There are ways to know real love. It feels calm. It's steady, and it can easily last a lifetime. It's nourishing, people grow under its influence. They become who they really are, and not what someone expects them to be. Real love isn't blind; on the contrary, people feel understood, accepted for who they really are. It's healing. People recover.

So whenever you hear that love is blind, or love can't last, or love is destructive, you can be sure that you're hearing a description of lust, or desire, or need. And it's an accurate description, because needs really are transient and destructive.

But love is something else entirely. An emotion of deep caring that asks nothing in return, an emotion that is fulfilling without any expectation at all, is so rare that most people in our society can't imagine it. They can't imagine feeling it, or receiving it. They may even come to believe it doesn't exist. But it does.
And it's the best thing there is.
~ Michael Chrichton
(Artist ~ Cameron Gray 'between the teardrops')