# What Is Love?



## Justme (May 24, 2012)

I believe that love is something we all have inside of us. It is not a bottomless well, but the desire for love is eternal. Lets call this well a reservoir, because Love is really a finite resource. It can only pour out for so long and at so much a pace, until it runs very low and finally dries up. At that time you become cynical and some turn to hanging on others, hoping and envying the love they have with others.

I think that a person needs to find someone to expend the love that they have inside themselves. They can fake what they truly desire and lie to themselves as well as their partners, but this will only be a substitute to finding that one special person.

The only way that they can fully be the person they are is to find the love they desire and embrace it in the arms of those they need. Only then can this reservoir be replenished and this will allow them to pour more of that love out as the milk of human kindness out upon the rest of the world.


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## Caged Maiden (May 24, 2012)

There's different types of love.

I love drawing, when what I really mean is that I feel calm when I'm doing it and proud when I look on my work.

I love cooking, when what I really mean is that it makes me feel appreciated when people allow me to comfort them.

I love my costumes, when what I really mean is that I feel confident and beautiful when I wear them.

I love my car, when what I really mean is, "Get your F***ing hands off my car or I'll rip your arms off and beat you to death with them!"

I love my husband, when what I really mean is that I have deep respect and admiration for the man who is my partner in all things and allows me to be myself, and accepts me as I am.

I love my children, when what I really mean is that I would sacrifice myself and the things I want or need to make sure they have what they need first.

Many people don't ever think about why they love someone or something, but if you look closely, I think it has a whole lot to do with how something makes you feel.  Don't get me wrong, we are all complicated people, and many of us love complicated people.  But in my life, I've given this question a lot of thought, and realized that whenever I fell out of love with someone, it was usually because they made me feel bad about myself, or because I lost respect for them.  

A relationship between two people is a complicated thing, and love must be learned, because if you cannot  love someone selflessly, it is nothing more than an obsession or infatuation.  I think most peoples' ideas of love come from a very selfish place unfortunately, and they never get to experience the true deep love that grows from mutual respect and a genuine desire to see another be happy, even if it means it's without you.  I count myself lucky that I know what that feels like, because it's a freeing experience.

I love my life.


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## Telcontar (May 24, 2012)

Baby don't hurt me.


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## Chilari (May 24, 2012)

Telcontar: That's what I was thinking too.


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## Aravelle (May 24, 2012)

As to quote a song, "Love, love is the only truth."
For me personally, love is everything. Love is what kept me alive, it's what I live for. I thrive on love in all its forms just as much as I do on water and air and food. Love is a universal force, that can unite all sorts of people. Its just.... love.


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## Rikilamaro (May 24, 2012)

There are three kinds of love.
Eros, Filos and Agape.

Eros - Or erotic love. The first whirlwind attraction you feel towards another person. Your heart pounds, your hands sweat. This love is short term, superficial, and unsustainable. It's what I thought of when you said that love runs out.

Filos - Brotherly love. This includes friendship. It is the feeling I have for not only my brother, but my best friend, her family, etc. It's the love that many people say they have for their spouses after 30+ years. It can be deep, abiding, and constant.

Agape - Unconditional love. This is the love some parents have for their children. I say some, because sadly, not everyone loves their kids as they should. That's a conversation for another time, though. Agape love is the willingness to lay down your life for someone without a second thought. It cannot be negated by petty arguments or bad choices. It is limitless, non-judgmental, and forgiving.

There's my two cents.


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## Justme (May 24, 2012)

Aravelle said:


> As to quote a song, "Love, love is the only truth."
> For me personally, love is everything. Love is what kept me alive, it's what I live for. I thrive on love in all its forms just as much as I do on water and air and food. Love is a universal force, that can unite all sorts of people. Its just.... love.




I thank you for this. 


Has anyone ever pondered what life would be like without this emotion. An emotion that costs so little to give, but costs so much to society, as a whole, when it's power is withdrawn. What would happen if a parents love was withdrawn and the shear act of holding their infants never took place? 

I've heard the argument that religion shows us love, but I think nurturing has been around, far longer than any religion and is the spark that ignites fire that burns so deeply within us all.  I understand the reluctance of some to post anything other than a humorous response to this. Love and hate are the two strongest emotions a human being can feel. It is very personal and all things  in it's name wither positive or negative is just as personal. Some have lost everything and have killed for it.


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## Rikilamaro (May 24, 2012)

There have actually been studies about children who were not held at all or enough in the first year of their lives. Some of them died. Others failed to thrive and had developmental delays. Most of them had long lasting psychological issues. 

Withdrawing love from the world would be the fastest way to end it. It is love for our fellow man that keeps most interactions in our daily affairs civil. If you don't care for someone at all - why would you help them in any way? 

If you remove love, does hate get amplified or cease to exist? Can you have one without the other?


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## Aravelle (May 24, 2012)

I don't believe we could thrive without love. We would exist, but truly live? No. We would be like ants, mindless drones- assuming that we no longer had the need or desire for love. 

This thread reminds me of Brave New World. The characters legitimately lacked love.. and it shows.


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## Justme (May 24, 2012)

Rikilamaro said:


> There are three kinds of love.
> Eros, Filos and Agape.
> 
> Eros - Or erotic love. The first whirlwind attraction you feel towards another person. Your heart pounds, your hands sweat. This love is short term, superficial, and unsustainable. It's what I thought of when you said that love runs out.



I think that this is more animistic lust than anything else. There is nothing to cherish and that to me is a essential part of love. I think you have to see something within someone to begin to love them. This perception doesn't have to be factual and most of the hurt that comes from love is because a person expects the other to perform to the level of their perceptions.



> Filos - Brotherly love. This includes friendship. It is the feeling I have for not only my brother, but my best friend, her family, etc. It's the love that many people say they have for their spouses after 30+ years. It can be deep, abiding, and constant.



This, I think is more do to the shared experiences of those withing it than anything else. Take away that uniting bond and this feeling will collapse. 




> Agape - Unconditional love. This is the love some parents have for their children. I say some, because sadly, not everyone loves their kids as they should. That's a conversation for another time, though. Agape love is the willingness to lay down your life for someone without a second thought. It cannot be negated by petty arguments or bad choices. It is limitless, non-judgmental, and forgiving.
> 
> There's my two cents.




And I appreciate every penny of that and thank you for it.
*
The following is nothing to do with the above quote. it Is me trying to justify my own inadequacies in describing my meanings and promote my ideals about discussion and debate. *

 I tell you truthfully, I am not a debater. I don't consider a discussion or debate won or lost because someone forced their views on others or reducing them to ashes. It's not the last poster that succeeds at debating, it is he who can bring his vision to others in a way that they can except it. I've not had that much success myself and I'm not against asking others for their help in this.


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## Rikilamaro (May 24, 2012)

Sorry if I came off as debating. i was just trying to lay out my views in an easy to read sort of way. You asked, and since I still have that song stuck in my head I thought I should respond.


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## Justme (May 24, 2012)

Rikilamaro said:


> There have actually been studies about children who were not held at all or enough in the first year of their lives. Some of them died. Others failed to thrive and had developmental delays. Most of them had long lasting psychological issues.
> 
> Withdrawing love from the world would be the fastest way to end it. It is love for our fellow man that keeps most interactions in our daily affairs civil. If you don't care for someone at all - why would you help them in any way?
> 
> If you remove love, does hate get amplified or cease to exist? Can you have one without the other?



 A very good question there. 

I think the removal of love will succeed in the removal of the term Humane, sense our sense of human value will shift from excepting others for who they are to what they can do for us.  Hate, I think is more do to a sense of denial than anything else. The reason I say this is because there have been instances of unimaginable cruelty done to people who only return sadness for their loss. True hatred seems to come from a sense that some are getting more than they deserve or are getting treated better than the viewer. Note, I only have my experiences with my dad to work with. 

Please don't get me wrong. I loved my dad, even after he stole money from me and kept the existence of my own daughter from me. The latter of those two things was the worst, but I have no hatred for him for doing it. He lost the experience of seeing his grand daughter and that saddens me. He was more interested in impressing others by what he owned, other than who he was inside and that made any success only temporary. What was permanent was his distaste for anyone who he deemed more prosperous than he. 

This might be a tunnel vision view of what produces hatred. What do you think?


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## Justme (May 24, 2012)

Rikilamaro said:


> Sorry if I came off as debating. i was just trying to lay out my views in an easy to read sort of way. You asked, and since I still have that song stuck in my head I thought I should respond.





Sir, please don't think because I posted that in a quote from you that I meant it as a accusation. I have a bad case of diarrhea of the mouth and mind and I will always drift a little when I post or reply. I appreciate everyone's input and crave everyone's input in everything I say and post.


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## Penpilot (May 24, 2012)

Rikilamaro said:


> If you remove love, does hate get amplified or cease to exist? Can you have one without the other?



A world without either is an apathetic world I would think. 

I'm finding trying to of 'what is love' is like trying to define what blue is or finding a word that rhymes with orange.


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## Rikilamaro (May 24, 2012)

Well by definition it would be apathetic. But it's like asking can there be light without dark?

I think I'll create a name for my next main character that rhymes with orange. It'd be a great selling point.


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## Justme (May 24, 2012)

Penpilot said:


> A world without either is an apathetic world I would think.
> 
> I'm finding trying to of 'what is love' is like trying to define what blue is or finding a word that rhymes with orange.




No matter what direction one comes from Love, once you find it can only be described as a positive light, which I think eliminates such arbitrary references to any inanimate object or color. Can a color give you a reason to continue to exist or make you work and save so much that you can afford something as expensive as a wedding ring, only to give that ring to someone else? I think not.

I think a world without value would be more apathetic than one without love or hate. Even without those two emotions, there is still greed, envy and a whole host of other small minded emotions to cloud the mind to what is truly valuable.


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## Caged Maiden (May 24, 2012)

There was a study done involving baby monkeys.  They were taken from their mothers and put into cages with a sort of water bottle made of metal which was filled with milk, and a terrycloth doll.  The study was to determine whether tactile softness or the supply of food made an infant attached to its mother.  When they would rattle the cages, the baby monkeys all jumped onto their dolls and clung to them for comfort, but none associated milk with comfort.

So as the monkeys aged, they had babies of their own, and they didn't cuddle their own babies, and some of them were killed.  The cycle of nurturing was broken in one generation, and monkeys that hadn't been cuddled had no instinct to cuddle their own offspring.


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## Justme (May 24, 2012)

anihow said:


> There was a study done involving baby monkeys.  They were taken from their mothers and put into cages with a sort of water bottle made of metal which was filled with milk, and a terrycloth doll.  The study was to determine whether tactile softness or the supply of food made an infant attached to its mother.  When they would rattle the cages, the baby monkeys all jumped onto their dolls and clung to them for comfort, but none associated milk with comfort.
> 
> So as the monkeys aged, they had babies of their own, and they didn't cuddle their own babies, and some of them were killed.  The cycle of nurturing was broken in one generation, and monkeys that hadn't been cuddled had no instinct to cuddle their own offspring.



I remember that study and it does seem to point to the conclusion, but does that mean that if a child is neglected they would not seek love in later life. I think that nurturing has a place in society, but would being neglected make that person not value people or just make them uncomfortable in creating relationships with others? Would they still have the need for a relationship or just someone to take up empty space.?


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## Penpilot (May 24, 2012)

Justme said:


> No matter what direction one comes from Love, once you find it can only be described as a positive light, which I think eliminates such arbitrary references to any inanimate object or color.



I'm not making any comparisons on the qualities of love. I'm only saying it's very hard to describe. Love has many shades, and one of those shades is very dark. Love someone too much and you can suffocate them. Love yourself too little and you're open yourself to being taken advantage of. 



Justme said:


> Can a color give you a reason to continue to exist or make you work and save so much that you can afford something as expensive as a wedding ring, only to give that ring to someone else? I think not.



Again not comparing color to love. Lots of other things could make you do that too. Love can also drive you to kill, lie and cheat. 



Justme said:


> I think a world without value would be more apathetic than one without love or hate. Even without those two emotions, there is still greed, envy and a whole host of other small minded emotions to cloud the mind to what is truly valuable.



Greed is the love of stuff. Envy is the love of what someone else has.

Sorry, I'm not trying to rain on your parade, far from it. But I think love is complex, and like I said in my first post,  very hard to describe. It has many shades, not all of them light. And I think only to look at the lighter shades of love is to turn your back on a significant portion of love as a whole.


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## Steerpike (May 24, 2012)

No link to Nazareth yet?


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## Justme (May 25, 2012)

Penpilot said:


> I'm not making any comparisons on the qualities of love. I'm only saying it's very hard to describe. Love has many shades, and one of those shades is very dark. Love someone too much and you can suffocate them. Love yourself too little and you're open yourself to being taken advantage of.



I'm not following you. Love, I think is not a hard thing to describe, though it is extremely hard to justify, at times. No one can feel the love you feel for another person. I can recall countless times that people have said, "I just don't see what he/she sees in him/her." But is that up to us to see what another sees in anything. I think not. I think that if you are infatuated with someone or a control freak you can suffocate them, but is that actually love or is that seeing a person as one thing and trying to make them. As far as loving yourself too little, that will just make you depressed which doesn't make you a doormat, just dangerous to yourself. I think you are talking about those who crave attention, which means more that you haven't been loved enough by others or at least you have that perception.  




> Again not comparing color to love. Lots of other things could make you do that too. Love can also drive you to kill, lie and cheat.



As I've stated before. Love is one of the most powerful of emotions and is more than once confused with something it is not. 





> Greed is the love of stuff. Envy is the love of what someone else has.
> 
> Sorry, I'm not trying to rain on your parade, far from it. But I think love is complex, and like I said in my first post,  very hard to describe. It has many shades, not all of them light. And I think only to look at the lighter shades of love is to turn your back on a significant portion of love as a whole.




Greed is the desire to hoard wealth. It is not a love because you can never possess that which you love. When you love something, you cherish it as who that person is. A possession is a thing owned, not cherished.    Love brings a feeling of good that needs to be shared. People who gather wealth are not necessarily happy and the sharing is not even in their vocabulary. 

Envy is the desire for something that another has. I don't think it is love, for the same reasons i think greed is not. Basically, with these two emotions we are talking about objects instead of people. Personally, I think the more people use the word, the more they delude it's power and majesty.
*
You are not raining on anyone's parade. I don't know where you are getting that from.* I've never thought a honest reply could be anything more than what it is, an honest reply. I am learning your mind and you are learning mine. This is why I posted this in the first place and I thank you for your responses. This is no different than reading a story by you of your feelings of what love is. The only thing is it is interactive and that can only happen in a place, such as this. I don't think I am turning my back on anything, though I am trying to untangle it's meaning from the quagmire that others have ensnared it in, by overusing it in many occasions.


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## Steerpike (May 25, 2012)

I'll give this thread some thought and make a longer post. I've always liked this little piece by Dickinson:



> Love is anterior to life,
> Posterior to death,
> Initial of creation, and
> The exponent of breath.



Given Dickinson, it is easy to see the religious symbolism, but I think it can be interpreted without that as well.

For my own part, perhaps a most succinct definition of love is the elevation of the other above the self.


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## Penpilot (May 25, 2012)

Justme said:


> *
> You are not raining on anyone's parade. I don't know where you are getting that from.*



I said that to make it clear, or at least trying at least, that it's not my intention to say I am right and you are wrong. In philosophical matters like this everyone is right and wrong. It's a matter of what angle you choose to look at it from. Right now, each of us has a different definition of what love is, and I'm sure some else will jump in with theirs. This may seem like I'm jumping on the fence about this, but it's part of the reason why I think it's hard to describe love. If it was simple then it'd be easy to come up with a consensus definition. And I'm keeping science away with a ten-foot pole. I know what science says, and I don't think it's in the spirit of this thread.

Stepping around and looking over your shoulder, I see where you're coming from. I understand and I respect it. Seeing other angles and viewpoints is IMHO one of the most valuable things one can do as a writer. It doesn't mean you have to agree. As long as you're open to taking a different look, that's all any reasonable person can do.


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## Devor (May 25, 2012)

Love is saying:

_The only thing I genuinely want is for you to be truly happy, and maybe I could be a part of that?_


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## Justme (May 25, 2012)

Devor said:


> Love is saying:
> 
> _The only thing I genuinely want is for you to be truly happy, and maybe I could be a part of that?_



That is the most profound statement I've heard today. Thank you.


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## Justme (May 25, 2012)

Steerpike said:


> I'll give this thread some thought and make a longer post. I've always liked this little piece by Dickinson:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I once had faith in the divine, but now I have faith in human nature. There is very few that can put words to emotions but poets are the one's that come closest to the mark.


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## Justme (May 25, 2012)

Penpilot said:


> I said that to make it clear, or at least trying at least, that it's not my intention to say I am right and you are wrong. In philosophical matters like this everyone is right and wrong. It's a matter of what angle you choose to look at it from. Right now, each of us has a different definition of what love is, and I'm sure some else will jump in with theirs. This may seem like I'm jumping on the fence about this, but it's part of the reason why I think it's hard to describe love. If it was simple then it'd be easy to come up with a consensus definition. And I'm keeping science away with a ten-foot pole. I know what science says, and I don't think it's in the spirit of this thread.
> 
> Stepping around and looking over your shoulder, I see where you're coming from. I understand and I respect it. Seeing other angles and viewpoints is IMHO one of the most valuable things one can do as a writer. It doesn't mean you have to agree. As long as you're open to taking a different look, that's all any reasonable person can do.



My friend I understand you. I was just saying that I don't take differences of opinion personally. I'm as far from being omniscient as humanly possible. People fascinate me and the thoughts and opinions of others only illuminate me further. Just as long as it is given with honor and with respect to the listener. This is what impressed me about this site and the people within. There is a positive  influence here that I've not seen in any other website.


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