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• Penny xox
  February 3, 2006
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  what is love?

  What is ‘Love?’ There are two definitions of love in the dictionary; 1. A deep affection or fondness for a person or thing; sexual passion, sexual relations, beloved one, sweetheart. A person whom one is fond; affectionate greetings. 2. To Feel love or deep fondness; delight, admiration. However I believe this is an inaccurate definition, as it does not clarify the depths or extents, or the hidden agendas love beholds. Love begins with the journey into the unknown. Almost the entire population has their own opinion but there are very few who are brave or mentally aware enough to enable them to define it. Perhaps this is because they have not leant the extremities of its power or are not capable of using it effectively. Or perhaps simply because their faith in love is diminished. Following this, one of the most common mistakes, is to associate love with sex, which is what most people tend to identify love with. Holding this attitude blinds those to love’s great dimensions and ‘superior possibilities’. Although sexual intercourse is one of many expressions of love, the power of love is far more profound in agendas and holds much higher significance in comparison to an act of reproduction. When in love, you are able to see not just the body but the soul, the psychological attraction is greater, and more powering than the physical. Looking from a religious point of view i.e. Christian teachings, (-1 Corinthians 13:4-7) love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy it does not boast it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, it always hopes, always perseveres. Another Christian belief is to ‘Love god with all your heart, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself’. To Christians these are the two most important things in life. Jesus told his disciples to ‘love thy enemies’. Although some may see this as foolish advice as the ‘norm’ is to ‘hate their enemies’, to Christian followers love can counter-balance hate, and this was seen as the individual identifying with the heart of god himself, as ‘God is the power of love’ and used for the solution to humanities problems. ‘God would solve his problems using the power of love.’ So learning to ‘love your enemies’ is merely the understanding that ‘Love is God’. Some people believe love has the strength and power to create happiness and create or ‘awaken’ goodness. However this can also be reversed. In that the sense of goodness could create or ‘awaken’ love, but possibly could also awaken envy, cause resentment and/or even hate. This is possible due to the fact love seems so perfect; paranoia convinces the individual it is imperfect. This is when some may start to believe they are in-fact ‘unhappy’ but realistically is in fact an act that a person is unable to admit they are selfish. This is where the phrase ‘the unselfish heart is capable of love and the loving heart is capable of happiness’ originates. However, personally, I believe love is created and learned from within the individual. Although one may love I believe one is only truly able to define it once they have endured personal experience and suffered emotional hurt and upset by mistakes or consequences, which have previously arisen. “Love is strong, yet delicate. It can be broken.� Heart broken: ‘overwhelmed by sorrow and grief’. Only in retrospect did I realise that this is in-fact an accurate description of heart-ache. In this context, to be ‘overwhelmed’ is to feel ‘over-powered’ by emotions. ‘Sorrows’ is to feel ‘mentally distressed’, in most cases this is cased by ‘disappointment or loss’ and ‘grief’ is the deep and intense sorrow. So, to be heartbroken is the sensation of the overpowering emotions you suffer from the mental distress (hurt, upset, pain) that had been caused by the loss or disappointment of the one beloved. Throughout heat-ache we are often trying to ask ourselves what went wrong. There is a whole range of emotions involved. Anger, hurt, pain, upset, relief, sadness, satisfaction, uncertainty, and/or evening remaining love. However all these are overpowering and you can often find one feeling ‘the pain will never go away’, it is easy to find yourself feeling more pain than you had ever thought existed. The emotions from heartbreak you are faced to deal with are very much similar to those you feel when you have lost a loved one to death. The only way of healing the pain is to allow yourself to suffer for as long as it takes. The most common acts to take are to listen to the songs that you had danced to/made loved to/laughed to etc. Causing searing pain, haunt of the happy memories, these will enable tears to follow. Crying is the healing process, it’s healthy. Tears are able to guide the individual through the pain, until they become mentally able to begin to follow a new path. Heartbreak is one of life’s experiences. This leads to my belief that you cannot truly define love until you have felt its losses and suffered the grievance process for it. Love holds great physical and mental power, which in time becomes eternal beauty. When the physical attraction becomes lost as a couple grow old together, old age and ugliness seems to become an illusion as the love and spark between remains. The love between two people is undefined; it is deeper than attraction, affection, or an attachment. The strong attachment/bond is there, or the ‘naturally able’ to understand, ‘tune into’ their companions emotional, intellectual, physical energy, and to be capable of responding in a nurturing or even stimulate order. The love which holds them together is also the companions, and could be someone they see as potentially spending the rest of their lives with them, someone they want to have a part in their life and be able to grow intellectually, romantically, spiritually, and perhaps old with. How do you know when you’re in love? Love needs to develop, it takes time. I believe you know its there when you find your whole behavior directed towards to another persons happiness and welfare and you know almost everything about them, understand their faults but accepting them for who they are. Also knowing what they want in the future, views on marriage, children etc. It’s also about your own feelings, that you feel loved for whom you are. Many have said that ‘There is only one happiness in life, to love and to be loved’. Also, that ‘You know when you are in love, when you see the world in his/her eyes and his/her eyes everywhere in the world’. I believe there is more to love than just this. I think you realise you are in love when you begin to discover and familiarise yourself with the little identities such as the silk in their hair, lust in their lips, the love in their eyes, the scent they behold, the softness of skin, the sweetness in talk. Also how you feel tranquility each time you’re held in their arms and the reassurance that you are loved for who you are. Love is a very unique feeling. I certainly can’t describe it in words; perhaps it feels different to each individual? Perhaps love is the individuals feeling of heaven or eternity? Or is love the feeling of oneness? When you’re led in the arms of someone you love, the world feels like it’s completely without hate, anger, envy, delusion, fear, cruelty lies, negativity, greed, selfishness, revenge, vengeance, illness, deceit, greed, lies, pain, fear, death, plus all other negativity in the world. To conclude with a statement of “what love is�, is an ineffable task. Love represents many things, and exists in many different facets of life; thus, to produce a definition of love becomes unrealistic. It is a process of development, consisting of admiration/desire, passion/romance, devotion /affection attachment/bonds, and love/truelove. The overpowering pursuit of love does many cases caused people to sacrifice, their lives, freedom chastity. Many believe love holds more meaning and power and is the meaning and purpose of life, and some that life without love isn’t really life. I believe life is learning and the journey discovering how far would you go to find love and ultimately how far will love takes you?

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