What is love?

I don't know where love starts or ends. I have a different type of love for everyone and everything I see. I have romantic love, friendship love, family love, and the love for objects and music and so much. It is hard because you live with some pain, but everything is so wonderful.

I have been searching for a romantic love that crosses over to family love. If I can find that, I may live with someone again, but I have little expectation for it. I do know I can be angry and really be hurt by someone and feel love. I guess humanitarian love would be there.

I feel silly saying all of this, it is simple.
 
My ideas about love are tentative, but I'll give it a shot.

I say there are two kinds of love, love and true love.

In short love is a pure emotion that can only be identified by the person who holds it. It has no requirement no explanation, it just is.

True love is more difficult to define.

It is love and more, it is when you've found your soulmate; but it is also when you and that other person are mature enough to carry on a stable happy relationship. I think both members of the relationship have to be truly actualized in that sense, both people must understand the other and what leads to a happy relationship.

And then there is everything in between.
 
dneecey said:
I can't speak for everyone, but personally once I have given my complete and honest love to someone, I can never take it back, no matter the hurt or the pain loving a person might cause me. I will always care, always think of them, always hope for them, and always want the best for them, even if we never see each other again.
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That is a beautiful, inspiring statement. I can see it in your face.

I have felt something like that. I was divorced almost a year ago from long-term marriage. I had not expected that loving someone would mean being able to see that they needed to be alone. Realizing that my presence and what I needed and had to offer could not provide what could help him grow was possibly the most painful thing I have ever felt. I was never able to feel anger and we never argued, but it was clearly his need to separate that led the process, although I took care of the logistics. I'm now with someone who has had his own hurts and appreciates what I can offer. I think I was able to give something in both instances, but I think when you fully love someone it involves making the effort to understand the reasons behind the pain or rejection. That understanding can produce a kind of respect and a connection that I think of as love.
 
love is unconditional acceptance
when we confuse longing with love, then we may see love as pain, as betrayal, as constant striving for an ideal that exists solely in the mind but is projected onto whoever it is we've transferred and embossed that image onto.
love is not pain. longing may be pain and often involves feeling unfulfilled even when that person is there; it may even be amplified by our own perceptions, whether real or unreal, when we are alone without them there.
in the past, i've confused longing with love. i've confused an ideal of that certain person with who that person is regardless of my own manifestations. it allowed me to feel deeply for that person and yes there were many things i've come to love about them...things which triggered and coincided with my mental schemework. yet, i don't believe i loved them in retrospect because it was grounded on pain and involved a ceaseless wanting rather than acceptance.
 
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Love is seeing a sunset mixed with clouds and clear skies, different hues of greys and blues balancing the masterpiece to allow the sun's glow slowly turn into rays of light stretching across the sky. Love is becoming part of the sunset as you watch it in wonder. Love is sharing it with friends. Love is watching several deer pass along their way in the swamp surrounded by oak and tupelo, palmetto bushes mixed along their walk as they graze on the tender leaves of the bushes and pick up an acorn or two as they come to them. Love is watching two fawns play in the palmettos. Love is seeing the dry roots from the inch-thick grape vines hanging down looking for something to help nurture it in the ground inches below its end. Love is sharing it in a photo with a friend. Love is a good dog laying his head against you for comfort and following you wherever you go. Love is when he accepts your smaller dog as one to be loved, too. Love is hearing the needs of others and doing what you can to ease their pain. Love is offering of yourself to help the sick and the elderly, the dying and diseased. Love is helping the downtrodden and broken-hearted. "Love is kind and is patient. Love is not high-minded. Love seeketh not her own." Corinthians. Love looks beyong that which is said to find that which was meant. Love is a healing power.
Love feels like a warm coat, a wool cap, a pair of furry gloves, some fine longjohns, and a taste of something warm going down on the coldest of mornings and finding a beautiful smiling face in the winter's frozen wonderland to take hold of your hand and give you a warm hug. Love is a noisy person's being quiet when in the presence of one's requiring quiet. Love is giving of oneself for others. Love is when an angel takes you by the hands and your entire soul feels afloat in the heavens. I should like to leave love with that thought tonight.
 
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That is lovely justme..
I am so unpoetic when it comes to love. The dumbest thing I've done recently is tell the bf I would mail him a love sonnet.. I was joking, but I think he took it seriously. Doh.
 
merrytrees said:
That is lovely justme..
I am so unpoetic when it comes to love. The dumbest thing I've done recently is tell the bf I would mail him a love sonnet.. I was joking, but I think he took it seriously. Doh.
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At least email him.
 
dneecey said:
Love, true blue, honest love is unconditional and never ending. Which means you know somebody, care about them and regardless of what they do, who they're with, and despite all of their flaws you continue to care what happens to them. It is unselfish and subject to personal expression, meaning we all show love differently.
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This seems to me to be more the love between mother and child. I'm not sure it's possible between adults, though maybe it should be. My roomie/partner seems capable of this kind of love toward me, but I've only been able to experience this with my sons.
 
merrytrees said:
Well, love is definitely more than an emotion. Emotions are like water, ever changing form. They are not stable and not completely dependable. I think a good way to measure love is one's actions towards another in times when they are not ecstatic or intoxicated by infatuation.
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Agree...absolutely
 
I think finding true love in people is very difficult if not impossible to find. There are so many flaws in human relationships that get in the way of love it is hard to find a pure love. If anything, I think only children could experience true love because they are not tainted by the world like adults are. I think that some adults are close to coming to true love though; such as with parents and children. But to have true love between adults... that would be a miracle to see.
 
Azure_Knight said:
I think finding true love in people is very difficult if not impossible to find. There are so many flaws in human relationships that get in the way of love it is hard to find a pure love. If anything, I think only children could experience true love because they are not tainted by the world like adults are. I think that some adults are close to coming to true love though; such as with parents and children. But to have true love between adults... that would be a miracle to see.
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I don't get this. Maybe I am wrong.. maybe time will prove me wrong.. but I know the love that I give. Not the love I receive, because I can never completely understand the heart and motives of others... but I know my heart. I know that I have people in my life that I love unconditionally. It is a small number but regardless of their flaws and actions I can not ever see myself stop loving them. They are male and female adults who could easily be considered physically attractive by many as well as myself, but for me it is beyond that. I see these people for who they really are, and I LOVE them. I genuinely honestly love them to the extent of my human ability. Maybe I am wrong.. maybe time will prove me wrong... but I believe in the love that I give...
 
I think the Beatles said it succinctly...

"And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make."
(from the song: The End)
 
EloquentBohemian said:
I think the Beatles said it succinctly...

"And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make."
(from the song: The End)
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In my opinion, you just can't go wrong with the Beatles.
 
just me said:
Love is seeing a sunset mixed with clouds and clear skies, different hues of greys and blues balancing the masterpiece to allow the sun's glow slowly turn into rays of light stretching across the sky. Love is becoming part of the sunset as you watch it in wonder. Love is sharing it with friends. Love is watching several deer pass along their way in the swamp surrounded by oak and tupelo, palmetto bushes mixed along their walk as they graze on the tender leaves of the bushes and pick up an acorn or two as they come to them. Love is watching two fawns play in the palmettos. Love is seeing the dry roots from the inch-thick grape vines hanging down looking for something to help nurture it in the ground inches below its end. Love is sharing it in a photo with a friend. Love is a good dog laying his head against you for comfort and following you wherever you go. Love is when he accepts your smaller dog as one to be loved, too. Love is hearing the needs of others and doing what you can to ease their pain. Love is offering of yourself to help the sick and the elderly, the dying and diseased. Love is helping the downtrodden and broken-hearted. Love is kind and is patient. Love is not high-minded. Love seeketh not her own. Love looks beyong that which is said to find that which was meant. Love is a healing power.
Love feels like a warm coat, a wool cap, a pair of furry gloves, some fine longjohns, and a taste of something warm going down on the coldest of mornings and finding a beautiful smiling face in the winter's frozen wonderland to take hold of your hand and give you a warm hug. Love is a noisy person's being quiet when in the presence of one's requiring quiet. Love is giving of oneself for others. Love is when an angel takes you by the hands and your entire soul feels afloat in the heavens. I should like to leave love with that thought tonight.
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It's quite a pretty thought - or rather many quite pretty thoughts. Taken partially from Corinthians I:13 verses 1 through 13 from Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, correct? I am not Christian myself, but love is love and neither is it owned by anyone, for love cannot be bounded or it is no longer love. Eh for the Beatles fans "can't buy me love" - I also (no surprise) agree that it is the loving that matters, not the being loved, although that is nice as well as long as being loved isn't like some kind of conditional cage you are put in, because I don't think of love as the type of thing to cage or imprison, but rather to accept and allow freely.
 
Shadowforce said:
It's quite a pretty thought - or rather many quite pretty thoughts. Taken partially from Corinthians I:13 verses 1 through 13 from Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, correct? I am not Christian myself, but love is love and neither is it owned by anyone, for love cannot be bounded or it is no longer love. Eh for the Beatles fans "can't buy me love" - I also (no surprise) agree that it is the loving that matters, not the being loved, although that is nice as well as long as being loved isn't like some kind of conditional cage you are put in, because I don't think of love as the type of thing to cage or imprison, but rather to accept and allow freely.
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I threw about three verses in the middle, but it just came out unexpectedly. It deserved its place when thought of. I went back and put parenthesis around the three short quotes, but they may not be in order or verbatim. The rest is from the heart. A loving heart finds love all around waiting to be unbound, and loosing the chains of it opens it up to the world for their enjoyment. Bondage hampers enjoyment, entitlement, and experience of love.
 
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dneecey said:
I've never heard that but I like it. :)

I can't speak for everyone, but personally once I have given my complete and honest love to someone, I can never take it back, no matter the hurt or the pain loving a person might cause me. I will always care, always think of them, always hope for them, and always want the best for them, even if we never see each other again.

I've been hurt numerous times by people I love, but I just can not seize to love. That being said, I don't let love be used as an excuse for someone to hurt me. You can only be hurt by someone so much before you have to walk away, no matter how much you love them. It is true, that sometimes love isn't enough.

Love can conquer all inside of an individual person. It can help you see past all flaws and to the core of an individual, but it can only do that for the one loving. I hope this makes sense but I feel like love can change the lover, not the loved. The loved has to let their own love as a lover change them. (And I don't mean lover in a romantic sense)

Did that make sense?
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i've personally experienced that. love changes me and always for the better. it not only guides me to delve deeper into that someone, passing through all barriers that obscure their profound inner beauty, but opens yet more doors into myself. no matter the flaws nor the unconsciousness of that individual person, i never can explain why i hold certainty in believing their utmost good when time and again they unknowingly create more pain for themselves and for me.
it is only inner knowing and deep faith from which i am capable in distancing myself from them physically as i believe they will realize in their own time regardless whether it happens at a time too late to reconcile.

i suppose the lyrics from an ani difranco song sum it up quite well:
"I could love you, yeah
I've entertained the thought
but I could never like you
so I guess I'd better not"

in the end, i love them but don't desire to have them. i do not like many of the things they do, but am forever intrigued. love, like a growing pain may hurt, but with each passing propels me to a higher understanding of myself. never can i go back to the depth i was before and forget all the beauty i've opened my eyes to from this newfound summit.
 
http://www.urbanmonk.net/135/love-sorrow-and-attachment/

this is something I think everyone should read. Made me realise a lot of things and I'm not even done reading yet.Credit goes to the person who posted the link to lonliness from the same site. I cant remember who and which thread it was but its in here somewhere. Anyway, enjoy the read :D
 
I really hate the name of this thread. I really hear that song every time I see the name of this thread. I get irritated because it just won't stop with the same bit of the song. I never liked the song. I want to bang my head against something when I hear the song. I think the guy is whiny and deserves the hurt if he keeps going after the same person who hurt him.

This was a rant.
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