What does "It takes life to love Life" mean to you?

Without knowing the context, I’ll just give you my first impression: To love life to the fullest, one must really live it. Fully, openly, vulnerably.

I’m sorry about the funeral. It’s been a tough time for losing people around here. :(

I’m sorry. I should have included a link to the full poem in the details.

Here it is.

Ah, thanks. In the context of the actual poem, it seems more literal. My completely amateurish thoughts:

“Lucinda” is speaking after her own death and seems to be reminding the living to be grateful. That one must actually be alive to appreciate life…that the dead are no longer in such a lucky position.

“What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, Anger, discontent and drooping hopes? Degenerate sons and daughters, Life is too strong for you—It takes life to love Life.”

@augustlan Yes, Lucinda is dead. Spoon River Anthology is a collection of poems spoken by the dead in a cemetery in the fictitious town of Spoon River, Illinois, in the late 19th century.

Here is the Gutenberg Project’s transcription of the whole collection. You can read it online or download it in multiple formats at that link. It’s a genuine American classic and is a quick read. My favorite is “Edmund Pollard.”

I think it means, until you see life for what it is come and go, we cannot fully appreciate it.

I go with Auggie’s first intetpretation; you have to meet life head-on.

If you’re dead (literally or figuratively) you can’t feel shit.

Out of context, it could mean it takes the longevity of a full life to come to appreciate the arc of life. Or, it could mean that you get out of it what you put into it.

In context, though, I am more struck by the preceding lines, which I think reveal some myopia in the character. That the poem makes this abrupt change in focus and then ends tells me that this thought about weakness in others is relatively unexamined. It offers no clue about whether the times have changed in Spoon River (as likely they have), and perhaps she was lucky to live in a time that fit her sensibilities. She also seems to have the fortune of an unshook faith, which is obvious to her but maybe not to everyone else. (She rather glides past the massacre of her brood.) Then there’s just the tired cliche of “Kids these days. Tsk tsk tsk.”

My gut reaction is “good for her, but, real or imagined, life is shit for some people.” It also makes me realize that perhaps in spite of her long life and span of experience, she hasn’t experienced a broad palette of emotional and psychic states, but rather one consistent state (again unshook faith). I would say, then, that her opinion is underdeveloped and ill informed. Consider, “Life is too strong for you.” Well, if that fatalistic sentiment is true then doesn’t that necessitate moping? Doesn’t that answer the question? And if it is true, then why does she still expect bootstrapping from the younger generation?

There’s a rift here between her ability to articulate her success and her ability to transmit the knowledge of successful living to the younger generation, and that rift reveals a somewhat myopic viewpoint and an underdeveloped sense of compassion.

This notion of having to “LOVE” life is just that, a notion.
We ARE life, and simply being is good enough. Whether one chooses to live with gusto or quiet contentment is a personal choice. I like to take my lessons from other life forms, animals do not question their meaning, purpose, how much they love life, they are simply content to exist, in the here and now.

Feeling passion and joy is wonderful, but really, why do we need to love life instead of just living it as it unfolds?
Meaning, purpose, productivity, and the idea that we have to have specific goals/motivations/attainments in life are all man made constructs.
Some people need power, success, and lots of monetary trappings to feel a love for life.

Me?

As long as my basic needs are met I could happily wander around with the geese in fields of clover all day. lol

There’s an ancient Zen text that opens this way:

“The Great Way isn’t difficult for those don’t pick and choose. Cast aside your preferences and there’s the Way, clear and unhidden. But make even slight judgments and earth and heaven are torn apart.”

Both this text and the poem are pointing to the “Way” of non-separation. There’s Life, and then there’s our preferences for how life ought to be. You can cling to those preferences and try to make life conform to your agenda, but in doing that you separate yourself from life as it is. Earth and heaven are far apart. You become angry, full of regrets, weary of fighting the current, discontent. It’s like the kid who leaves the table mad and hungry because the plate of food in front of him isn’t pizza.

Love isn’t a picking and choosing proposition. As soon as you parse life into what you like and don’t like according to your list of personal preferences, you’ve effectively set yourself apart from life. You may “love” this or that, but it’s not Life that you love. Life serves up bitter greens at times (like the loss of children). That’s the way it is.

Do you know the folk tale of the salt doll? It’s about the same matter:

“There was once a salt doll. After a pilgrimage through arid lands, he came to discover the sea which he had never seen before and therefore could not understand. The salt doll asked, “Who are you?” And the sea answered, “I am the sea.” The salt doll asked again: “But what is the sea?” And the sea answered, “I am me.” “I don’t understand,” said the salt doll, “but I would like very much to understand you. What can I do?” The sea simply said: “Touch me.” Then the salt doll timidly touched the sea with the tips of his toes and noticed that it began to be understandable, but then he realized that the tips of his toes had disappeared. “Oops, sea, look what you did to me!” And the sea answered, “You gave me something of yourself and I gave you understanding. You have to give yourself completely to understand everything.” And the salt doll slowly began to enter into the deep sea, slowly and solemnly, like someone doing the most important thing in his life. As he entered, he was also becoming diluted and understanding the sea more and more. The salt doll kept asking: “What is the sea?” Until a wave covered him entirely. At the last moment, before becoming diluted in the sea, he could still say, “I am me.”

^^^ Awesome. I love zen stories. :-)

I agree with @auggie, to actually life your life fully is to fully appreciate it. Sometimes I get in a funk and go to work, back home and not much in between (slight hermit tendencies) but when I get out, get into the community events again, etc… I always wonder why I waited – lol Ironic.

I also go along with @augustlan‘s first interpretation. Life is not a spectator sport. To fully appreciate it you must be fully engaged with it and be willing to take risks.

I do like @thorninmud‘s story.

To live life is to expect accept struggle. I don’t think the death of her brood meant little to her. She was being pragmatic. It was a summary of the of the facts that she had time to accept and come to terms with.
She chose to keep living and be fulfilled in spite of the hardships. Despite losses and sadness she had more to live for and they were uniquely hers to live for.

Having death so present in her life enabled her to accept her own end. Her journey was a simple one, but one she didn’t regret. She gave of herself and in that giving gained the strength to be singular. It also gave her the clarity to take her own ebbing in stride.

To have her end be her own.

You can’t be dead to love life, because of you are dead you have no life to love anything.