Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

Jong frames love as “subversive” because it cuts against the protective cynicism that modern life often rewards. The paradox—love is “everything it’s cracked up to be,” hence people mock it—suggests that cynicism can be a defense against the vulnerability love demands. She casts love not as a passive feeling but as an ethical and existential commitment: something to “fight for,” requiring courage and the willingness to stake one’s security. The closing turn (“if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more”) argues that emotional self-protection carries its own cost: missed intimacy, diminished life, and the slow erosion of meaning that comes from refusing to be changed by others.