What exactly is love, and does it exist?
What exactly is love, and does it exist?
You'll get cynical psychology/neurology/philosophy students saying that it doesn't, but I think it does. The answer to that question is subjective, because you can never know what other people are feeling or thinking so if you yourself have never experienced romantic love you can't prove it's existance (I don't hear many people arguing against the existance of, for example, parental love because it's almost universal).
I think that we can know love.
My parents never loved me. At most they felt responsible for me, and maybe when I was little they thought I was "cute."
Do other parents love? Or do they all just use the word "love" because they feel like they should? I know what affection, respect, admiration, and so on, are, but what is love?
"Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be" (Anna Karenina) ...
"To love is to suffer."
I suffer, but I don't love. Sometimes I wonder if love was another falsehood the idealists invented. It is a tempting thing to believe in.
When I was too little and vulnerable to take care of myself I trusted them. I imagine all babies need someone to trust, whether or not they really love that person.
Last edited by cl154576; 08-01-2011 at 09:58 PM.
Love is something that you do.
Les Miserables,
Volume 1, Fifth Book, Chapter 3
Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.
whether it exists or not is entirely up to you my friend
One sign of love is when you are very angry at someone and willing to put your anger aside and compromise, meet them half way, or whatever, to move on from the conflict. It's like a natural process that occurs because there is love present and its reciprocated. It's a very frustrating process, but you do this because you want to be with the one you love.
Well, since the answer is subjective all we can do is speak for ourselves. For my part, if you're curious, I feel certain that I love my mother and father. For me, subjectively, love exists. Of course, if you've decided that love doesn't exist you might chalk my conviction up to self-deluding guilt. That's what's meant by "subjective," and that's why this question is impossible to answer.
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 08-01-2011 at 11:16 PM.