Alexander Steven Peak
Mr. Gere
AP/GT English 12
21 March 2003


                         Timed Writing Assignment Short Response:
            “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”


     Is it better to be heart-broken, or to own an aching, longing, desiring heart?  This
type of statement can’t be looked at as offering two options—two very distinct options—
one of which is more positive or more desirable than the other.  In the end, never-havingexperienced-
love and having-experienced-only-ephemeral-love are both quite undesirable
circumstances.  Does it matter which of these experiences a person would <i>rather</i> engage
in?  No, it doesn’t.


     [Online Note:  This was a timed writing assignment I completed in class when I was in 
     high school.  The point I intended to make was that there is no <i>objectively 
     correct</i> view on which of the two alternatives presented is desirable, as 
     desirability is quite obviously subjective.  But upon further reflection, it seems a 
     huge problem arises in trying to answer such a question even based strictly on 
     subjective experiences, for no one can truly experience “never having loved”; one can, 
     at the most, experience “not having yet loved.”  The point at which this 
     <i>becomes</i> “never having loved” is at one’s death, and those that have reached 
     death are no longer in a position to make comparisons.  Thus, the most one can do is 
     compare “having loved but lost” with “not having yet loved.”  Further, even if it were 
     possible to ask a dead person what it is like to “have never loved,” it would be 
     impossible for this dead person to compare her or his experience with “having loved 
     but lost,” for obviously she or he has never experienced it and thus is still not in a 
     position to make an appropriate comparison.]