUCH HUGE lessons of their and other Special Needs student’s remarkable abilities & contributions to life, our lives! 🥰
And you are absolutely correct in declaring “For me, romance is not about passion, but [intimate] companionship.” You are so right. What works for me and some others doesn’t necessarily equate to what SHOULD work for everyone else. I was indeed speaking from an “abnormal” point-of-view, whereas you and your Soul Mate are in so many ways… often the “normal” ones.
Forgive me for any offense. It was not intended Sir. 🙂
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Absolutely no offense was taken Professor. I’m alexithymic, so possibly would not realise I was offended even if I was. But on this occasion I’m quite certain I was not offended 🙂
One of my “traits” is a habit of pointing out exceptions to generalisations – something The Wife finds irritating at times. Being a member of a tiny minority – the autistic community – I am often more familiar with the exceptions than with the general rules that most people take for granted.
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Personally, Barry, I think your exceptionalism is a good trait to have. Too many just accept whatever is “out there” and never look below the surface. When you note the “exceptions,” it should make people think. But of course, they would prefer not to. 😉
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Completely agree with Nan below/above, Barry. 🙂
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My current Top Four.
It probably doesn’t count as a movie but No1: Beating Barcelona 4-0 😎
No2: Blade Runner. ( Harrison Ford and Sean Young)
No3: As good as it gets.(Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt )
No4: Castaway ( Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt.)
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BWAAA! Now if you weren’t being Lippy-pool clever there Ark, I’d wipe that first comment from existence. 😄 But, given your stature in the Pantheon of Secularism & Atheism as well as understanding fine, exquisite world-class football… I can overlook your cockiness, deserved as it is. 😉
No. 2 and 3 are excellent choices. Loved both of those scripts of romance! However, No. 4 is peculiar. Why you ask? Because the bulk of the movie was Hanks, all alone, with “Wilson.” Helen Hunt was simply a picture until Hanks finally made it home. Nonetheless, I’ll grant you No. 4 because of your fine standing with The Judge of the Emirates. 😁
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I enjoyed the way Hanks left it till the very last moment before giving Hunt what was obviously an engagement ring. The whole charade with the towels and the pager! Hilarious and just the type of thing I would do,
And you’re tight, her image kept him going and after he was rescued and the romance was no more than an illusion the closing scene when the woman stopped her truck and asked him if he was lost. It was wonderful. A moment filled with tonse of potential.
As for the footy …
*Sigh*. Last night in the Carabou Cup match between you lot and the Scousers. 0 – 0. A ten man Arsenal at Anfield for the gods’ sake! I have a sneaking suspicion that next week in the 2nd leg at the Emirates Arteta will do a number on the Pool once more.
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Tons of potential even. I have no idea what ‘tonse’ is/are
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My brilliant Red-neck Texas translation machine—fed by piles of cow and horse manure—managed to figure out what you meant. After all, it’s only “Scouse” English, right? 🤭😉
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More or less.
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Haha, I’m gonna have to take your word and play-by-plays for it—holy moly Batman, that’s scary! 🥺 —since I can’t watch the Carabao matches, only highlights well after the final whistle.
When I checked the scoreline at halftime, I did see the Red Card issued and the 0 – 0 notted-up. But I was prepared for a thumping by your boys in the 2nd. What happened? Was Klopp resting all your starters? Isn’t Salah and Mané also gone to the Africans Cup of Nations? Was that it?
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Aside from the two African absentees it was a full squad. There was lots of steam but the train never left the station.
Minameno missed an open goal.Skyed his shot. Was a bit embarrassing to be honest. Klopp had that odd smile of his when his team just didn’t turn up. Sort of bemused.
You should be rubbing your hands with glee come next Thursday.
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Ugh, I’ve learned too many times NOT to get too hyped about my Dunners when it comes to big matches, much less ones they SHOULD be winning handily. 🙄
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‘Til next Thursday, then?
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Yeppers. My gut tells me you’ll be the one happy and celebrating though. 😄
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