we are all fish in the sea

Those who say that we become more mature as we age... they're wrong. They're all wrong. We don't become wiser... reality simply becomes us. Think of reality as one massive fishing net, us being the fish.
When we are young, we are more aware of this net. We try to defy it, outsmart it, swim away from it. But either way, we can't help the fact that the current is pulling us in closer and closer until we can't see the netting anymore, yet we find ourselves trapped in it. We only realize that we are being pulled into a mental and emotional standard of sorts when we are young. And so we try to escape it.
When we are older, however, we have two choices- either to swim right into it, only to lose yourself to convention along with all the other fish in the sea... or to simply be lost in a vast and seldom populated ocean. An ocean where only the youngest and most foolish little guppies dare venture. In regards to love, we only see it for what it truly is when our minds are young, uncorrupt, untainted- hence why we don't feel it when we are younger. But when we are older, we become scared of swimming alone. We are afraid of what lies beyond the net. This is why we follow the other fish into the trap. Who is the fisherman, you may wonder? He... he is what will become of us once we have entered the net. The same outcome. The same fate. But I, as my own fish, want to see all that the ocean has to offer. I never want to swim into the net, nor do I want to swim alone. Love, therefore, is not the net. The net is what we as the fishies believe to be love. No... what love really is is wherever in the great vast ocean we feel scared and fascinated and adored by all that is around us. Where we feel we are alive.