... that's difficult to say ... i could tell you what i think love really is but you wouldn't be able to be completely sure if i'm right or wrong wouldn't you? ...
like, if i were to tell you, it's not like you could check in a dictionary to see if i'm right ... or double check on a calculater ... that's because society has come to a general consensus that love is too mysterious to put into words ...
honestly, i think that's stupid ... there's no difference than asking "what is happiness?" or "what is agner? or sadness?" ... everyone knows that those things are, you can look them up in a dictionary and you'd be able to find it ... but why not love?
i think it's because everyone has decided to say that "love is too important to put into words" ... people have given it this mystical zen tao defination, like "the more you explain it the farther you get to truely understanding it" ... i honestly think that's stupid ... it's because they want to believe that love is all mystical and cosmic and mysterious ... they have sort of put love on this pedastal and raised it to the level of godliness ... they think that no one will ever be able to understand Love, the same way they think no one will be able to understand God ... but that's not true, you can't really experience God, but you can experience love ... because that's what love is, it's an experience ... it's not a deity its a human emotion ... so what's so hard about defining love?
first of all, love is like a four letter word that can be used as a noun, verb or adjective ... 'you feel love', 'you love someone', 'you are in-love' ...
so let's get these definations straight ...
love:
1. verb. servitude and sacrifice; empathizing with someone and reaffirming one's love (noun) through the display of affection.
2. adjective. ie. to be 'in love'; to experience love (noun)
3. noun. (this is the important one) an emotional sensation fueled by the affection of another that drives the desire to love (verb) that other person (psychological egoism)
so basically, when someone starts to provide you with their affection, you might get a desire to receive more of their affection ... this will lead you to the process of servitude and sacrifice, and the attempt to build an emotional intimacy with that other person built on trust and respect (ideally that is), in an attempt to gain more affection from them ...
okay, so in that sense, skepticism has been replaced with an idea of psychological egosim that we're only doing something because it makes us feel good ... well of course, how would you feel if you did everything you could for someone, and truly loved them (verb), but they never returned any affection back? ... no doubt you'd feel like a parent right? ... giving your all to someone, and they can't even return the affection ... it hurts, ask your parents ... they love you, but they're not 'in love' with you (adjective) ...
so then why do are parents still love us even though they're not getting anything out of it? ... because they're obligated to ... some parents don't, some parents just get up and leave ... others feel a sense of moral duty and obligation ... at first they want to love you, but then you stop giving them a reason to do so ...
but that sense of duty and obligation isn't the same thing as that romantic love we experience with someone special ... i think real authentic love, sincere love is founded on emotional intimacy, trust and respect ... there doesn't need to be any physical passion although that's a healthy part of a good relationship, and there doesn't need to be any commitment (especially when you're still young) ...
this is the kinda stuff that we ponder about all the time when we're young ... some of us still think about it as we get older ... some of us just never really cared ...
most of us believe that love is more than just a human emotion ... maybe it is something more, maybe it is a sort of divine experience ...
others are skeptic and believe that love is just a neurological chemical reaction ... maybe it is, but that's just like any other feeling, and it doesn't take away the fact that its still a very powerful emotion ...
some of us think that we'll never know, so we try to fill that void with meaningless possesions or experiences ...
and if you ever feel that maybe you really are in love, sometimes you'll get people telling you that "you may think you're in love, but you really aren't" ...
if there is an absolute definition of love, then the credibility of that statement depends on whether or not that person has really been in love before ...
and if there really isn't any absolute definition ... then it doesn't really matter if everyone tells you you're not really in love, as long as you think you really are ...
for me, i think there really is an absolute meaning of love ... but the perfect kind of love that we all imagine and believe can only exist in our dreams, comes from the intuition of a collective conciousness ... the state of emotional perfection ... we all have an idea of what it is - it's like a horizon: we can see it, and we are capable of understanding it, but we're discouraged by the fact that we can never reach that horizon ... that perfect love seems unattainable ...
but that shouldn't stop us from heading towards that horizon ... i think the best part about life is being able to chase after that idea of perfection
