Thread: Love... and the meaning

The previous months... a girl got my attention. Ah,nope bad way to begin with...
Hmm...

What is love? Someone could say that "you can't live without the person you love" or that you "think about him/her when you wake up",but it isn't clearly... I mean,I am almost sure that I love my parents,my brother,my family but I could live without someone of them(maybe all of them,although I don't know if I could survive:001_tongue:). I don't say that I wouldn't cry if someone of them died,but it would be ok(at least that is what I think atm), it wouldn't come the end of the world or something like that... (lol,I know I may sound a little cruel,I maybe am cruel,who knows...) so that phrase isn't the best to describe love or the meaning of the word love...

How can I know if I really love somebody?


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Thanks!

Interesting. This is one question I really wish I had the answer to, but unfortunately I don't. Perhaps someone more fortunate than I am will be able to shed some light on this for both of us.

I don't think it's necessarily bad to start by admitting that there was/is a girl you cared for. I think that anyone who has cared for another person and experienced life would ask this question. In any event,that's certainly a form of love, but I wonder if it might be too complicated to start there.

The greeks thought that there are many types of love, and sometimes I wonder if this is true or not. Personally, I prefer not to separate my idea of love into categories, but rather focus on distilling the concept into it's purest form.

There are many cliches about what love is. You “care about them more than yourself”, “can't live without them”, or that they are “all you think about”. I wonder if this isn't a bit of naivete. Sure, these things may be true about someone that you love, but are these really what define love as love? I don't think so. I don't think there's anything wrong with loving a person and knowing that if they were to pass away, you would be able to continue to exist.


What love really seems to be, at least in my experience, is what is left when we take away all of the cliches and emotions, all of the feelings and desires. That feeling you get when a lover hasn't called all day, even though she was supposed to, or the longing you have to see her again after being away for a long time - these feelings aren't really love, these are greed. It isn't a bad type of greed, but it is still self-serving.


Love isn't even the happiness we derive from a smile or a longing for an expression of love (sex). These feelings belong to lust. It's not about being willing to work through problems or make sacrifices, this is just our rational mind trying to make sense of things. All of these things may be part of our interpretation of love, but they aren't love itself. I think this is why the Greeks believed that there were multiple types of love – because for every individual and every interpretation of love that we experience, we experience a different set of feelings as a result.

Love is what's left when we remove these things. In part, it's the sensation that something is there, and that that something will always be there, even if its physical existence ceases. It's the beauty that we sense surrounding us, but can never really define. It's a connection we know is there, but that we never actually know.

Overall, Love just is. Perhaps it isn't even possible to define such a term as love without inputting our personal opinion.

How do we know we have love for something? We just do. I know I love my family, nature, my friends. But I couldn't tell you why I love them. I just know it is true. I hope that one day I can extend this love to another person who makes all of the cliches about romantic love a reality because I know that the love I already have is so incredible.

I feel confident that when that day finally arrives, I will know it. And I think you will too.

Thanks for asking this question. I've been thinking about this a lot lately myself, and putting my thoughts to words has helped sort through things a bit. Actually, typing this response has made me happier than I've been in almost a week. I'd love to hear your opinion as well :)

Interesting post, dude.
As far as I see it, you pretty much know if you love somebody, if that person is NOT around. You don't love somebody, when you're with someone (it's maybe nice to be around and you have a great time) but you really start realizing, that you love somebody, when you're apart.
If you can't stop thinking about that person, if you're worrying, if you miss that person, if it's the first thing that comes to your mind and if you have a good feeling if you think about the person, you're most likely in love.

So, this is a different kind of love I am talking about, than neurowiz. This general appreciation and respect for somebody like your parents, your brother or your grandma is a great thing. What I am talking about is "having a crush on somebody". The first and most important thing for developing real love is a healthy crush in the beginning. Real love goes beyond this crush though and is a combination of this crush (though it fades out a little) and this continuous respecful appreciation for someone. But in the beginning of every love relationship that I know, was a huge crush first. And you will know, if you got this crush on someone by the time you're apart from that person.

So neurowiz is right, when he says: You will just know. Simply because you can't change the way you feel and you can't channel your thoughts that properly. I he/she comes to your mind all the time, it just happens. And eventually you will just know.
A wise german philosopher once said: Love is the vertical eternity in time. It kinda means, that it is the maximum of live in every second that you live it.

All you need is ... dapdadapdadap

@neurowiz

That was a REALLY helpful post,at least for me and I believe that all of them are true.

Originally Posted by neurowiz

Actually, typing this response has made me happier than I've been in almost a week.

Yea... I wanted to say something to somebody,but there wasn't any person that I wanted to talk with about that subject. And even that little post that I wrote,it made me feel better. It is good to talk about it with someone.

@masterofjazz

I think you are right! :D
It is a lot easier to understand that you love somebody when you are apart of him/her.

@All
Now I am thinking about it,I think I am in love or... Am I greedy?

Originally Posted by neurowiz

What love really seems to be, at least in my experience, is what is left when we take away all of the cliches and emotions, all of the feelings and desires. That feeling you get when a lover hasn't called all day, even though she was supposed to, or the longing you have to see her again after being away for a long time - these feelings aren't really love, these are greed. It isn't a bad type of greed, but it is still self-serving.

I am not sure what would be left if I took away of the cliches and emotions, all of the feelings and desires. Maybe there wouldn't be anything left...(in my case)
So it isn't only love but love and greed or only greed, when I think about her,when I'm thinking when I'll see her again,when I don't want her to go away/leave?

Something that I also wonder about is... do we have to love(and be completely sure) someone before we start a relation with him/her?(of course, I mean that is it a must, when we aim for a relation that each one will love the other person)[lol,I know it maybe is complicated,how you aim for a "love" relation when you don't love the other person?... maybe movies and stories that I watch/hear affected me a little and I am complicated too]

It's just as Masterofjazz and Neuorwiz said, love is something that is "impossible" to define,

Originally Posted by neurowiz

The greeks thought that there are many types of love, and sometimes I wonder if this is true or not. Personally, I prefer not to separate my idea of love into categories, but rather focus on distilling the concept into it's purest form.
Love is what's left when we remove these things. In part, it's the sensation that something is there, and that that something will always be there, even if its physical existence ceases. It's the beauty that we sense surrounding us, but can never really define. It's a connection we know is there, but that we never actually know.

What i belive is that love isn't categorized but rather you take all the Emotions, Cliche's, The Lust and Greed and everything else and it mix it together to "create" the feeling of love, just like when you long for a person you also worry about them and wish them all well.
You know when you are in love with someone, when just being with that person makes you happy, you feel like you can talk with her about everything and wouldn't mind to do anything for her, And you feel rahter empty when she's gone or you can't be with her. Those feelings "most" people have when they have fallen for someone.
Even tho they are all like cliche's you never know if you truly love someone before you have been together and learn about each other, atleast that is what i belive.

Originally Posted by neurowiz

Overall, Love just is. Perhaps it isn't even possible to define such a term as love without inputting our personal opinion.

I think it isn't possible to define love without adding your own personal opinions, because every one is diffrent and thing diffrently. The only reason why we can define other feelings with out adding personal inputs is because science have figured out what trigger those emotions. Love is to much for science to figure out. When do we really love someone ? How do we know this ? those are aspects of love we might never figure out, therfore we can only trust our self and belive in what you feel.

-Supermann