Keeping things in perspective

On certain beautiful summer days, I'm reminded of the importance of keeping a realistic perspective on our life experiences. 

The Swedish artist dedicated an entire album to demystifying what love is, and what is not, with the appropriately titled album "I Know What Love Isn't". 

I picture Jens strolling down memory lane, picturing every past girlfriend or heartache that is forgiven but not forgotten, with the eery intro track Every Little Hair Knows Your Name. 

In his opening track Erica America he explores the contradiction of love-hate, "I wish I'd never met you/ Like I wish I'd never tasted wine, or tasted it from lips that weren't mine". This reminds me of Catullus 85, Odi et Amo: "I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask? I do not know, but I feel it happening and I am tortured."

Jens undergoes an impressive  redemptive exploration of the duality of love and regret, covered in the tracks She Just Don't Want To Be With You Anymore, and Become Someone Else's. 

Jens attains a more mature view on love, concluding beautifully with the notion that a heartache is not the end of the world: The End of the World Is Bigger than Love: 

"I need to be explained to
Over and over 
How a broken heart is not the end of the world 
Because the end of the world is bigger than love

...
And it's bigger than an iceberg 
Than the plume of a geyser 
And it's bigger than the spider 
Floating in your cider 
And it's bigger than the stock market 
Than the loose change in your pocket 
And the Flatbush Avenue Target 
And their pharmacy department 
And it's bigger than our problems 
And I our inability to solve them 
From Coney Island to Harlem 
To the end of the world and back again "

Cute