I was reading someone’s poetry blog tonight and they wondered why more people clicked “like” on the love related poetry, compared to their other poetry. To be sure, I enjoyed all of this poet’s work, but I also found myself reading the love poems.
As I thought about why more people clicked on the love poems, I realized that many different types of people who visit poetry blogs, must select different types of poems based on their personalities. But in addition to their other favorites, they each liked the love poems.
This speaks to the fact that all different kinds of personalities, people from different cultures and socioeconomic groups all were choosing the love poems, in addition to their other favorite themes.
The common link between the readers was that they could all relate to the love poems from personal experiences. The poems may not speak of exact situations you have been in, but they speak of conditions of your humanity.
Being in love creates vulnerability. Vulnerability is a human condition that everyone has experienced in one way or another.
People gravitate toward reading things that they find themselves in. People like reading about themselves and trying to understand themselves better. People also like to feel that they are not alone in their feelings.
The feelings of love may vary from person to person, but the situation of having had to deal with romantic love in some way, is pretty much across the board.
People all relate to vulnerability, and also what it feels like to trust your vulnerability to someone.
People also relate to issues surrounding love and vulnerability such as trust, compassion, deception and betrayal. They know what is feels like to need to trust another person, whose actions we cannot dictate. We can relate to having been at the mercy of another.
It is part of the human condition to have to trust someone, at some point, for our lives, our stability, our emotional / mental health or for something that is critical to our personal well being.
Everyone can see themselves in writings that have to do with the need, the fear and the blessings that can happen when we have to trust another person. Good or bad, we have to trust others sometimes and it can be scary.
The other theme that is eventually related to love, is death. We all know that we cannot physically hold onto another person forever. Spiritual views vary, but sooner or later we have to be physically separated by death, unless something separates us first.
People can see their own personal struggles with the feelings surrounding love, mutual love, unrequited love and lost love. These are all conditions of humanity that people have in common.
The beauty, pain and vulnerability of love, is a timeless theme. This is why poets, lyricists and philosophers have talked of love for so many, many generations and in very culture.
Love is beautiful. Love is painful. Love is vulnerable which makes us human.
Love Well,
Annie
GentleKindness 