Does love exist? Can it go away? (What about love at first sight?)

[ForEverAfter]

I don't like the word love; like the word Christianity, it has been corrupted by time.

I'm not sure, exactly, what it is.
Like God, some people believe in it and others don't.

...

Some people say that God loves them...
But, is that the same kind of love?

Love between God and His creation.
Love in intimate relationships.
Love for family.
Love for friends.
Love of music.
Love for pets.

Are these all the same thing?
(Or variations of the same thing?)

...

I feel like the word love is often used in a really negative, selfish way.
It's a manipulative tool in relationships, more than anything else.
And, it's needy.

If somebody says they love you, you have to say it back.
It's obligatory: it becomes (somewhat) meaningless, like Christmas.
People need to believe that somebody loves them, even if they don't.

Although I don't like the word, I don't have an alternative.
So, in relationships, I have to establish what I think about it.

Beyond my personal relationships, I've been trying to love everyone.
I've been trying to open my mind and my heart to the world.
But, if I succeed, will I love anyone?

Can love exist without a relative term?
Will I love my wife and my children as much, if I love everyone equally?
Is there a limit on how much you can love?

It's very difficult to love everyone.
As if it is against human nature.
And, if it is our nature to love, is it biological / evolutionary?

...

Love: what is it?
Do you subscribe?

 

[swilow]

Good topic. I have very unclear thoughts on this matter but hopefully this topic can help to clarify.

I believe in love, in the sense that I imagine it is valuable and worthy of experiencing/expressing. I am unsure about whether it exists or whether it has been semantically degraded. "I love McDonalds" devalues "I will love you until the day I die".

I think that there is unconditional love and conditional love. Parents are meant to unconditionally love their children. This is accepted as universal, though in my life I tend to disagree. I would rather that people choose to love me, rather then be compelled to, biologically. Unconditional love is not relative; is it? It cannot be accurately compared to my love of french fries. My love of french fries utterly recedes when I am served up cold and undercooked raw potato.

Can love exist without a relative term?
Will I love my wife and my children as much, if I love everyone equally?
Is there a limit on how much you can love?

Is it possible to love a stranger with the same depth of passion that one would feel as love for their children? I'm not sure that it is. Maybe love needs to be earned to be meaningful...

I think that love is extremly valuable, but I consider compassion and empathy to have more worth. Love can be irrational and its not always a choice. I wonder how important that sort of thing actually is... Perhaps the ability to forgive those who wrong you is more important.

 

[ForEverAfter]

Is it possible to love a stranger with the same depth of passion that one would feel as love for their children? I'm not sure that it is.

Assuming that it was possible, should you do it? That's my question.

Maybe love needs to be earned to be meaningful...

Does your child earn your love?

 

[spacejunk]

I think it's important to acknowledge that there are many kinds of love.
Some fall into the category of cliché ("love at first sight" being a good example from your list) - but really, it is a matter of semantic meaning and the limitation of a word in the english language being used to express a mulititude of complicated emotions and thoughts.
Being concerned with the 'emotional', love isn't necessarily logical in any definitive sense.
Romantic love, love of friends, family, experiences, places or even less tangible things obscures the meaning of love to the point that it is tangled and complex.

However, I think 'love' is important - no matter where you find it. To love, or to be loved. People i know without some outlet or source of love in their lives seem to carry a burden of emptiness around with them. I say this from personal and observed experience, but perhaps i am blessed with a lot of love around me, so my perspective nowadays may be a little skewed.

 

[swilow]

^True, spacejunk. Love is an umbrella terms for many similar positive states of desire/being.

Does your child earn your love?

See, that's my point. Ones child doesn't need to do anything to earn your love. At least, I think that is the way things should be. I feel unsure, but I think unconditional love isn't that 'valuable' in a literal sense, at least in this context. Its everywhere, ingrained in almost all cultures, that ones children are more valuable then ones own self. Its a broadband signal with all sorts of noise and self-projection that devalues it (perhaps). When someone grows to love you as they get to know you (and when that happens in you for them), that is a powerful and life-changing emotional experience, intoxicating. Its something that you give another person, and is perhaps more genuine through its arising via ones personal choices (perhaps!).

I used the term 'valuable' a few times. Things are usually valuable when they are rare or in demand. The love of a parent for child isn't especially rare, if I reading and making valid assumptions about society at large. Finding love for another random human animal is sort of rare, and perhaps more valuable and meaningful.

All that said, I find defining love to be utterly impossible. I have an idea of what I meant, I have certainly felt it (and feel it), but I have no way of describing it. Its sometimes painful, sometimes euphoric. Its confusing and enriching. I don't know what the fuck it is.

 

[What 23]

Love is a very... loaded word.

Yes it does exist. I'm not sure if it "goes away", but things can definitely change.

 

[Azure Cloud]

Love is a theoretical construct. It carries whatever meaning the definer gives it. In my eyes love as a noun is useless. A feeling of Love inside you does the world no good.

To me Love is at its finest when it denotes a verb of action. The only kind of love worthwhile is the sort expressed through selfless acts of charity, kindness and generosity. When the act of love results in putting another's well being above your own.

 

[-=SS=-]

If somebody says they love you, you have to say it back.
It's obligatory: it becomes (somewhat) meaningless, like Christmas.
People need to believe that somebody loves them, even if they don't.

Although I don't like the word, I don't have an alternative.
So, in relationships, I have to establish what I think about it.

I had this experience with my first gf. I did a lot for that girl with her issues and naturally the love word came in my direction. But I couldn't say it back, even after 1-2 years. I really cared for her and loved a lot about her, but I didn't feel a true deep resonance.. I couldn't lose myself in her. I explained this to her, which was difficult for both of us, but my position was that basically I didn't feel comfortable saying it to her because I did not love her in the way that I define the word and I felt like I would be lying to both of us. For me the word, when used in a 1-1 relationship context, means I will forever be infatuated with your essence.. you have touched me at the deepest level and vica-versa, we've shared the same space at a profound level, and we both liked it. The word has become trite and overused in my opinion. Devalued. Call me old fashioned but love would be falling into that state and still feeling the same way when you're both in your 80's.

On the other hand I see love as an illusion. We project a lot of stuff on to reality and each other that just isn't there. Hence why my definition of love involves the immersion in a space beyond the material, together (such as one can have with friends who are tripping.. when you know you were in the same place elsewhere). So I guess you could say it's a shared experience beyond the material realm.. hard to define or put your finger on, but you know without question when it happens.

 

[herbavore]

I think romantic love is the most difficult love to navigate and we usually end up perverting it in some drastic ways that neither we nor the recipient of our 'love' are even conscious of. We confuse the vulnerabilities of the ego with love. We create the obligations, the strange accounting systems and coded language then try to insist it is love but wonder why we can't hang onto it.

I think that the love I received from my parents was very pure love. I know that I experienced giving pure love to my children. This does not mean that these relationships did not have personal conflicts--we had them aplenty at different stages of our lives! But underlying those conflicts was a very solid safe space of certainty: we wanted only what was best for this person and by their own definition of what was best and we knew they wanted the same for us. The selflessness that can exist in that kind of love is rare amongst romantic partners. The barely understood territory of our own sexuality bumping up against that of our partner while both of us are also operating out of our own personal expectations of what romantic love should feel like, look like, etc can be a hell of a convoluted path.

I'm in a 30 year marriage after about 15 years of serial monogamy.What I've learned is this: you can't love with a defended heart. The process over one lifetime seems to be the purity of birth and then whatever happens afterwards that causes every single person born to start digging that protective moat around their heart, then hopefully some light shed that into the mind that says, hmmm...maybe not getting me where I want to be (loved!) and the work turns to building little bridges across the moat. I think it is all necessary--the whole process. You learn about how best not to hurt others by experiencing hurt yourself. They say babies are wise but I say they have baby-wisdom. We need the baby-wisdom, the child-wisdom, the teen-wisdom, the young adult, middle adult and older adult wisdom. All of it informs us. this is why the separation of the generations in modern cultures leaves us all hanging in such confusion. Everyone at any stage of life is convinced their lens is the correct lens when in fact it is the continual blending of all the wisdom of the life cycle that would help us along so much.

If you make it your life's adventure to discover new avenues of love, you find yourself so engaged with the adventure that the definition of what love is barely surfaces in your thoughts. It seems to exist in your body and heart more than in your head. At least it feels that way to me.