Learning what Love is: an Open Discussion

So, I started this thinking that I would blog on the topic of love. I started, and realized that I began to write a book, and so I am going to blog instead on aspects that I am pondering. So please join in discussion with me as I continue to explore what it means to love.

This is a topic of discussion seems to be common among my friends and professors at school. Many of the concepts and ideas have come from some long discussions with my wife, who has been working though her own ideas of love for a while, and has now influenced many of my own. The more we talk about it the more we seem to recognize that this is an integral part of our lives, and the way in which we interact with those around us. Love is not just the emotional feeling that we have to someone we like. It is actually a very narrow idea in comparison to other countries and languages.

Love is a word. This means that it is not actually something physical, it is the set of sounds that we give something to convey the message about something in particular we are talking about. "Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?" Yes, yes it would, we could call them anything we want to, and it would not change what it is. But Love is not simply something physical like a rose or a table; it is a word that describes a concept, not something physical. Or does it?

Is love a physical thing? Is it only metaphorical? Is it an idea or thought? I would say yes, it is. It is all of them. We may only think of love as a one or a few of these at a time, but it is the understanding that love is the combination of many things: physical and emotional responses, social rules and worldview. All of these can be seen in relation to love. But I would say that love, unfortunately, has not had the best of explanation in a few generations.

As we look at love in the media and in pop culture, love is becoming something that needs to be experienced. Romantic love has been known for generations. Poetry and stories can be found thought history describing romance, and has been a prevailing theme in art for millennia. We know what romance is and we have seen it idealized many times. Fairytales speaking of how the perfect person will complete oneself, how all the problems of one's life will disappear with someone who is truly in love, and subsequently usually have enough free floating cash to spend.

Love is seen not only as romance but also as lust. It is common to have sexual feeling towards another person. As a society we have taught, mostly through media and some philosophical movements, that desire is what it necessary in love. Many cultures thought history, and many still, arrange marriages. Now I know that there is selective choosing and that usually, unlike media portrays, the children have a say in the final decision, but it is the understanding that the parents should know their children well enough to choose suitable partners for them. I have talked to families who are in arraigned marriages, and they say that there are difficulties and things to work out, but there are in any marriage. As well you learn to love the other person, because you want to and because you have to. I know that they feel love for each other, and arraigned marriages often score higher on tests that measure happiness and marital satisfaction.

This is counter cultural to what we see in North America, we are bombarded with images and underlying messages that sex/love is the only thing that we need to succeed and to make us happy. But I would, and will, argue that this is wrong. I would say the emotional feeling of love is a good thing, but anything to an extreme is dangerous. And that this is something that it is something that is dangerous to all who are involved.

I have had some serious conversations with people who have been, and are being hurt by a misunderstanding of love. I have heard them crying, asking why they have been told love will solve their problems. But, "love" has only hurt them and they are unable to stop because they know for one moment that they feel loved. They know that for a moment love exists and then it seems to run away not to be seen again until next time. This is what love is when it is not realized. If love is only boiled down to an emotion we will never truly be in love, because emotions never stay long, and if we base our understanding of something that is not going to stay then we will forever be on the search for it only to have it slip out of our hands when we think we have it.

Love like this can be seen as selfish, it is looking for love so that we can feel it. It is looking for love so that we can have it and experience it. I would say that this is only a portion of what love truly is, and that we are missing out on the grand understanding of love if we are to narrow it down to emotions and feelings.

Now, I know that many of you reading may not hold the same worldview that I do. I am a Christian, and I have a biased understanding, as we all do, because of the presuppositions that we hold and that we unknowingly have. But I am in need to ask what this implies as a Christian and my understanding of God.

I would have to say that we were created to love and that we are to love one another, which I would gather because of other concepts that this does not mean that we simply feel love for each other all the time. I would see that there is something missing and that we would need to see how a relationship with God and others is to be understood with the concept of love. I know that I feel love, but the love that happens is not always emotionally based. Yes there is respect and trust. But, like all the other relationships that I have with other people, there is a relationship, continual choice to act lovingly, and a promise that I will never stop acting on the choice that I have made.