Peas On The Moon

Well, before you try and define love, you first have to give the specific category that you persieve love to be. For example, is it a person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction? An intense emotional attachment? A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person? A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection toward a person?

After you narrow down the category, you then must base your opinion of love (and it is an opinion when you ask the question, "What is love?") on experience - wether it is your own, or something you have learned from elsewhere. And because all experiences are different, and no memory is exactly duplicated by two seperate people, quite possibly the only way to answer any question of love is to ask what love isn't.

Therefore, "Love is not the dead puppies hanging from the celing in my basement." would be a good answer to your question. Most probably it is not the one you want, or were even expecting, but it is a good answer!

Josh: Category? Do you mean narrow down what you are trying to define? I don't believe love to be a category, and i'm not wuite sure what you aregetting at in the first paragraph.
I guess i could get into what love is to me, but that is not why i asked the question. I'm not trying to define it for myself. I am as messed up as everyone else about it, but i also realize that love isn't somethign concrete that i can define in a few words, nor is it somethign that we would all share the same feelings about.
Like you said, Josh, no two people will have the same thought on what love IS, but no two people necessarly will share the same thoughts on what love isn't. True, the puppies hanging fromteh ceiling isn't going to score high on anyone's list, but i'm not sure i'd say that's what love isn't. I would prefer to go witht saying what thigns are, and say the puppie example is horrid. But this is just because i think we get closer to finding out what things are by thinking about just that, rather then what they are not.
Love is really abstract. Science has tried to define it, stories have tried to explain it. And though someimtes i would like to be able to see it in black in white. I know it's not. And perhaps that is part of the beauty of it. It is to you what you believe it to be, and what you have been taught it is.
I wasn't looking for anything specific in answers, just different thoughts. I'm looking out of curiosity because i know if the abscratedness of the past two posts.
So, Thank you Josh!!!!! I really enjoyed your insight. But please dont' come kill puppies in my basement.

In regards to category, maybe that was too confusing, though I tried to give examples of different cateogories. Love has different definitions, different meanings, which is what I was trying to get at. Are we talking plutonic love for a friend, being in love with someone, having love for theatre, etc... That's what I mean by category. I don't think I can explain it any better than that.

I understand the want to narrow with categories- but all of those include the word LOVE so they must share something in common. Those words we put in front of the word work to narrow how it is used, but they don't change the meaning, I don't think? (Who knows? ) What is that thing that we call love, that continues to be the most written about subject, the one that causes both euphoria and pain? It's a feeling, I think, one that causes us to be the most extreme in actions and responses- giving us the strength to be brave or romantic, cowardly even, calling on us to be loyal, passionate, jealous, and requiring us even to sacrifice. Love is love is love.

I think i agree with laura, in that i was thinking of love in terms of LOVE, all of it, not a specific category of it. Love does have different phases it can it.
But on another note. Love can take a variety of meanings in itself. (or at least it can in our society) Like you said josh, in plutonic love for a friend, being in love with someone, having love for theatre, but are all of those "loves" loves? Do they mean the same things? To some people they may be the same "loves" all laced with passion (or whatever else one puts in love), to another, one love may be a like, or an obligation, or a warm fuzzy feeling. It could be a life changing experience. But is that because love is a life changing experience, or because we believe in our society that it should be..... oh dear. i'm getting a bit off my line of thought. Just one last thought... i believe that love in our society has lost a bit of it's original value. And i guess it's the original value, the one and only formal and final definition that i believe was in my original question. The one that dates back to the Greeks. But i shall not limit myself too much. I did pose a very open ended question. I am enjoying the comments. :)

Love is a feeling, an emotion and an experience, but most of all, love is a choice.

Why is it I feel qualified to talk about such a complicated and difficult subject? Because I have seen both sides of it, love is beautiful and horrible and I know this from experience. I have floated high above a world where everything was right and everyone was great and every day was a new day to be discovered. I have felt the devastation of having that world fall to pieces before me as I struggled to comprehend how a person I trusted and admired could suddenly turn mean and hateful. I felt there was nothing I couldn't do, in an instant it all changed, and I felt completely worthless.

Love at first sight does not exist. You can certainly be attracted to someone the first time you meet them but that is lust at first sight, not love. Love takes time. Love is something that grows. It happens when two people experience the highs and lows that life always seems to find some way to throw at us, and as a result, they form a bond.

Love happens when you can always count on another person to try and help you, even if you don't know what you need. Love happens when you trust someone with everything you have. Love happens when you care for someone so much, that you would rather be hurt yourself than have them suffer for a moment. Love happens when another person lets you see all sides of them, the good and the bad, and rather than judge them, you accept them.

Certainly you have to like someone before you love them, and you have to get along with them before you like them, and you have to be attracted to them on some level so that you spend time with them before you know if you get along with them. There are many steps that must come before love and lucky for us a lot of people get weeded out during these step, otherwise it would be even harder to define this thing called love. But at some point, a choice has to be made.

Some people say that when you are in love "you'll just know." I'm sorry, but I think whoever said that is full of it. You'll know you are in love when you choose to allow yourself to love someone. I know there are probably a lot of people out there who disagree with me, but I'll hold to my belief. Chemistry and compatibility can only take you so far, at some point you have to decide.

I can hear the outcry now "But Amber! That sounds so very unromantic! Surely you don't mean it! How can we decide to love someone?" Simple. Love is hard. Any deep, meaningful relationship is hard. If it were easy, we'd be best friends with everyone! Take a look at the relationships you have with the people who mean the most to you, the people you love, they might be best friends, family members or a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife. Has the relationship always been easy? Do you always get along and agree on everything? No, you have to work on it, you have to try. You have to decide that this relationship is important enough that even when things are going badly, you're not going to give up, you'll make it work. The tough part is that since a relationship involves 2 people, both people have to decide they want it to work to make it successful.

I think a lot of problems today can be attributed to people having unrealistic expectations about love. People expect everything to always be happy and good, they expect love to be easy, they expect they won't have to make a choice. But if you don't make the choice, who will? Fate, chance or whatever you want to call it may bring people together, but it is up to those people to decide where to go from there.

Love can not be measured, except in our own minds, as we are the only ones who know the degree of love we feel for someone, although poems and songs do an admirable job, love is something that can never fully be described in words. Some people may wake up one morning and realize how much this person means to them "Wow! I'm in love!" while for others it may be a gradual realization "You know, she means so much to me... I think I love her."

To copy Maria and end with a quote:

<b>Love lifts us up where we belong, where eagles fly, on a mountain high
Love makes us act like we are fools, throw our lives away, for one happy day
We could be heroes</b>

I gotta disagree with you Laura. Love is a homonym, so you can't define love just by itself, nobody will understand what meaning you are referring to.

"Love can take a variety of meanings in itself.....but are all of those "loves" loves? Do they mean the same things?"

This is what I'm getting at. Love takes on a variety of meanings in how you use it, and they do mean different things. I love my mom. That does not mean I'm 'in love' with my mom.

"those include the word LOVE so they must share something in common" In common, sure, but they still mean very different things.

The love that Amber writes of for example, although she has left it fairly anonymous, it's pretty safe to say that it refers to a romantic love between two or more people. I don't perceive she's talking about her relationship with her uncle, or about her favorite sports team.

"It's a feeling, I think, one that causes us to be the most extreme in actions and responses- giving us the strength to be brave or romantic, cowardly even, calling on us to be loyal, passionate, jealous, and requiring us even to sacrifice." Now: I love pizza. How does your definition of love fit my sentence?

But josh, why will no one understnd what we are referring to? Probably because we use the word love for so many things. It's practically lost it's passion that it was born with. This doesn't mean that when you say you love your mom, and a partner you don't mean it. It just makes me think of other words that I could use too, that perhaps mean the same things. Maybe it's because we know love is a strong and meaningful word(practically themost strongand meaningful perhaps) so we choose to use it.
<p>Oh, how I love playing Devil's Advocate.

Actually Josh, while the first two paragraphs do refer to love and my experiences with it in a romantic sense, most of the other stuff I've said applies to any type of love, whether it be a family member, a best friend, or a romantic interest.

If you remove paragraph 5, what I have said from the second half of paragrah 2 onward can be applied to the love of any person (person being the key word here, sports teams not included.) I did not have any particular person in mind as I wrote this, but rather a few choice people who I can honestly say I love.

Maria, I don't quite understand what you are getting at, because it seems like we're on agreement with your last comment. "[W]e use the word love for so many things"..."other words that I could use too, that perhaps mean the same things". Very true.

Amber, I guess when you started off your comment talking about how love at first sight doesn't exist, and about attraction and whatnot, I came to a conclusion too quickly, and saw the rest of your comment in terms of how you started it off. It seems like you started off talking about one aspect of love, but then went on to other parts that did encompass multiple meanings of love - but still not all.

I think where I have the trouble accepting love being able to be used interchangably with all these meanings is mainly where (to quote the dictionary): love is used as a strong predilection or enthusiasm: A love of language, or where it is used as the object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love. All your definitions when they pertain to people fit, but lose their congruity with these examples.

"In the year 2001, a CNN opinion poll named U.S. President George Bush "the most loved man in America.""

People really do not have the same definition of love as I do.

I guess josh what i was trying to say is that in our society love can be used in many different contexts, and that because of this it has lost a lot of it's strength in meaning. I really wish it hadn't, and personally I don't think it should be used as freely as it is in our every day conversation because it is this that causes it to lose it's strength in meaning. (using is so frequently to comment on everything also it complicates our definition and makes it harder to figure out what we really feel love is, or how it works. )

To throw an entirely different bone into the mix;

Love isn't a feeling. Love is a group of other emotions which, for one reason or another, we've made a choice to believe "is" love. Love is undefinable for that reason; it's subjective to one's upbringing, one's role in society and, to some extent or another, what someone loves.

Love at first sight exists to those who believe it exists because the feelings elicited by seeing "someone right" are what they identify as love; love of George Bush exists because the feelings elicited by him (mainly, trust and safety, I'd assume) are what the people identify as love. Heck, trust and safety are popular reasons for loving someone, so even if you don't feel the emotion you should at least identify with why they love him. People can love fine wine, or literature, in the same way because the feelings illicited are what they identify as love. Hell, we can even say that a woman who's spent 40 years being beaten by her husband and identifies it as love is just as valid as your definition, because it's not a feeling, it's a group of feelings that she's come to is love for her.

It's one thing to say that everyone's definition is different; it's another to explore why the definitions are different and the reason is that love isn't definable. Saying that "I think where I have the trouble accepting love being able to be used interchangably with all these meanings" is missing the point; no definition of love is more or less valid because it's subjective. The reality is, the ones you love, love you for a different set of reasons than you love them; understanding that is more important than being able to come up with a clear and concise definition.

Well, I can see a lot of ground has been covered here, and I can't say I have much more to add. I would say that I agree with a lot of Amber and Dave's comments above, and enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts (you seemed to have elicited a better response with this question, Maria!). I also agree with Maria in that the word itself, love, is used so much in our society that it has lost some of its strength and meaning. And what Dave was saying above about love being dependent on a particular person and their experiences and outlooks, made a lot of sense to me. Why is it easier for some people to be sure about what they are feeling as love? Maybe love to someone else is simply like for another...at what point do you cross that boundary where things are "definite"? I thought Amber's outlook on choosing to love was neat--I wish there was a clear definition, or some test you could take that would make things simpler, but there's not (at least not yet...though I'm sure science is still trying, maybe Amber knows some more about this...sounds like something psychology would do!). Anyhow, I don't pretend to know much about this, I can't say it's a discussion I've ever had, but I've enjoyed all of your comments...keep up the good blogging!

i started to post this right after amber, and then my power went out.. and now.. three days later i'm ready to try again.

i just want to point out (which i think already has been) that love is no way has to involve reciprocation. you can love someone without them loving you back, in the same way you can love something that is incapable of loving you back.

what is love? well.. i'm sure it's different for every person - hence why everytime the word is used in a situation it can elicit different responses from different people, and affect them in different ways. To me - love is a decision (conscious or unconscious) to act in a way that is sacrificial on your part for someone or something else. like is just not as strong as love, maybe you'd draw a line at how much you'd do for something you like, but when it's something you love... nothing will stop you.

Wow Liz, I really like your definition and how you explained the difference between like and love.

Here's a related question for everyone who has been commenting:

Once you love someone (or something, let's keep the definition open) is it possible to ever stop loving them/it? This is something I've often wondered. I have come to the conclusion that no, it's not possible, at least not for me and what I consider love to be.

Whatever we perceive as this thing called love, I think it changes you so profoundly, that you never will be the same after. Maybe the way you feel love will change, hey maybe you even find that you both love and hate it at the same time (yeah, I think it's possible) but once you feel that deeply, I don't think it can ever go away.

Thoughts?

"Once you love someone (or something, let's keep the definition open) is it possible to ever stop loving them/it? "

I think that each time you "love", it opens something up within you that wasn't open before, so, the mark is permanent, which is why it's so hard to move on; you can recognize the permanent effect that the person/thing had on you and how it's entirely possible that noone will make you feel the same way again.

That said, feeling the same way again is overrated; feeling something entirely new, that's where you grow as a person and learn about yourself. Once I realized that, it became less about getting over someone as it was finding that next thing to learn from and it became an infinitely better experience (moving on, that is).