{"id":1748,"date":"2014-07-21T14:25:26","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T21:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=1748"},"modified":"2014-07-21T14:25:26","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T21:25:26","slug":"looking-for-love-in-a-mad-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2014\/writing\/looking-for-love-in-a-mad-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for Love in a Mad World"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"IMG_5890\"

Heart-shaped stone I found in 2000 on the shores of Gallipoli, Turkey, site of World War I battle<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve been so troubled by what\u2019s going on in Gaza and the Ukraine, that I\u2019ve been glued to the news on TV and my Twitter timeline. I\u2019ve been neglecting my writing, which I love to do. It\u2019s hard to fathom why people want to kill someone else.<\/p>\n

When I became a clinical social worker decades ago, I thought if only a person had love, they would be fine. If they had a tortured life, I was sympathetic, empathic, thinking again that somewhere along the road they hadn\u2019t received enough love. I learned very quickly that people are more complicated than that. I ran into children that had no conscience. I remember one child who strangled a rabbit to death with his bare hands. He was the child of heroin addicts. He was probably conceived by his mother while she was under the influence of drugs. His father\u2019s semen was probably similarly affected by heroin. This was a child who showed no emotion; he was damaged and sad to say, no amount of therapy was going to change that.<\/p>\n

Today, we are bombarded by bad news. I hunger for a time when life seemed simpler, not that it was. There were still atrocities in the world, but we didn\u2019t hear of them. We didn\u2019t have the same depth of coverage, nor did we have social media.<\/p>\n

Through the power of social media today, I love that we are connected, but it also means that bad news travels fast.<\/p>\n

Despite the horrors on my TV screen, I still have hope. Like the beautiful heart-shaped stone I found on a trip to Gallipoli back in 2000. There on those sandy shores where a bloody battle ensued during World War I between the Turks and the Anzac forces (Aussies and Kiwis), I found hope in the shape of a stone. It lay there, still, reminding me of all the hearts that were lost and broken. It was a mad battle in a mad world. But when I visited with a group of Aussies and Kiwis, it was peaceful. Just the sound of the wind and the waves rippling on the shore.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are too many out there who have no conscience, or are misguided, or are extremists with no tolerance for anyone with different views. They\u2019re out there, and they make our lives miserable. \u00a0But there are also plenty of wonderful people with love in their hearts. I\u2019m going to continue to look for love in a mad world. I hope the news isn\u2019t getting you down, or unhinged. I hope you have love to fall back on.<\/p>\n

In fact, I\u2019ve written a love story, one that crosses timelines. In my novel, A CRY FROM THE DEEP<\/a><\/strong>, there are no wars, no explosions, just people trying to make a better world and finding love in unexpected places. Call me a dreamer. Are you a dreamer, too?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been so troubled by what\u2019s going on in Gaza and the Ukraine, that I\u2019ve been glued to the news on TV and my Twitter timeline. I\u2019ve been neglecting my… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Looking for Love in a Mad World http:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-sc","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[88,4],"tags":[609,78,635,9,387,5],"class_list":["post-1748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-writing","tag-a-cry-from-the-deep","tag-diana-stevan","tag-looking-for-love","tag-novel","tag-ukraine","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-sc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6092,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2023\/writing\/a-writers-limbo\/","url_meta":{"origin":1748,"position":0},"title":"A Writer’s Limbo","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"25 \u041b\u044e\u0442\u043e\u0433\u043e, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"My book reading at the Local Book Fair in the Nanaimo Harbourfront Library went well, but now I find myself in writer's limbo. 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