Love as opening up
«To love is to experience a world come alive, but it also means opening oneself up to poignant suffering. When we open ourselves up to love, we do not leave pain behind in favor of pleasure; rather we open ourselves up to an experience of depth and meaning that involves both pain and pleasure. For when life is infused with depth and wonder, we cannot help but experience our fair share of both happiness and unhappiness.
It is only in protecting ourselves from love that we can hope to protect ourselves from suffering. By creating a closed circle around ourselves, where we care only for our own well-being, we create barriers that protect us from the storms of life, but that also shields us from life’s summer days.»
Peter Rollins, The Divine Magician, 80.