What is love?
This is a heavily debated topic. People often try to define love in terms of romantic euphoria; however, the word “love” generally is used so loosely that its meaning can become diluted. The truth is, “love” often is used to describe other emotions or strong feelings. Using the word “love” just saves us the trouble of having to figure out what we’re actually feeling. We can say we “love” anything, but what does love really mean to us?
Let’s take a look at the various ways that we label “love.”
1. I LOVE chocolate.
This is “food tastes yummy” love. When we eat something that tastes overwhelmingly good, we get a physical and emotional satisfaction and that keeps us present as we eat.
Food could be love of a sort, but chocolate won’t text to say it misses me during the day.
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Nathan, This is a great topic! I am not a graphic artist, my art is in my writing, sometimes I wish I could paint a 1000 words. I have said in the past that if I could paint “Love” it would be two people standing in front of each other with their beating hearts in their hand, offering them as an exchange to each other while simultaneously saying, “I offer you the unique ability to hurt me. I have only your promise and my faith in you to protect me.”
Before you can define “love” you have to define in what regards.
Love chemically is the induction of a higher then normal flood of a few defined neurochemicals such as dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, Oxycontin, and other I am sure. Some stimulus that has been identified as fulfilling a need in the past causes us to react. (I’ll Get back to this one)
Love in the romantic sense is a desire to be associated with anther person in the entire communities eyes. They know the person that “loves” you is one of your protectors.
Love in the psychological sense is the placing of trust and security in another person (or object). This object has been identified as something you can turn your back on without fear of attack.
So why did we humans develop this emotion of love? We are born into this world needing the 3 basics. Nourishment, warmth, and protection. Love was a very efficient way to form social connections that would more adequately supply these needs. Spouses love each other so the man could protect and hunt food, the woman could prepare it and care for offspring. Mother love their children ensure that the child doesn’t just get left behind. Fathers because it secured their genetics into anther generation. A family all benefited from the gain of working as a collective, as did a tribe, then a race, then a country. The more you supply a security, the more the other person will “Love you”
now snap forward to a Materialistic world with both parents working, divorce rates and split homes as the norm for about 70% of all children at some point in their lives. We no longer find we can trust other people to supply “food, clothing, and shelter”. “My parents got divorced, cheated, lied and contradicted each other, my spouse will do the same one day.” “My friends and schools and clicks have changed so many times growing up, why trust anybody but myself?” In inanimate objects we can “trust” to provide our securities. That food will provide nutritional security. Those sounds help me drown out physical threats. Money can buy all kinds of security. Clothing can provide warmth, social status, protection, or just remind us of some other person who provided some influence. We all long to belong, but now at an arms distance. So we associate with things that can’t leave us. Sports teams, patriotism, military services, political parties, religions, and so on. They provide this distant sense of need to belong to a community though we have long forgotten why that need exists in the first place. Believe me. Being a Cleveland Browns fan provides absolutely no security.
Thanks for writing this.
Thank you Nathan for the discussion about the use of the word ‘love’. Surly its use has become so flippant it has lost its true meaning. But what is love really? After having a difficult relationship with my ‘loveable-ness’ I eventually stumbled across a biological explanation for what love is, in a greater, more meaningful framework which I found fascinating. Found on the World Transformation Movement website (http://www.worldtransformation.com/what-is-love). He’s a small snapshot “The answer to ‘what is love’ is that it is ‘unconditional selflessness’, BUT that is a truth we couldn’t safely admit until we could explain the HUMAN CONDITION—explain WHY our human behaviour has often been so competitive, selfish and aggressive, so seemingly unloving. It follows then that the real issue behind the question of ‘what is love’ has been the human condition.”
I’ve read this post twice, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what point the writer is trying to make. Yes, we use the word “love” in many different ways. Why is this perceived to be problematic? It’s rare that how the term is being used isn’t obvious from the context. We don’t get confused and think that when someone says “I love chocolate,” they mean they’ve found a partner they want to share their lives with. Where’s the beef? What is the lesson we are supposed to have learned, the insight we are supposed to take away with us after reading this post?
I agree….I thought I was going to get an insight on how to distinguish different kinds of love when you are dating or in a relationship. I can tell the difference between romantic love and my love of my Iphone. What I can’t tell the difference is between romantic love, real relationship love and maybe it’s just a strong connection love.
Yes, exactly. And throw in the spirituality of Love and there is a whole new dimension.
All I can say is that this entire method of thinking about the word “love” actually objectifies “love” as a regular adjective just used to describe a primitive feeling associated with materialism or the posession of someone or something. Love is so much bigger than that if you have any type of spirituality within your being. Love is also energy that can shift the entire mood and outcome of anything one sets out to accomplish. Love is energy, spirit, & God. Love can be a part of your energy & your spirit & your soul. People need love to survive & thrive in the world, just like people need water. When love of self & love from others is missing, mental illness of all forms and degrees of severity can take hold. The powers that be have taught us to discard the word love & use it as an adjective to demean its value. If you agree with this type of thinking then who are you really if you have bought into the notion that “love” is losing its meaning?
Passionate love is never fulfil,if both lovers married that never successful.That why all real love stories and novels are in the end tragic
Yes we use the word and still people don’t feel loved. Because there just were times that we needed love so bad and it wasn’t there. I think this article might be a way of saying…. that we still don’t hear or feel loved enough. I don’t think love is selflessness. it is difficult to love a floor matt. We do tend to love what others love. stack the deck and add one more person to the list…. yourself!
Thank you to everyone who read this article, and also to those who took the time to comment on it. I had a feeling this could draw some conflicting thoughts — including, “What is this guy talking about?” as one of those possible thoughts.
It was meant to be more light-hearted, but I think it may have come off more confusing, unfortunately. My general rule is, if I have to explain the article, then I could have written it better.
But here it is: this article really isn’t even necessarily about “love”. It’s about us as people gaining a deeper understanding of the meaning of our emotional experiences. This includes, but isn’t limited to, love. How we label and define our experiences generally is how we live them. The better we are at this, the more meaningful the experience is for us.
Thank you again for reading and commenting.
Psychology defines the word ‘love’ as approval, something completely different from ‘acceptance.’
I too found the post a bit weak and hoped to learn more. It was like something a child would write in school and I felt that the writer hasn’t got a good enough understanding about love at all. There was nothing deep about it – and just seemed to come from the surface. Quite disappointing I must say.
I see sex becoming separate from love. (friends w/benefits)
But using the word love in an overly broad sense is still positive. Why not ask if hate is overused? For example, do I really hate tea party people? Probably not–they could be someone’s misguided grandma. Love can never be overused.
Some of these uses have been around for – my lifetime anyway – and longer, are just figures of speech. It’s akin to calling something your favorite….
I do wonder about the idiocy on tv reality shows where people jump into pseudo-intimate relations with multiple people ( serial multiples) in the search for “love.” It’s pretty clearly the search for material success with sex thrown in. Can this junk influence younger people? I don’t know. But – there have always been and will always be clueless self-absorbed people; this just celebrates these attributes, while making “LOVE” a joke. But – on the other side, may people are not in the least like this…
Anyway, perhaps too, love is not something one understands until one has gone beyond romantic love to caring for someone in tough circumstances, to placing the other’s needs first…