"What is love" was the most searched phrase on Google in 2012, according to the company. In an attempt to get to the bottom of the question once and for all, the Guardian has gathered writers from the fields of science, psychotherapy, literature, religion and philosophy to give their definition of the much-pondered word.
The physicist: 'Love is chemistry'
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| Jim Al-Khalili |
• Jim Al-Khalili is a theoretical physicist and science writer
The psychotherapist: 'Love has many guises'
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| Philippa Perry |
Philia which they saw as a deep but usually non-sexual intimacy between close friends and family members or as a deep bond forged by soldiers as they fought alongside each other in battle. Ludus describes a more playful affection found in fooling around or flirting. Pragma is the mature love that develops over a long period of time between long-term couples and involves actively practising goodwill, commitment, compromise and understanding. Agape is a more generalised love, it's not about exclusivity but about love for all of humanity. Philautia is self love, which isn't as selfish as it sounds. As Aristotle discovered and as any psychotherapist will tell you, in order to care for others you need to be able to care about yourself. Last, and probably least even though it causes the most trouble, eros is about sexual passion and desire. Unless it morphs into philia and/or pragma, eros will burn itself out.
Love is all of the above. But is it possibly unrealistic to expect to experience all six types with only one person. This is why family and community are important.
• Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist and author of Couch Fiction
The philosopher: 'Love is a passionate commitment'
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| Julian Baggini |
The answer remains elusive in part because love is not one thing. Love for parents, partners, children, country, neighbour, God and so on all have different qualities. Each has its variants – blind, one-sided, tragic, steadfast, fickle, reciprocated, misguided, unconditional. At its best, however, all love is a kind a passionate commitment that we nurture and develop, even though it usually arrives in our lives unbidden. That's why it is more than just a powerful feeling. Without the commitment, it is mere infatuation. Without the passion, it is mere dedication. Without nurturing, even the best can wither and die.
• Julian Baggini is a philosopher and writer
The romantic novelist: 'Love drives all great stories'
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| Jojo Moyes |
What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air – you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming, a physical pain. Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. It is the point before consummation of it that fascinates: what separates you from love, the obstacles that stand in its way. It is usually at those points that love is everything.
• Jojo Moyes is a two-time winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year award
The nun: 'Love is free yet binds us'
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| Catherine Wybourne |
Love is more easily experienced than defined. As a theological virtue, by which we love God above all things and our neighbours as ourselves for his sake, it seems remote until we encounter it enfleshed, so to say, in the life of another – in acts of kindness, generosity and self-sacrifice. Love's the one thing that can never hurt anyone, although it may cost dearly. The paradox of love is that it is supremely free yet attaches us with bonds stronger than death. It cannot be bought or sold; there is nothing it cannot face; love is life's greatest blessing.
• Catherine Wybourne is a Benedictine nun
Taken from HERE.
For myself, the definition of love is very difficult to explain. Love can mean a feeling, or comfort in something. I myself have a lot of love for things around me. First, I really love God, for me He is the one who is always there when I'm happy or sad. Even though he can't be seen, but I believe that His love is real. Secondly, my love for family is very big, I love my parents so much, they are the most beautiful gift I have ever had. Besides that, I also love myself, even though every human being has dissatisfaction with what he/she has, but I always try to accept everything. This kind of love in my opinion is very important and makes our foundation for life. In the future, maybe the understanding of love is different for me again, but what is clear is that I now love everything I have and everything I do.
ReplyDeleteDefining love would take more time than finding cure for cancer. Every individual has his/her own definition of love, due to its personal nature. Love is not a collective conscience, unlike most things that might be integrated to one’s mind. Love comes off naturally; with the only thing being involved is emotion. One would feel in a really quick fashion whether they love something, or someone loves them, without even thinking about it thoroughly. Due to its volatile nature, love can be reactionary thing to have, and it is completely up to the person, whether to further think about his/her own feelings, and get completely lost in the process of thinking. Love is a state of mind, and it is where it could be dangerous. One’s affection towards the person that is loved, might not be reciprocated back, as the person might be in love with the thought, but not actually with the person him/herself.
ReplyDeleteChoose love
ReplyDelete"My mother once said to me there are two kinds of men you will meet. The first will give you the life you want and the second will give you the love you desire. If you are one of the lucky few, you will find both in the one person. But if you ever find yourself having to choose between the two, then always choose love."
Love and loss
"There is no such love that can hold you without you first withholding love. No love that can bind you, until you have known love that knows no bounds. Love is what makes living worthwhile-a measure of what your life is worth. Love comes to you with loss as its shadow to remind you of what you could lose."
Stay
"Don't stay where you are needed. Go where you are loved"
The quotes above are written by Lang leav
I may have become one of the people that searched the question “what is love?” on Google. Nevertheless, with so many existing description of love, can we still choose one as its précised definition? I don’t think so. Love is a very complex word that even experts can give different opinions about it. However, I believe that love does not need such complicated comprehension. When it comes to love, it’s more to how it felt and how it affects us. Then, it could be seen through the actions we made towards something or someone; it could be seen through how much affection we could give to something or someone. I agree that love could be a deep and non-sexual intimacy towards your close friends or family. In contrast to, Iove can also be a mature decision of commitment or compromise for long-term relationships. Meanwhile, love could be as simple as how much attention you could give for the one thing that matters the most to you. My point is, love may be confusing and people may need explanation or guidance while performing such affection but not everything has to be described. It just needs to be felt.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally, I agree with all the theories mentioned above. I personally think that love is a inevitable type of feelings, because we cannot control for whom our heart lies and how we exert it through affection we show to the one we love. I strongly agree that there is no such thing that love that exist in this world only a single type of love, there is love for our partner, our family, our friends, our siblings, etc. Because every single love is special for one person, because it is based on a special reason for every love you have for anyone. But there is another theory which I strongly believe that this theory is pretty much realistic and reliable, the theory came from a philosopher named Alan Watts. He said that there is no such thing as rising into love the one that exist is only falling in love, thus the relationship is based on giving oneself to another which might change someone in order to make the one they love happy. And it is a crazy thing to do where logically speaking we wont let things go out of control but in the name of love everything is going to be out of control. Love is a strong word to describe an indescribable feelings and affection we have towards someone or something.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally, I agree with all the theories mentioned above. I personally think that love is a inevitable type of feelings, because we cannot control for whom our heart lies and how we exert it through affection we show to the one we love. I strongly agree that there is no such thing that love that exist in this world only a single type of love, there is love for our partner, our family, our friends, our siblings, etc. Because every single love is special for one person, because it is based on a special reason for every love you have for anyone. But there is another theory which I strongly believe that this theory is pretty much realistic and reliable, the theory came from a philosopher named Alan Watts. He said that there is no such thing as rising into love the one that exist is only falling in love, thus the relationship is based on giving oneself to another which might change someone in order to make the one they love happy. And it is a crazy thing to do where logically speaking we wont let things go out of control but in the name of love everything is going to be out of control. Love is a strong word to describe an indescribable feelings and affection we have towards someone or something.
ReplyDeleteI thought its not publishing the first one, sorry sir
DeleteI personally agree with the physicist that love is a chemistry. People had always been strange in either asking or determining about love. I don’t know why we humans have this kind of feeling, some of us are willing to live alone just so they can’t get the feeling of unwanted if something goes wrong in their relationships. But most people do find love, like I said about chemistry, people usually find love when they’ve tried a relationship with many couples even when they said themselves that “they would choose their present partner”. It’s a matter of compatibility with each other. But for me personally, thinking about this relationship are hard, and of course I knew that, but once I’m into it, I’m into it. But considering trying with many different people/partners… it’s just wrong, why would we try with many different partners if we already love someone in the first place. But if that someone felt unease with their partner, it’s fine to leave with the following of telling their partners.
ReplyDeletePersonally, love is a feeling that cannot have a universal definition. Love is abstract. Each person will have their very own definition of love. When I read the part about the most common search in google is "What is love", I immediately had a thought that; is love that abstract? until most people in this world inquire for the real meaning of it?. According to my individual perspective, love is a feeling that can make us feel all the emotions at once, in other words, the presence of love can have a domino effect on other emotions. This is clear when we fall in love. Generally, when we fall in love, we tend to become more cheerful. However, that cheerful feeling can turn into sadness if our love life is not turning out the way we expect it to be. Therefore, I can conclude that love is that abstract, it's like a roller coaster, at times we are on top, a split second later we can be at the bottom, it can make us happy, however, a split second later it can make us really sad.
ReplyDeleteI personally think there is not a single theory that can actually defined what love is. It is something that will remained undefined no matter how hard we try to solve it. Maybe it could be explained by science but I personally think love is something that is abstract. Reading all the theory, I started to learn how love is being explained through so many aspect. Personally I think that love is when we are scared of losing someone that is dear to us. If we consider someone as special, we would care for them, do something out of our comfortable zone for the objective of keeping them by our side. We wouldn’t want someone we love to go away from our live. We will suffer loss and agony if someone we love suddenly goes away. Our protective instinct also arise when someone we love is in disadvantage or even danger. I think love could be related to the feeling of possession. If we lose what we have, it is unavoidable fact that we will suffer from sadness.
ReplyDeleteLove. I can't even explain what love is. Personally I think love is simply a feeling that connects us to each other with a intimate bond that only that two person knows. We realized that we're in love with someone when you start to enjoy every little details about that person. Everything about him/her just makes you smile or laugh. People tend to think that if you're in a relationship then you're falling in love. From what I see, being in a relationship doesn't always mean that you're in love. I believe that love is something stronger than that. You're in love when you let him/her grow theirselves, let them explore anything they want and supports them no matter what. That's the true definition of love. You don't lock them and pressure them to always be by your side. Being possessive to your special ones means that you're not in love with them. You didn't let them do the things they want to do because you're too focused in your own thoughts.
ReplyDeleteLove is something you work hard for, something you build. It’s not something that falls out from the sky served on a silver platter. Love is choosing to build something beautiful with someone. It is choosing to take a risk even with the chances of getting hurt. It is choosing to be strong enough to jump off a cliff with no assurance that someone will catch you. It is choosing the uncertainty that one day they may leave you. But at the end of the day, what will matter is that you choose to love, you choose to try.If loving was a choice, staying and leaving were too. The universe may get to decide on who enters your life, but you get to choose who stays in it. And when we choose to leave it is because we’re strong enough to accept that it won’t do anyone any good if we stayed. This is why you can still choose to love someone even from afar. Love is a choice you make every day. You love who you can, in the ways you know how to. You love because you can and you want to. Love, because that is one choice that’s never wrong to do.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIf you think about it there are actually no correct definitions about love and I am pretty sure that none is also wrong. The reason to this is I think because love is a universal thing and it can’t be define just by one definition. Everyone feels love, had loved, been loved so it can mean different things depends on the person you asked. People will most likely think about a relationship between a two person it they heard the word love but when you really think through love is more than just a thing between two person. For me personally, I think love is a bond that you will never lose to anybody or anything in your life and it is up to you whether you want it to be stronger or weaker than the original bond that you had before. So in short, love isn’t just for two people but to all kind of living things that you interact with.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I cannot explain the meaning of love and I think no one has the exact meaning of it. I do believe that each person describes the concept of love based on their personal experience so, for me, love is bias. Some people may enjoy loving someone or being loved by someone and some people may also feel traumatized and resist to experienced love. I do agree from what stated in the article that the way you see the meaning of love is depends on your position in a relationship. Love may be the best thing that ever happen in your life but don’t let it become an obsession and result in pain and disappointment. I am not into a romantic relationship yet, hence, I cannot really describe it but I can tell that my love for God, family, and best friends are eternal. I will never stop loving them as they are the best gifts for me.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part love is rather abstract. Perhaps the statement about love being related to chemistry is some what logical and makes a lot of sense but love isn't one hundred percent logical to begin with, and besides it would be a bit of a downer to begin with to have the definition of love to essentially be chemistry. I would note that I agree with the other theories presented above but they just prove a point that love has no true definition, if anything love has an infinite list of definitions. I'd say that love could be put into the same cluster of feelings that are just felt, perhaps something such as intuition: we just know it. Which is why I think that everyone seems to have their own interpretation of what love is. Everyone has their own unique experiences coming across love and so how they describe it also goes along with how they feel.
ReplyDeleteVisiting places, get together with friends every day which was not helping me grow as a human being. These things are, but LOVE made me realise other things are more important too. Other things don’t include talking and texting throughout the day. However, to do something productive and try out things which you’re capable of. Sometimes love becomes your strength. Sometimes you feel vulnerable. She’s changed my wrecked life and turned it around. I see a person in myself which I never thought I could be. She’s better than me in every aspect, but she never gave up on me. Love means speaking hard truths. She reminds me every day how beautiful this day could be. Love is a beautiful feeling. An emotion which keeps you bounded not by any force but by your own will. Every morning comes with a new hope and light. Since I’ve fallen in love, I could see the change in me as a human being. Love has taught me a lot. Sometimes few months feels like forever. As far as I’ve experienced love, it’s unconditional and feels like peace from inside. It feels like that I have someone with whom I can crib, laugh and cry too. Because there’s no reason to be afraid of anything.Things which we can’t share with others but we are bound to share with our significant others. Gestures like these make it strong and help your love’s colour leave a mark on the other person. Sometimes you’ve to come out of your comfort zone to do things for others which you haven’t done for yourself. She is the madness. I’m the calmness
ReplyDeleteI like each of the definitions of love, but my favorite one has to be “Love is free yet binds us” from the nun Catherine Wybourne. I grew up in a catholic family and my parents teach us that love has to be shown in your actions no only in words. It is easier to tell someone that you love him than doing a sacrifice for that same person. But the real way of showing love to other people is by forgetting about us and start thinking more of what others need. I have to say the most happiest moments in my life has been in small villages in my country, helping poor communities, making kids smile by playing with them and giving emotional support to families in suffer. “Acts of kindness, generosity and self-sacrifice” are the ones, which help you live a much happier life. Is love the solution for being happy? Well, there are also other factors that influence, but in my opinion, I agree, being loved and loving other would make you happy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the proclamations stated above. However, in my opinion, no one can define what exactly love is. I don't want to sound offensive to those people out there who work as love experts or love guru, but in my opinion there isn't a single person in this world who is truly an expert on love. Many things in life are inexplicable, and indeed need not to be explained, just like love. It has no boundaries and it exists in all aspects of our lives. Starting from the smallest things that happens every day: a mother who cooks breakfast for her children as well as her husband, a father who takes his children to school and spends his time in the office late at night to support his family, and so on. I like to associate love with the wind. Why you may ask? Because as cliché as it may sound, the wind cannot be seen, but it can be felt—you can’t see it, but you can feel it.
ReplyDeleteLove is also not limited by age. I will take myself as an example to elaborate. Fun fact about me: Not only had my first love when I was 12, my first heartbreak also happened when I was 12. Many people say "You're only 12 years old for God’s sake, chill out it's not love", but even now, looking back, I know and I was very aware that what I felt when I was 12 was indeed love. From that experience, I’ve learned that love knows no age. Anyone can fall in love. There are people who have their first love when they are adults, there are also some people who fall for the first time when they are teenagers, there are even people out there who have never fallen in love before. Have you ever think about why— why do we have to feel all these emotions at the same time? What is this that you’re feeling inside? Is this some kind of sorcery?
DeleteBut just like what I’ve stated before, some things in life are inexplicable. There is a quote from a novel called “Love and Space Dust” written by David Jones that I think is perfect to support my statements, in the book he said “It is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so very deeply”. I totally agree with the saying. Speaking specifically about spouse, love can make you feel like you’re on cloud nine, but once that person chose to walk away, it can make you feel as if you’re all alone in this world. I once had a friend back in high school, her boyfriend broke the relationship they’ve built for almost 3 years, and she was so heartbroken to the point where she thinks that the world is better off without her and her existence. But every day, my friends and I would remind her just how her presence is really important to us. Some people may call her a lunatic or over-reacting, but to me, no one should ever judge one’s action without knowing the story as to why they did what they did.
DeleteGenerally love is somewhat theoretical. Maybe the announcement about love being identified with chemistry is consistent but yet love isn't 100% make sense in the first place, what's more it would be some kind of a bad vibes in any case to have the meaning of love to basically be chemistry. I also believe that I agree with the statement and theories from the text above however they simply demonstrate a point that love has no obvious definition, on the off chance that anything love has an endless rundown of definitions. I'd state that love could be put into a similar bunch of emotions that are simply felt, maybe something, for example, instinct: we simply know it. Or, in other words believe that everybody appears to have their very own elucidation of what love is. Everybody has their very own one of a kind encounters running over love thus how they portray it additionally obliges how they feel.
ReplyDeleteLove is one out of the many emotions that drive your heart and mind crazy, in my opinion. If it was a mixture, it would be the perfect mix between affection, fear and patience. Loving someone is not to be mistaken with 'liking' someone. The two feelings are the same in some sense but love is a much more intense and serious feeling. In my opinion when you love someone, the personal boundaries of a couple is open between them and the both are prepared to be a part of each other's life. With the presence of love in my opinion, we have the will to become a much better person while also empowering the person we love. In another light love is also a teacher, it teaches us how to always have an unlimited tolerance to being patient and also teaches us how to deal with the negatives and positives of someone on a incomprehensible level. In conclusion love for me is a feeling that constitutes our behaviour to change in an affectionate way towards someone, while it is also a learning process that will continue "until death do us part."
ReplyDeleteI personally agree that love can’t be defined by words. I think that love is abstract. Love is a feeling that comes from ourselves. I think that the biggest aspect in determining love is affection. If we have that kind of feeling to someone, it is likely that we would do anything to keep them in our life. Sometimes, it is true that the feeling of love is also combined by possession. The feeling of love makes us cheerful and happy, especially when we are with the person that we love. But it can bring sadness if the person we love goes away from our life. This is why I think that love is abstract and risky. You will be happy whenever you’re with the one you love. But if you lose someone you love, heartbreaks happen. in conclusion, I feel that love is an abstract feeling that combines affection and possessiveness. I also feel that love is something risky, because you have to prepare if something doesn’t turn out the way you expect.
ReplyDeleteI agree that defining love depends on one’s experience. As I’ve said to another article about love, I will say it again: I’m akin to no experts, so I’m not one to talk. But l think love is a dangerous territory. I might sound like a sceptical person, but as the nun has stated, love really binds us in a way that goes without a warning; it’s suddenly an ache in your chest if something goes wrong. Love comes very naturally—it has many disguises and masquerades are not leaving our side. Love introduces us to many sides of being a human. It is a complete package of happiness, sadness, laughter, cries, worries, pain, anxiety, trust issues, etc. Sure, it is pink and beautiful and butterflies and all the sweet nothings in our ears. But it is also blue and sorrow and pain and imaginary blades stabbing our chest, making it bleeds.
ReplyDeleteBut anyway, I could not chase away this weird feeling that love is by no means a very treacherous area I should not be reckless around. I think, love is an viscous attachment. When you love someone, I think they’ve got the upper hand to control your feelings. They could easily break your heart into pieces, collect the fractions and glue them with their magic spell, and break them again. It’s as easy as stealing toys from a baby. Not that people who are in love can be analogized as babies, but the simplicity itself is an imagery I couldn’t leave out when it comes to love. I always wondered how someone could not like anyone at the moment, but now that I’ve experienced it myself, I think it is a wise step. To keep your heart from becoming too attached to someone is a way to look after yourself, to maintain the stabilization in the heart of yours. If you already have so much in your plate, not falling in love is very advantageous as you could stay focused on things you should be doing.
DeleteLove isn’t something that can be explained by using words. It is simply an act of having interest to something or someone. We don’t need any requirements to love something/someone. The closest word that could describe the word love but still didn’t cover the entirety of the world love for me is uncertainty. The feeling of love comes and goes randomly. It might appear suddenly, but it can also appear by becoming close to someone gradually. In some cases, love could also lead to an unwanted situation. We often found people that are heavily depressed because of losing someone they love. Love has no boundaries, it could occur to anyone in any situations. It is so simple yet it feels really complicated once we experienced it. We didn’t ask for love to accompany us, rather it appeared out of nowhere in random situations which make us want to cherish it even more.
ReplyDeleteLove is a word with many definitions. Love blinds, traps, hurts, but heals. Love is lust. It can guarantee you the best feeling in the world yet crashes you in a blink of an eye. Love drives all great stories. I tremendously agree with the statement made by the romantic novelist. I also agree to what she said that love depends on where you are on your relation to it. When you feel secure, you want love to always be there and when you lack of love, you feel the need to have it. The point made by the physicist is also interesting. He stated that love is chemistry. He also pointed out that we have no control whatsoever toward love. One day, we wake up and feel nothing to a person and then the next day the feelings just grow so fast that it’s confusing. Nonetheless, love is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteLove is difficult to define as it is best explained through experience. It is a universal emotion felt by everyone regardless of differences in culture, beliefs and etc. The notion of love can be both negative and positive. With regards to the article, the theory of love closest to my point of view is by the nun. It is stated that love is more easily experienced than defined and that love is free but it binds us. This particular theory of love stated that love is life’s greatest blessing. I am a firm believer that love is indeed life’s greatest blessing for it generates a vast amount of happiness, enjoyment, experience, knowledge. I believe that love is what generates a lot of solution to problems among humanity. I also believe that the only way to tackle all problems relating to hatred in this world (war, famine, etc) is through love.
ReplyDeleteThe ancient Greeks called love “the madness of the gods.” Modern psychologists define it as it the strong desire for emotional union with another person. However, It means so many different things to different people. For me love is commitment. Commitment to what? Commitment with full sincerity to stay in the good and bad part of a relationship journey. It is the part when you enter someone’s life with probably lots of problems but you’re driven to stay and go through those problems together instead of leaving. Love never burdens. Love is also chemistry. Love is chemistry and it’s not something you can necessarily control. Totally different from what so called lust. Lastly, when all is said and done, love is also about compatibility. When you break down and analyze different relationships, one of the key factors is how compatible two partners are. When you share the same values, likes and dislikes, interests, political or philosophical views with someone you are much more likely to be compatible and thus, are more likely to fall in love. All in all, love should be unconditional, sacrifice and full of sincere.
ReplyDeleteThe best way to describe the feeling of love is by experience. We've experienced many things in our life and one of them is falling in love. Whether the person you love loves you back or not I think we can all agree that love is a beautiful thing. The feeling of wanting to constantly being around someone, putting their happiness above yours, and you would do anything, even the unexpected things just to see them smile. Love gives us happiness, fear, comfort, anger, jealousy, and so many more. Happy being in love and to be loved by someone, getting the fear of losing them, having someone that you feel save to tell anything with, getting mad out of jealousy and selfishness, I think love is a wonderful feeling. One thing I must say is to be careful, usually if someone is in love they tend to get blind and think irrationally out of that feeling. It's important to have someone to help you think straight and not make a fool out of yourself just because of this 'love' feeling.
ReplyDeletePersonally I would say that love is one of the great mystery of our life. Most of us including myself would think that talking about love is such silly and immature topic to talk about. Yet, when the feelings reach the depth of your heart, it is absolutely a mix feeling. They say love could kill but can also heal, I suppose it is true. Love is such a sought after thing that when it has been taken away from some one it really does hurt. I suppose another issue about love is such a vague thing, in this article alone there are five description which none of it can be categorized as incorrect. But for sure we haven’t been able to find a fixed definition for love. I suppose let us just leave the clear definition to be a mystery. For love is what colors our lives, and no fun ever come from spoilers.
ReplyDeleteWhen hearing the word love, I’m sure the relationship between two people is what comes up in most people’s minds. This also applies to myself as well, I always think about the romantic relationship of two people when I hear the word love. Love actually means more than just that. Love is best felt not described. The feeling of love can be felt towards our friends, family, and country. We are not able to control love, it is free to move on its own. As said by Jim Al-Khalili, when talking about romantic love, love is different from lust. While lust is basically sexual desire, love is a deep feeling developed towards others which can lead to sexual passion. It is interesting to know about the six types of love which I hadn’t known before. Those six types of love is based on the ancient Greeks which used to define love in six different states, they include Philia (deep love between friends and family), Eros (sexual passion), Agape (generalized love), Ludus (playful affection), Pragma (committed love), and Philautia (self-love).
ReplyDeleteAt one time, you could call me as one of those people who often question what love is. And I strongly agree that love itself is very hard to explain. Many websites and people have tried to define what love is and some people agree with them while some do not. I think that everybody have their own definition about what love is, and for me personally, love is some kind of chemistry that you get when you meet with some somebody and you feel connection with them. A kind of connection that made you fear of losing them and feel happy when they are around. Love doesn’t just happen to two people that have fallen for each other like in some tales. Love could also be felt when you’re hanging with your closest friends, family or even when you’re enjoying your time with your pets. Love is something that colors your life and cheer you up even when you feel that you are going through the roughest time.
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ReplyDeleteI think love is different for everyone. Nobody loves the same way, and I don’t think there is a standard or a specific way that someone should love another. I think love could never be forced, and love should be pure in every sense of the way. Some people would think love would be a distraction or an obstacle especially for your dreams or other things you want to achieve in life. However, I think love should be something that would motivate you even more. Love could be the reason you’d want to wake up in the morning or the reason you want to do better in life, especially for the person you love. Loving someone could help you be the best version of yourself. Of course, when you love someone, it’s highly likely that you’d get hurt. However, I think you should find love that’s worth getting hurt for. Like the famous John Green quote: “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you.”
I have experienced love since i was small, whether it is love for my parents or love for other human beings. What i think about love is that, love is one of the strongest emotion that a human being can have. It can drive people to do anything that maybe other people thinks that its impossible to do. I can admit that i am one of the person that characterize love as a one of the main important thing in life. I use to have the feeling of going through life without love will be just an empty space. I used to have the motivation to do activities such as doing homework's or even going to prayers just from the encouragement from a certain girl that i used to have an affection of love. This also happen in the university life where in the freshmen year people are quickly searching for relationships.
ReplyDelete“I wanna know what love is
ReplyDeleteI want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me”
There’s so many love songs in this world but none could actually describe what love is all about. Hence, no melodies or rhythm can perfectly picture the indescribable feeling of love. Those lyrics from the classic songs portray someone who is lost in defining love. Rather, he/she asks for someone else to show it. I agree to the statement that love is more easily experienced than defined. Someone who has been showered of love and affection since birth tend to duplicate the love people gave to them, and give it back. Meanwhile some others have to learn themselves as they grow up to what love means. I guess when you grow up, you learn that love doesn’t always mean give and take. You can love someone so much, but the universe doesn’t conspire for you to be together. A genuine love may just mean you love with no conditions, not demanding to get a feedback. That’s why for me, you can never love something or someone so fully, because it may ruin you on a certain level of expectations.
Everyone has their own definition of love because love is something that you feel. It can be described as the greatest feeling ever but there are different types of love from different people so there is no absolute definition of love. Loving is easy if you have the connection with other people and it is not wrong to fall in love either, sometimes people are scared to fall in love but the fact is when you fall in love it is the greatest thing ever. Love connects people and creates peace. Never ever be afraid to fall in love because you might regret the leap you did not take. If you love something or someone, love them thoroughly with passion. We are loved by other people even if we did not know, when our parents are angry or upset it is because they are showing love to us; they care. Love can drive people mad because when you fall in love you can feel such a unique feeling.
ReplyDeleteI just want to share the meaning of love that i know and i believe is the real definition of ‘love’. The most unique thing is that in Greek, the word ‘love’ is divided in six , but in my opinion the most categorizeable for the ‘kind’ of love is Eros, philia, and Agape. Those are divided from three levels of love. The most shallow one is eros, it is representing love that stands for physical love towards other person. The next one is philia, it has deeper level of love; it is representing a bond between each other, friendship, caring, and compassion. The last but not least: Agape; it is an unconditional love, the deepest level of love. Love without asking anything in return; kind of love that keeps loving while they hurt badly by their loved one; A love that willing to sacrifice their own life to save others’ life they loved, never ending love which represented in Jesus Christ.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that comes to mind when I saw this blog post is the song by Haddaway. More often than not, the very definition of love is open to interpretation. Many argue it to be a biological response to form long term bonds between another person to ensure protection and co-operation. But this alone doesn’t explain all other instances of that emotion we call love. There are other philosophical definitions of the term, but I wouldn’t want to get into that. To me, the issue lies in the word itself. The fact that we can’t find a widely accepted and solid explanation for something we use and associate often is self-explanatory in itself. In English, the word love is used universally for any situation we would expect; but in other languages, like Bahasa Indonesia and ancient Greece, there are different words used to describe different kinds of love. In Bahasa Indonesia, the word ‘love’ has two translations: “cinta” and “sayang”. The word “cinta” is frequently used to describe the love between young couples, and is more often defined as ‘romantic love’. The word “sayang” is used to describe caring and compassionate love, the more platonic relationships often found between family members, and much older couples. The ancient Greece has over six words to describe love, all of which is explained in the blog post.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting article to talk about. As we can see from all the five theories, every person must have their own answer and opinion since it is depending based on their own point of view. But why is that happen? I think first is because love can be address to many different subject (like family, country, friends, couple, pet, many more); second it’s because everyone is freely able to feel love yet each person must facing a different feel and story about love. Hence, every people define what love is based on what they feel, what they experienced, and what they get from having love itself.
ReplyDeleteBeside, even though love has a lot of different meanings, love can still give every people the same benefit; which I think it’s about maturity. Having a love feeling sometimes may lead to a sadness or self-wreck; but that’s okay since it is inevitable. But from having those feelings sometimes it opens our mind to generate us to changing the way behave, the way we think, and also it gives us big lesson to become a better person.
Gosh, I don’t know why but I really like talking about this kind of topic. Love is probably one of the most beautiful things to experience in life. Falling in love can easily makes you feel as if nothing can go wrong in your life, no matter whether it happens when you are younger or older. But this time I don’t want to talk about the good things about love because love can also hurt us. Just like one Scottish hard rock band, Nazareth, wrote in one of their most popular song “Love Hurts”.
ReplyDelete“Love hurts, love scars, love wound and marks. Any heart not tough or strong enough to take a lot of pain.” This line is exactly how I feel.
Love hurts in many ways, especially when there are too many differences between us and our partner. In my case, my parents always told me to look for a guy with the same religion. They said it can be a challenge to fall for someone of a different faith. See? I only need a few words to describe how love hurts me. No offense, people. I’m just trying to express my feelings.
I can relate to Vinsa’s problem much more than I’d like to. I’ve never considered dating someone with a different religion before I came to Jogja. I’ve always been in an environment where my religion is the majority. After I came to Jogja, a friend told me that sometimes people are born into their religion without having a say in what they want to believe in. I couldn’t agree more with that opinion. I think it’s unfair and terribly depressing how we could sometimes be forced to choose between the people we love. If loving someone were a choice, then wouldn’t that mean we could control our feelings as we like? Feelings make us human. Why does it have to feel like we’ve committed a huge crime when loving another normal human being with religion as the only difference? Should we really choose someone with the same religion as the only thing in common over someone we could actually connect to with religion as the only difference?
DeleteReading Anissya’s reply on my comment makes me want to share my personal thoughts about this topic more and more. Having too many differences with our partners can easily ruin our relationships, especially when it comes to religion. I personally think it actually depends if both of us respect each other’s point of view in things. Be an open-minded person, then religion would not be a problem for both of you. These kind of conflicts in relationships is inevitable, but there are actually many ways to handle it so it is not destructive to you individually or as a couple. Because I think when it comes to having a romantic relationship with someone, my relationship should not be defined on things like this but on how we value each other as a person, because if you really love someone, you must love the differences between the two of you too, right?
DeleteI think I know what Vinsa and Nissya feel because somehow, I also can relate that to my own experience. Sometimes, I think it is so unfair that we all are the same as human beings but we have limitations with one and another in love life; religion. When I was in senior high school, my sister and brother dated someone with a different religion. Then I told them to stop dating them because no matter how hard they tried to make it work, it won’t eventually. But then a couple of months later, I was deeply in love to someone with a different religion too and even though I tried to stop falling and control my own feeling, I couldn’t lie that I loved him. The reality that no matter how close we were, we still had the limitation and can’t be together as a lover made me realize that if it is not meant to be, then it won’t. Since then, I tried myself not to fall into someone with the different religion anymore because for me it hurts like hell and it is so sad to know that we are deeply in love to someone but can’t and won’t end up being together as a lover.
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ReplyDeleteWhenever someone says the word “Love” a lot of things tend to come into mind. Some may correlate love with romance and everything that has to do with having a boyfriend / girlfriend. But to me, love comes in many ways shape or form. Love does not only come from someone you have a romantic relationship with. Love can come from any of your significant other, such as your mother, your sibling, your father or even your friend. It can also come from yourself which is called “Self Love”. Self Love is one of the most beautiful feeling. Receiving love and acceptance from yourself is one of the greatest form of achievement you’ll ever get. Why? Because loving and accepting you for being you sometimes isn’t easy. A lot of teenagers struggle with Self Love, and they tend to ignore Self Love and Self Acceptance because they don’t think it is crucial. To me, Self Love is everything. Being able to love yourself after not knowing if you could for years is a beautiful feeling. In conclusion, love is everywhere. It is universal. No exact words or sentences can describe the way it makes you feel.
Love is a feeling of affection and attachment to people/someone. It draws you to that person, in ways you can’t always explain. It’s caring for them unconditionally. Love makes you feel safe. It gives you a feeling of security, knowing you have someone always has your back. With regards to the article, I agree with the Nun's perspective on love. Love is more easily explained than defined. Love is free yet binds us Love's the one thing that can never hurt anyone, although it may cost dearly. The paradox of love is that it is supremely free yet attaches us with bonds stronger than death. It cannot be bought or sold; there is nothing it cannot face; love is life's greatest blessing. In my opinion, love is a necessity in every person's life. Without love, live will be depressing. It doesn't have to be relationship between boyfriend and girlfriend. We can feel the love from our family, bestfriends, or maybe the passion that we give to our job / something that we do. Love is what keeps us alive.
ReplyDeleteAh, another topic about love, a cliché problem for us young adults/teens. I would try to define "Love" on my own. Love is an encompassed variety of positive and substantial mental and emotional states, it ranges from a good habit to the most sublime virtue, a deep interpersonal affection. Commonly, it refers to strong attraction, and attachment emotionally. Love it might also be a virtue representing kindness, warmth, compassion for its actors. Love also means loyalty and benevolent concern for the good of another. In the broader sense of form, love acts as the principal facilitator of interpersonal relationship, and the central importance of psychological matters. Speaking from a biological perspective, love postulated the function of keeping the human as a being against menaces and facilitate the species' existence.
ReplyDeleteI'll let the band Reality Club explain it through their lyrics in "Is it the answer?"
I make you break
You move I take
Love is the answer so they say
But if I went away
What would you say
Would it be enough to make you stay
As you look to the exit
I don't even know why I'd do this anymore
I know, there's thing I should know
And I know you can't accept
She's the long that I kept
Scared I'll push you away
But I love you everyday
I know, there's thing you should know
I'm in love not because I want to
She's become, something that I got to see
Wont you just stick around with me
In my opinion, I like all of the five theories above. But one that I agree is the one from Julian Baggini that he says Love for parents, partners, children, country, neighbour, God and so on all have different qualities. And for the one from Jim Al Khalili is also interesting. He defines love sounds much cooler when it comes to science. I think, love is something that everybody needs because it makes you feel comfortable, happy, safe, and brings you joy. This doesn’t have to be finding love with someone. The love that your family give you also can make you feel comfortable, happy, safe, and brings you joy. And in my opinion, the best feeling is when you find yourself loving someone unconditionally. That feeling must be very deep and sincere. Like when you feel the love to your family, you don’t sue anything to your family to love them. It just happened unconditionally.
ReplyDeleteI have read the five theories of love by five different people. However, it is not the first time I read other people’s definition about this issue. When you type ‘What is love?’ in the internet, you should get millions of references. I have my own definition of love based on my experiences.’Love is something that you can’t possibly define. It is something that people experience.’ What I mean by this definition is that you could see that there are many ‘definitions’ made by many people. To make it clearer, from the post, there are five people presenting five theories about love. So, my question is: Is there any one single definition about love? Unfortunately, the answer is no. But we could not disagree with all the theories they said because we feel like those theories are true. We are going to say it’s true if we have experience it. If not, then we would say that it isn’t true. Therefore, I conclude that love is something to be experienced individually and then the definition of love would come afterwards.
ReplyDeleteI honestly think that love is not for us to define, for love is too complicated to simply be put in plain words. There are many things that make us love each other. Love also makes us do things that needs sacrificing our own needs or wants. Love isn’t for us humans to define, it is for us to feel and to nurture. Love should be one of the foundations of our life, but it shouldn’t be the only foundation. Too much of anything will harm you; too much love will undoubtedly harm you. I do have a favourite quote about love: “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage” – Lao Tzu. This quote shows the significance—the things that it can cause or makes us feel—of love. In the end, it doesn’t matter how much you are loved. Just love life deeply and it will give you the courage to take great endeavours.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone has their own different definition of love, the same way those five people have their own theories and thoughts about what love is defined as. It is a question that may never have a ‘true’ answer. Someone’s interpretation and definition of what love is comes from their own personal experiences with the emotion; someone that has only been in bad relationships may say that love is as toxic as poison, whereas someone who has been in a long and happy marriage may say love is as rare and beautiful as a rainbow is. For me, I think I can say that my experiences with love have been my best memories. I remember my little brother being born and being so full of love for him, and the love my family and friends showered me when they threw me a surprise party for my thirteenth birthday. My own personal definition of love is that it is the emotion that you have towards the people whom make you the happiest.
ReplyDelete“Lonely Is a Man Without Love”, a simple lyric from a song of Engelbert Humperdinck, simply tells the meaning of love. We are human. That is why we always need someone to be with us to swipe off the loneliness from our life. To be very clear, it is good if we take a look at a point of view when we live without love.
ReplyDeleteMany questions will be available from this point of view. Without love, who cares about you? Without love, who encourages you to move forward? Without love, where do you go to cry? Without love, who makes you laugh? Without love, who do you work for? The most important, who do you live for?
You might choose friend as an answer to those questions. But, how do you ensure that a bond of a friendship can be with you through all the seconds of your life without thinking that your friend will obviously need an answer to those questions too?
You can’t deny it. We all need a stronger relationship which is love. Take a shot!
After reading the article above about the five theories of love, I think all of them are true and relatable but it just comes from a different point of view. However, I personally have my own theory about love. Love is actually a super abstract feeling which comes out from our own mind and everyone has it. It is unmeasurable yet it is infinity. The weird thing about love is that it appears unexpectedly and it is uncontrollable. Love that I’m saying in here isn’t just a love that described as love from a couple which is married, but it can also be a love of a mother to her child or a love from a person to his/her pet, and etc. Love cannot just be explained properly by your mouth, but it’s more like to be seen through the attitudes. But what still makes me confuse until now is that, which one is the truest one? Fall in love into someone’s personality or fall in love into the idea of someone. Well I personally think that the truest one is that we have to fall in love to someone’s personality because if we only fall in to the idea of him/her which means we fall in love to someone’s existence when they are around us, it won’t last forever because once he/she is not around we won’t feel the existence of love, or if he/she doesn’t do the things that they usually do anymore it can just be over. But if we fall to the idea of someone, can’t it be called as love?
ReplyDeleteI kind of agree to the opinion of Love defined by Julian Baggini: love is a passionate commitment with nurturance. Basically, it defines love in general. But Jojo Moyes’ “love drives all great stories” is less or more similar to my perspective towards love. I see it as an adventure; on how you go through a chemistry and intimacy with someone and each person has a different character and way of living. You may feel love to your parents, your siblings, and your partners, but each will gives you a different story. That story is dissimilar to one another, which creates a different shade of colours to your life. Love is a part of human emotion that is uncontrollable; human can’t deny it when they love someone, they can only control their behaviour towards that person he/she loves. This creates a new sense of feeling that human can only feel when they are in love. From the adventurous and uniqueness of love, I would say that ‘love is a journey’.
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