| OPINION
| SEPTEMBER 27, 2005
All You Need Is Love
Why is learning to love your fellow
man so difficult?
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| The Shorthorn: Brandon Leirer |
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If you haven’t heard it today, let
me be the first to say it: I love you.
I’ve loved most of you before we’ve even met. My job
calls for loving the readers and wanting to do the best for them.
But it is not just any kind of love; my love is unconditional love.
And that’s a great deal. Most people don’t get that
from those they’ve known all their lives, and you can take
pleasure in knowing that someone has loved you for almost 20 years,
and you didn’t even know it.
It’s hard to find unconditional love. It’s funny how
the country can show so much love for those in need only after a
national disaster, natural or otherwise. When Sept. 11 happened,
telethons popped up all over television networks, and people sent
money in droves. Hurricane Katrina has set new standards in raising
money for people in desperate need of help.
However, when there’s not something to draw the country’s
attention, those who live in poverty every day — starving
and committing crimes to get by — are forgotten by America.
So the government and most Americans are definitely not giving unconditional
love.
It’s always easier to talk about what you would do for others,
but when faced with the opportunity, many people turn their backs
or even worse, open their mouths.
I’ve been appalled to learn that certain faculty members have
been giving the newest students on campus from Katrina-torn areas
a not-so-warm welcome.
When you think about it, these people are just like freshmen, and
they need time to adjust to campus, classes and, oh yeah, dealing
with watching their hometowns and property waterlogged like cheap
pool toys. To these Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi residents
who have experienced this insensitive behavior, please know that
these individuals do not represent the entire university, and accept
my apology on behalf of them. I love you, unconditionally.
Supporters of the war in Iraq came down hard on Cindy Sheehan for
setting up Camp Casey outside President Bush’s Crawford Ranch.
All she wanted was to talk to the commander in chief and get a few
things off her chest, but people quickly threw her into the fire,
declaring that she “did not speak for them.”
This woman, like many others, lost her son in the Iraq war and was
understandably distraught. There was nothing wrong with what she
was doing. She wasn’t disrupting Bush’s daily activities,
and because she was taking a stand, people treated her like she
had committed treason. We shouldn’t think of new and exciting
ways to alienate each other. Americans need to make love, not war
— domestic or foreign. Cindy Sheehan, I love you, unconditionally.
How to love unconditionally is a lesson everyone needs to learn
in a hurry. It’s easy to love friends, relatives and people
of the same race, but I’m talking about the people that make
it a little difficult. People who cut you off on the freeway, telemarketers,
you know, people with less-than-attractive tendencies. Love them
because deep down they are just like you, trying to make it in this
world of social, racial and political injustices. I used to hate
people who drove slowly on the highway and didn’t speed off
when the light turned green until my car messed up, and I became
one of those people.
So today, I encourage everyone to walk up to someone, give him or
her a hug, and say you love them. The bottom line is, through all
the hardships life throws at you, love, in this day and age, still
conquers all.
— Princess McDowell is a journalism sophomore and a sports
writer for The Shorthorn
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