What is Love?

[iFemale]

What is love? Is it as Tina Turner once lyricized, “a second hand emotion?” Is it expressed physically? Or when, the saying goes, “love is pain,” where does it actually hurt? Pain- a physical pain, or emotional? Both?

Take a moment and actually sink it in.

So when asked, “what is love?” What is the correct answer?

I’ve come to realize, the myth of love lies softly on a sheer veil of : compromise, common ground, and respect.

Compromise -He gives a little, she gives a little, and they both meet in the middle.

Common Ground -Where the guy and the girl set ground rules to what is expected out of their relationship.

Respect - Self-respect, respect for kin-ship and family, and thus transforming into learned respect for your significant other.

The idea of love has been projected as a thoughtful and selfless emotion towards another with the support of these aspects. However, if it takes three attributes, such as the ones I've just mentioned, then why call it “love?” Why not call it what it really is?

An agreement with disagreements (Compromise), a working foundation (Common ground), “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” (Respect).


-- We all have our own ideas for love. Each person defines it in their own ways, basing it on their past experiences or simply, their thoughts. I've just let you in on my perspective and now I want to be informed by your OWN words that may identify as "love." Yes it's risky to categorize it in such areas, but it has a vivid perspective.

Although our definition of love may vary, the term will remain the same, so get active!

[yerazhishda]

Re: What is Love?

No, no, no. Love is class warfare, an invention of the bourgeois to oppress the proletariat. Love is a constant struggle for power, in which those who own the means of production (women) always end up on top.

As one of our great Socialist patriots has said:

"The history of all hitherto love is the history of class struggles". -Vladimir Leninaseryan

[Sako]

Re: What is Love?

Hi iFemale.

First of all it's good to see that love matters to you (at least that's the impression I got from your post).

In your post, I realized that you were trying to define love, asking why it isn't called something else. Well to answer that, let us first agree that love, not the word but the very feeling, is, has, and always will be indescribable. It is a very complicated feeling. It isn't anger, passion, happiness, or distress ... it is a mixture of ALL those and many more feelings. That's what makes it so powerful and indescribable. Anyone that has fallen in love should be prepared for all these feelings especially because they can and usually come when you least expect them. So that's what makes love special, that's the reason why you can't define love in any other way.

I'd like to quote you to prove my point...

An agreement with disagreements (Compromise), a working foundation (Common ground), “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” (Respect).

This is a very compressed definition of love. A quick question though, can you describe love by only mentioning ONE of these attributes? I doubt it. And that's the reason why love can't be called anything else but LOVE. Respect, for example, is one attribute but love is a mixture of lots of feelings and attributes, not just respect, or happiness, or something else. Can you for example define the ocean by only pointing at the water you see??? Love isn't comprised of only fuzzy feelings. It is one of the most, if not THE most powerful feeling in this universe and it has the power to change almost anything. Just look at so many events in history, they prove just how powerful love is and if it wasn't, I doubt they would've taken place. Now Let's analyze love real quick. There are many forms of love e.g. parental love, marital love, family love, etc. So this further complicates everything.

Moving on. I would like to now talk about TRUE love. I believe that in this current age, it is very difficult to find TRUE love and its almost impossible, frankly speaking. Actually, I'd say true love can't be UNDERSTOOD rather then found mostly because people don't appreciate love enough nowadays to the point that someone might find his/her true love but not acknowledge that.

Something to remember is that real love doesn't reveal itself until you are married for a few years. THAT'S when you understand if what you have is love or something else. In the beginning of a relationship, you have a lot of complicated feelings. After that, you get more focused. And only after that do you really start to see the big picture. Something I've noticed is that Love is confused with passion almost always and I think it would be smart to keep in mind that love begins AFTER you go through the passionate phase. If I met a really hot and sweet girl, someone that really left a fantastic impression on me and made me fall madly in love with, I wouldn't be able to fully imagine what our relationship would be like after we got married, it's impossible. And even after a few years. My honest opinion is that even if a great, loving couple had months of experience and wonderful memories, they wouldn't completely understand how they felt until they spend one night (or more depending on how passionate they are ) together. Why? Because before that MOST people, not all, don't really stop to think about anything else. Not because they don't want to but mostly because they imagine their future relationship and love itself in beautiful ways. No matter how they look at the big picture, it always seems beautiful ESPECIALLY if their boyfriend or girlfriend is very cool, handsome, smart, etc. which makes everything seem perfect. After they go through the passion, things either start to get more interesting or boring. Many people, after this, start to understand what love is and where it TRULY comes from and what is required to keep it alive. That's when you can know if a couple is living together because they have to or because they want to with all their hearts.

Real love, the love many would die for, isn't fueled by money, shiny cars, or big houses. That's another lesson we should all remember. There are so many people that have EVERYTHING but in reality have NOTHING. Real love most of the time can be found in simple families, the ones trying to survive, the ones going through life's many difficulties. Why? Because Diamond cannot be polished without friction, Gold cannot be purified without fire, and love, respect, etc. cannot be truly appreciated and felt until you have gone through hardship. In the beginning, it all feels great but after a few months/years, you start to see the difference between passion and true love. Families that really go through the fires of life, through lots of tears, but stick together no matter what, trying their best and never giving up, reach the top of the mountain most of the time. Their feelings are refined and they have lots of experience. The people that have always lived through happy times, feeling up in the clouds, eventually have a nasty fall. Why? Because they weren't prepared for the other side of love, the not so pretty side. Love tests couples in many ways, forcing them to face difficult problems and the couples that stick together are the ones that get to taste real love. The others simply go through a lot of passion and a lot of tears in the end.

This is what love is my friend . Hardship, happiness, distress, woe, anger, joy, etc. One word? Crazy. The thing about love is that anything can happen and all feelings have a place in your life once you fall in love. But remember, this is only love....

All I described till now wasn't true love, just love. True love is something else. A fish cannot live on land, only in water, and I believe true love is something we cannot experience in this world, mostly because it won't allow us to just like a fish isn't allowed to breathe outside of water. We are here to learn, that's my take on life, and love is something we must learn about. We have to learn to love. If we learn well, we will be able to graduate and leave this world and experience TRUE LOVE which is less complicated and much more clear. That is something we cannot understand unfortunately but we don't need to. All we need to do is love with all our hearts and be honest and try our best to, without trying to imagine what the future will be like. 99.9% of the time, it never ends up to be the way we imagined it all in the beginning. That's what life is and a clear, simple definition of love would be that it is the other side of life. It is a mixture of lots of feelings and it can be appreciated only by going through life itself. It is not easy and many have given up mostly because they search for "true love" without realizing that they will never find true love. No one really even knows what he/she is searching for or what true love even IS. We can't even define love so forget about defining true love, lol.

After all I said, please don't get the impression that love is inferior to true love. It isn't. It is the road to true love. In this world, nothing can beat love and after going through all the hardships, you will be able to experience the same love ... just without the complications!

I'll end my post now with the following (sorry for turning it into a book, lol) ...

You can't say your in love only if your happy and neither can you say you aren't if your in distress....You can't say you are in love only if you have the best nights of your life........

You can say your in love when you continue to love someone with all your heart NO MATTER WHAT! I hope all of you will find that kind of love one day. All the best, we have a loooonnnngggg road ahead of us

[Sako]

Re: What is Love?

Just something I'd like you to check out. It's an interesting read even if your an atheist.

[TomServo]

Re: What is Love?

Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more.

I had to.

[jgk3]

Re: What is Love?

I have a feeling that if we held this discussion in Armenian, we'd get different answers.

[Anoush]

Re: What is Love?

What is love? It is PAIN PAIN PAIN... full of PAIN and nothing but PAIN. That is love. We grow up and look for it; instead we should seek to have a nice and a serene life. It may be boring sometimes, but better boring than hurtful PAIN!

[gmd]

Re: What is Love?

Love is a four letter english word.
Don't look for enlightment on a forum on this subject. Find an old married couple and ask them if love is the reason they lasted so long.

[jgk3]

Re: What is Love?

We grow up and look for it; instead we should seek to have a nice and a serene life.

Nicely said, and btw, it's not boring to not look for it. I actually find great satisfaction being single.

[KanadaHye]

Re: What is Love?

Love is a battlefield.... ahhhhh POP culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9J9rTZJBmw

No other language has a single word that encompasses everything that the word "Love" represents. In other words... Love is a gimmick.