The power of love: did I ever believe it? If I ever did, it was like believing in a dream, an insubstantial faith, a wisp of a conviction. For to believe is to make a stand, and when did I ever make a stand in the name of love? I had an idealistic notion of what that four letter word meant, and I think I understood it as sort of a universal salve, but when things got tough, it was not to love I turned — because it was never an answer to any one of the real questions that ever came up. The power of love was never to me any real form of energeia, but rather a potential meant merely for daydreaming. I never knew what it was, in the first place, for perhaps believing in its power is to have faith in humanity; I always had separated the two, thinking love was perfect and pure while human beings were flawed and corrupt. I never understood the key to it all, a simple realization that a child might make, a proof in the pudding. In the end, if we do not ourselves love, what power does it ever have?