Desire Is Messy

That's what one of my professors said today when discussing Shakespeare's As You Like It. Like everything usually does, that statement, "desire is messy", started my mind on a million other thoughts. I thought of the Jane Austen quote "Is not general incivility the very essence of love?" I thought of songs..."All You Need Is Love", "Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing", "I Think I Love You". I thought of a high school class discussion on how other cultures have many words for love, and yet in English we can say "I love my family", "I love tacos" or "I love you", and it is supposed to all make sense. And as crazy as I now sound for being so ADD, I began to think that maybe we don't ever really think of what desire, what love, what attraction, what any of these things really mean. Sure, we've all felt them...but do we actually think about what they mean? What is the difference between desire and attraction? What makes desire messy or love patient? And why in the world do we apply the same word to a taco as we do to a person that we deeply care for? Maybe what the world needs isn't "love sweet love." Maybe what the world needs is to define what love is in the first place. Webster need not apply.