right so, i've been thinking about this. I've had a couple of discussions about it in the last 24 hours, and this is what i want to know...
How do we know that what we are feeling really is love, and what is this feeling?
And as my friend said, " If love is blind, then how does it find you?"
And if you truely do love someone, then what is it that makes us realise?
What does love mean to you?
Last edited by Niamh; 09-29-2009 at 04:19 PM.
"Come away O human child!To the waters of the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the worlds more full of weeping than you can understand."
W.B.Yeats
"If it looks like a Dwarf and smells like a Dwarf, then it's probably a Dwarf (or a latrine wearing dungarees)"
Artemins Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
my poems-please comment Forum Rules
http://xkcd.com/310/
Alt-text:Could be worse. The last guy in that situation fell for one of the transient trumpeting angels.
If you believe even a half of this post, you are severely mistaken.
"About Love" by Robert Solomon. A good read with a lot of history, theory and information about how we all seem to get it so wrong, so often. It cuts through all of the metaphysical rosy eyed endless mystery that we have been feed for so long and brings it down to earth yet leaves you with no definitive answer other than, you have to figure it out for yourself. This may not sound like much, but striping the illusions is as good a place to start as anywhere.
It also has lots of literary references through out for further reading list additions.
I wrote the following quite a few years ago... my sort of take on love:
"As toddlers the word "love" is introduced into our vocabularies. Most are exposed to it in some form from birth. I remember as a little girl my mother would ask me, "how much do you love me?" Upon which I would spread my arms as far apart as I could and say "this much." Perhaps as a child I believed that love is something that can be measured, and that its measurement varies from person to person. Though now I know it is not a quantifiable notion or emotion, it surely can vary in intensity, and is different for each person. The love I have for my mother, for my best friend, for humanity, or for any man I might have loved in my short lifetime is so different that it cannot even compare. Not to say one is less valuable than the other, or that one is superior. However, all loves should share a few common traits: selflessness, durability (permanence), and peace.
People quickly misjudge passion or lust for love, and soon find that the basis of their relationship was built on sandcastles. No wonder marriages crumble and friendships fade away into lost memories. Love should be eternal, but since people and people's emotions are fickle, love becomes fickle as well. Love has the ability to destroy you, but also the ability to change you and to give you renewed life. We take the risk of destruction and devastation because the benefits of love are so great. Love, even in its suffering, is beautiful.
Ultimately, though, do we really want to know the answer to "what is love"? If we knew all of the intricacies of the human mind (or the human heart) we would be nothing more than shadows; if we could explain God and understand the vastness of our universe there would be no need for faith. So if we could explain what love is exactly we would no longer be intrigued by it, no longer write sonnets about it, and perhaps no longer be capable of sacrificing everything for it."
Now, looking at this, and being in a long-term relationship, all I can say is that one just KNOWS when one is in love. It is just a feeling. It might be for a moment in time, or it might be for our entire lifetime, but that one moment, in its purity, is just as wonderful as a thousand moments put together.
"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours." -Aldous Huxley
"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." -William Blake
Ah yes but the question is, how does one know? what makes one so certain?
It could go back to believing you are in love and in truth its really only lust.
What are those emotions, those signs that can hint that what one feels is love?
As i've already said, love is blind. Could that mean we could go through our intire lives side by side with someone, and not realise that they are the ones we love?
(great piece of writing btw.)
"Come away O human child!To the waters of the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the worlds more full of weeping than you can understand."
W.B.Yeats
"If it looks like a Dwarf and smells like a Dwarf, then it's probably a Dwarf (or a latrine wearing dungarees)"
Artemins Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
my poems-please comment Forum Rules
perhaps when you are ready to sacrifice your own happiness for the happiness of another... that is true love. It has to be selfless, I think.
Once you realize that the person next to you is a person you could give your life for perhaps then you know that you love that person.
It's a tough question. But I think that lust or infatuation fade over time, or relatively quickly, and in their momentary state may seem stronger than love, but are not permanent. Love sticks around.
"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours." -Aldous Huxley
"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." -William Blake
giving up your happiness for another is not love. That's sacrifice, and a love killer. Love is more akin to being able to make each other happy.
Love does stick around longer than infatuation or lust. but it needs time to grow, which it can do from infatuation or mutual friendship and respect and many other ways. It can also fade with time, if it is not given enough attention. Because Love isn't always easy. It does need work, and neglecting it gets you fired.
Or whatever, I don't know much about love to begin with, just that society puts a huge pressure on the experience of love and as such manages to damage it tremendously for a lot of people.
There is no darkness, there is no light, there is only Lasagne!
Hey I was just about to say that about sacrifices.
I personally dont believe love is about sacrificing your happieness. surely to love is to be happy in some way? And why do people believe that in order to love someone they need to give up so much? if two people are truely in love, should understanding and acceptance be more important?
"Come away O human child!To the waters of the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the worlds more full of weeping than you can understand."
W.B.Yeats
"If it looks like a Dwarf and smells like a Dwarf, then it's probably a Dwarf (or a latrine wearing dungarees)"
Artemins Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
my poems-please comment Forum Rules
I meant more that you would be ready to give it up. IN the sense that if that person decided that they would be happier without you, that you would sooner let them go than try to keep them selfishly.
But you're right that love should involve happiness... sometimes compromise. I think that in love two people grow together and become better in many ways. But I agree with Aimus, love isn't always, if ever, easy, and sometimes it is not enough.
Understanding and acceptance are really important, in my opinion, as is communication.
"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours." -Aldous Huxley
"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." -William Blake
Very well written...PoeticPassions...
I think that infatuation is another emotion that we have...when your heart flutters at the thought/sight of someone. That is great, but also realize that LOVE is an action as well as a noun, adverb, adjective, etc. At different points in your life/(relationship with a person) you may realize that you are not "IN LOVE" but that you DO LOVE someone enough that you will remain committed to that person. It may not be...when do you realize that you are IN LOVE, but when are you ready to make a commitment TO LOVE. And of course, there is the harder to realize factor...do you think that they other is ready to make the commitment TO LOVE back...forever! It is as easy to fall OUT of LOVE as it is to fall IN LOVE, that is when one must make the decision/commitment to continue TO LOVE...and that is why I think that so many relationships fail, because people want to be gratified by the infatuation/heart flutter!!
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.
I don't believe in love as 'love' maybe there is something but I object to the use of the term love. That being said I just remembered something I wrote in my diary when I was 13, basically being me I decided to find some kind of empirical measure of it all and decided that the best way was to read as many romances as I could get my hands on- I read loads of the classics, pulp fiction, devoured things like Colin Forbes and Dick Francis looking for the other side, the male opinion.
anyway 2 quotes I found from the Amorist by e Nesbit " Love is when you only care to help the person you love and not care to help the person you love and not care whether they hate you or not."
and the other was form the Harvester by gene stratton-porter " Wanting to be with the person day and night, wanting to hug them , sometimes without any reason wanting to help them is only childlike affection, not love"
I also made a notation on how sacrifice seems to be a feature in a lot of peoples idea of love and how this was weird. and Like I said I don't believe in love and I don't pretend to understand it but if you add the idea of Divine love , or rather love of the Divine, into a type of love. Then sacrifice has always been a feature of love hasn't it? Giving something up so someone would love you more? so you are proven 'worthy' of love? To prove how much you love someone . You know what I think its a kind of manipulation.
As for social pressure and love, yes there is far too much of that. I cant count the number of times I have been called abnormal or unhealthy or whatever because I don't choose to believe in he existence of love, and quite frankly haven't the time at the moment to spend dealing with a 'relationship' and any mess it might bring with it.
Can I just ad OT I was obviously meant to be a librarian and I never realised , Ive got fully referanced citations from when I was 11 in my diary I am actually quite impressed with the mini me!
Last edited by Nightshade; 05-04-2009 at 08:52 AM.
My mission in life is to make YOU smile
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Unconditional love...as the Greeks called AGAPE...is not sacrificing so that someone would RETURN their love, but to GIVE to another, whether or NOT they return...and to be willing to give it AGAIN knowing that it may not be returned.Originally Posted by Nightshade
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.
what about the love of a mother? or love for humanity? or love of our brothers or sisters?
do you believe in that type of love? love takes many forms. If it didn't exist, I believe that a lot of things would cease. Like progress, compassion, etc.
agreed. It is not about HAVING to give something up, but being willing to give without expecation to receive.
"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours." -Aldous Huxley
"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." -William Blake
I was kind of hoping we could stick to the love supposed to be shared between a man and a woman here.(or man and man etc)
Divine love and family love are relevant but i'm more interested in peoples opinions or romantic and possibly even plutonic love.
yeah but sometimes this can go terribly wrong. Its were abuse from the other half could happen, here the other person begins to expect you to do all these things for them. thats when it get manipulative and sours.
Last edited by Niamh; 05-04-2009 at 09:09 AM.
"Come away O human child!To the waters of the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the worlds more full of weeping than you can understand."
W.B.Yeats
"If it looks like a Dwarf and smells like a Dwarf, then it's probably a Dwarf (or a latrine wearing dungarees)"
Artemins Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
my poems-please comment Forum Rules
Actually no Im not convinced as to the exsitanceof any of that. Oh there is something I will grant that, but a noble emotion that seperates us from the birds and the bees, as it were, rather than a basic survival instinct no Im not convinced, but that isnt the point of this thread this is for romantic love so if you want to discuss the otherstuff with me starting another thread might be a good idea.
Nimah, I don't know the closest I would come to what I would suppose you could call love is trust real honest to goodness trust, becuase here is thething that has always got me about relationships, basically what you are doing is handing over the right to hurt you , oh Im not talking delibratly or physically, but the risk is always there and I just don't get it why? The number of wailing people I have had to comfort over the years I can't see the point, unless you somehow trust someone and know them well enough that it doesnt matter anymore, or oh I don't know. Trust and equality and sharing have to come in there somewher I guess?
My mission in life is to make YOU smile
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The time has come," the Walrus said,"To talk of many things:
Forum Rules- You know you want to read 'em
|Litnet Challange status = 5/260
|currently reading
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