To love and to cherish
Relationships fulfill a basic human need
GREGG MADSEN is a
senior news-editorial
major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
Even though I had driven the
gravel road hundreds of times
before, I had never driven it in such a
nervous state of mind.
In the passenger seat of my car
was Jodie, her hand in mine as I
drove toward a spot I’d picked out
weeks ago for this occasion. Hidden
in the back seat was a diamond ring,
and I was ready to offer it to the
woman I love.
Under a moonlit summer sky, I
struggled to speak four words I will
never say again in my life:
“Will you marry me?”
She said yes.
My me win never be tne same,
and 1 couldn’t be happier.
The relationship Jodie and I have
has been a blessing from the day we
first met. From day one I have been
captivated by her personality, her
strength and her beauty. We have dis
agreed on many things. But through
it all, Jodie and I have grown closer
together. I have learned from our
time together. In some strange way, I
feel whole when we are together. I
know that she has filled a void in my
life that no one had ever come close
■J to filling.
I have learned that our relation
| ship is a gift. Through our almost
three years of dating, I’ve been
thankful countless times to just be in
her presence. I am honored that she
feels the same way about me.
But in reality, all relationships
are a gift. It doesn’t matter if you are
talking about a romantic relationship
or a simple friendship, our relation
ships are in our lives to fulfill a basic
need: love.
We all need to be loved. We all
need to have someone to whom we
can give our love.
Relationships allow this need to
be met. We were created with the
need for community in our hearts
and so we seek relationships.
Without someone to fill that slot in
our lives, we cannot feel the joy we
were meant to feel.
Feeling that joy depends on what
we put into our relationships.
Inevitably, we have to ask ourselves
some hard questions ^bout the peo
ple we spend time with.
How important are our friend
ships?
Are they more important than
schoolwork?
Are they more important than
work?
Are they more important than
ourselves?
When we give halfheartedly to a
relationship in our lives, the rela
tionship automatically suffers.
But if we give wholeheartedly,
we have already been reward
ed. Superficial interest in
someone else’s life holds
back the true excitement of
relationships. It is only
when two people truly
learn to care for each other
that the secret of relation
ships is unlocked.
liic was not meaiu
to be spent alone,
which is not to say
everyone must get
married.
Marriage
is just
one
form
of rela
tionship,
like friendship.
Getting married
won’t automatically
fill our need for a rela
tionship, neither will
simply having friends. ' ■
But when our relation
ships get the amount of
attention they truly need,
then we can see how valu
able they really are.
The beauty of relation
ships is that they are the only
thing that can leave us truly
happy in life. Relationships of
all shapes and sizes can fill our
need, and nothing else can.
No amount of money, no
job, no degree and no material
possession can make us feel
necessary and allow us to give
love back. That vital need in our lives
is reserved exclusively for person-to
person relationships.
Whether it’s father and son,
mother and daughter, two close
friends or a husband and wife, rela
tionships allow us to feel that our life
is actually worthwhile.
Think about it. What is the first
thing we want to do when something
happens in our lives? We want to tell
someone.
Why?
Because we want to
be reassured that
someone out there
really cares about us. What would
life be without someone to share our
greatest accomplishments and hard
est failures with? What would life be
like without the ability to help and
encourage someone else?
With money, our lives are
wealthy. With a great job, our lives
our prestigious. With relationships,
our lives are complete. Without
them, we are empty.
I’m thankful for Jodie. When we
were first dating and I began to feel
like marriage was a realistic possibil
ity, I began to ask myself if I could
live with her for the rest of my life. I
could never answer that question
with a definite yes or no. *
But later when I asked myself
that question, my mind gradually
started to ask not if I could or could
n’t live with her, but whether or not 1
could live without hef. While I was
driving down that gravel road with
her this summer, the answer to that
question was clearly etched in my
mind:
I could not live without her.
"aZon^eckelberg/DN
Keiko killings
I Mammals held in captivity can never return to the wild
Lm.. _mi
KAY PRAUNER is a
senior news-editorial
major, a copy desk co
chief and Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
URGENT BULLETIN:
, Flipper is dead.
Yeah, laugh if you will. I did-.
But it’s true - the finned former
television star committed suicide,
at least, according to the man who
once trained him for the show.
Apparently, Flipper had grown
j weary of the confines of his luxuri
! ous, star-studded retirement pool.
| And though I can imagine nothing
; better than soaking indefinitely in
a warm bath, I can hardly imagine
| what life would be like if I were to
; be exiled to the surroundings of the
deep sea - indefinitely.
Tale has it that Flipper looked
his weary trainer in the eye, batted
away the outstretched hand that
once fed him, gulped a dolphin
size maximum lung capacity of air,
and slowly drifted to the bottom of
his tank, from which he would
never return alive.
Apparently, Flipper was one
smart fishy.
He knew that he could never
return to his original swimming
grounds.
Not only had he forgotten what
it was like to live in the wild, we
humans made it impossible for him
to float freely again..
Unless, of course, we would
have wished for him to dart among
the waves with a hook and line
firmly entrenched in his side.
You see, the primary reason
Flipper’s caretakers failed to set
him free was because of the cruel
ties that awaited him in the suppos
edly natural world: the so-called
blood baths used to keep the boom
ing “Flipper” population at bay.
A similar fate could await the
likes Of Shamu and Keiko (the star
of “Free Willy”), the 10-ton Tessies
who have been known to spit gal
Ions of water and steal the show at
Sea World.
This phenomenon sits rather
precariously, considering that we
believe dolphins and whales are
such a rare and beautiful commod
ity. However, nations like Japan
and China are aiming to stifle the
exploding marine mammal popula
tion.
Back in the ’80s, China and
Japan decided the sea lion, dolphin
and whale set had been crowding
their coastlines. The only option,
the Chinese believed, was to hack
out the less attractive ones - that is,
the ones with rashes, barnacles and
other skin diseases.
The method? Shooting, har
pooning and . strangling. The
motive? Money, of course.
As news of the blood baths
washed into the United States,
marine observatories and conser
vatories like Sea World determined
to fork out cash in return for a cho
sen few.
But eventually, other U.S.
marine biologists colluded and
banned Sea World’s intervention in
the blood baths, with the hope that,
perhaps, when they no longer paid
«
Not only had he forgotten what it was
like to live in the wild, we humans made it
impossible for him to float freely again”
up, the systematic killings would
let up.
We’re still not paying.
And Keiko’s still not playing.
Thanks to his captive environ
ment, he’ll never be the samer(If
you’ve ever seen “Free Witty,”
you’ll know that the pull of gravity
on his fin becomes so strong from
being so close to shore that it will
never stand on its own again.)
Besides, he can never frolic with
his family off the coast of Ireland
because this would endanger both
him and his family. Plus, now he’s
just too damn friendly.
And furthermore, China and
Japan still aren’t straying from
their population-crushing blood
bath policy.
Or from their practice of mark
ing these mammals as makeshift
missile targets.
We have reason to believe that
China has taken to firing away at
the whales for the sake of its mili
tary - thus turning the eye that
once haunted Ahab into multiple
bull’s eyes that now haunt, and
hunt, these innocent and; intelligent
mammals.
In fact, many believe the
Taiwanese elections used whale
killings as the impetus behind their
agenda.
But what are we to do?
Sea World can no longer pur
chase sea mammals from the blood
baths. Whale and dolphin adoption
still lends cash to the perpetrators’
cause.
All the while, our government
sits idly by.
And another Keiko dies.
