In honor of the mushy-gushy-Hallmark-capitalist-inspired-holiday...
32 names in Eskimo, so where did WE go wrong?
"Uh...what?" you may be saying to youself. Let me explain.
In the summer of 2005, I read a great book--some of you may have read it, others perhaps have seen the movie--it was called The Sceret Life of Bees.
On page 140 in Bees, August who is one of the principal characters, tells Lily, the protagonist,"We are so limited, you have to use the same word for loving Rosaleen as you do for loving Coke with peanuts. Isn't that a shame we don't have more ways to say it?" Ever since the first time I read that line and pondered it for hours afterward, I have been desperate to find another word to replace the one that should remain sacred. Thus far, I have come up with....exactly nothing. It has never been far from my thoughts since then.
The word "love" gets thrown around so much on a day-to-day basis, it's a wonder the letters haven't broken off and gotten lost forever. Or--have they? How often do you say you "love" something as silly as a pair of shoes or an ice cream flavor? So, your challenge for this week, luvs, is to dig deep inside yourself and think about what it is that you really love. In order to do that, I think it would be beneficial to start out with a working definition of what love is. How would you define it? What characteristics would be a good representation of it? And then, at long last, ask yourself..."What do I love?"
Does putting a classification on things you have previously said you "loved" change your perspective on what the meaning of love should be?
Love is the emotion experienced when one utterly succumbs to a force out of pure yearning and desire (usually sexual) for someone or something.
ReplyDeleteWhen one loses control over themselves due to a longing for someone, they have “fell in love”. According to me, when a dedication to a person overshadows the dedication to one’s own self, you my friend, are in love. While this definition mostly encompasses the sexual desire for someone, it can also include “family love”. If you place yourself In harms way in between you and a family member, or continue to find yourself using your own time to satisfy your family member’s, you could also be described as “in love”. With the same definition, you can love a friend too. If your own desires are subordinate to your “bff’s”, I myself would call that love.
Could someone be in love with a “thing”? I don’t see why not. I’m sure you would agree that heroin addicts value their beloved substance substantially more than their own well being. Heroin addicts are under the control of their desire for heroin, so to me, I’d call that love. If you describe yourself as “loving” ice cream, and find yourself, spoon in hand, mining out the chocolate chips in your favorite Ben & Jerry’s pint of ice cream despite your knowledge of it’s adverse effects upon yourself (diet and self confidence), I see no reason to not call that love. Although, I think you should realize it’s a one-way relationship. The ice cream (or Ben & Jerry Corp. for that matter) is really just seducing you.
So am I failing to resist myself from a desire for someone? Well, there is this one person… and his name is George Schieder. Unlike Bill Clinton, I’ll come right out and announce my affair, I’m in love with myself. Now before you go making crude, unnecessary comments, let me explain. According to my definition, love is when someone succumbs to a force of desire for someone (or something). To me, no one matters more than… well… me! In my life, no one is (and probably will never be) more important than myslef. In my opinion, in the adolescent stage of your life, you SHOULD be the most important thing in your life. Have I been in love before? I’d like to say no, but referring back to my definition, the answer is most probably yes. But as I become more of an independent, free thinking young adult, I doubt that I will ever be finding myself “in love” ever again.
So to answer Bunje’s grand question of “What do you love”? The answer is myself. I’ve pretty much established this definition of love from my own experience of watching other people’s “love”. According to me, I think my definition is a firm and substantial definition for what love really is, and I have no intentions on changing it anytime in the near future.
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ReplyDeletePeople throw around the term love like it’s nothing. I’m sure most of us are aware of that. I used to be one of those people. I used to love, anything and everything. At one point, I found myself “loving” everything. But then I grew up.
ReplyDeleteI realized that, I never, “loved” that person or those things; I just really really really really liked it. That’s also when I developed my cynical outlook on life. It made sense to me: love isn’t synonymous for really really really liking something. Now, I can’t stand when individuals confess their love for their significant other after about 3 weeks of being in a relationship. No, you don’t love your boyfriend. You just really really really like him. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe teenagers can love their boyfriends/girlfriends, but chances are you’re going to break up, and that’s not love. I think, as a human race, we are confused with the meaning of emotions. We insert strong passionate terms into little irrelevant thoughts and feelings. Which is exactly what we do with the term love. When we find something or someone that is charming, cute, sweet etc, we automatically love it. It’s like a go-to phrase. Not once do we think about the depth of the sensation.
So, now I find myself rarely throwing around the word love. It’s too much of a strong emotion to apply to everything. The one thing I usually claim I love is pretzels, and that is just ridiculous. Personally, I think I’m going to reserve the term for something or someone I truly cannot live without; this leads me to my definition:
Love: an annoying little monster that creeps up on you when you least expect it. It makes you do things you normally wouldn’t, and has you sacrificing your life just to remain with that thing/person. Love is something you can’t live without.
So, in essence, love is kind of like demonic possession. When you’re “in love” or simply just “love” someone or something, you begin to do wild things, often acting out of character. Such as…catching a grenade for someone, or jumping in front of a train, or taking a bullet through the brain. You would sacrifice your own life, just to save someone else’s. And when you truly begin contemplating dying for someone, you either need psychiatric help, or you’re in love.
This working definition of love, leads me onto things that I love. All the things that I claim I love, pretzels, the beach, Mustangs, books, bonfires, Yorkies, etc, no longer apply, because I can live without them. Sure, this world would be a pretty damn boring place without the cute factor added in, but it isn’t necessary for survival. So, when I think about things I love the normal cliché family and friends, pops into my head. I can’t live without some of these individuals. I could try, but without them, I’d be some walking zombie, void of any emotion. Some other things I love, if we’re going with the definition of love being something you can’t live without, then I guess I love my heart, and my brain, and water.
Love is just one of those tricky emotions. It’s deceptive, and possibly deadly, but it also causes immense joy. In the end, I don’t think a couple of words strung together can truly encompass the emotion, but rather, it’s just one of those things you have to feel for yourself.
Ahh, looove! Love is beautiful. Love is passion. Love is a deep emotion. Love is the warm feeling of attachment or desire someone feels towards someone or something else. It is a need or longing you feel when you're away from this person, or thing.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the butterflies you feel when you have a crush on someone, or when you enter the honeymoon stage in a relationship. When you guys first meet and you can't stop blushing. Then you go on your first date and you find yourself memorized, lost in their eyes. This is simply attraction, lust. People seem to get lust and love mixed up a lot. You begin with attraction and lust but love doesn't come until later. Until you can't live without this person and you put them before yourself.
Ya know, I never understood when people or "adults" say to teens or kids, "you're too young to love" or "you're to young to know what love is." What!? How can you be too young to feell? Especially an emotion so great. We know how to love our family, but we're too young to love anyone else? Nonsense! Sure we can love. We love our best friends that we've known for years. The ones that walk right in without knocking, and our parents ask them what they want for dinner. And we, at one point or another, love that boy (or girl) that walks us to every class everyday and that kisses our forehead right as the late bell rings.
Anyway, love also is not a simple craving (when it comes to things now not just people). It's not like that certain time of the month when a girl craves the weirdest shit ever (or when she's pregnant). And she has to get whatever it is she wants at that time or she'll just die. Again, its something you can't live without.
So all of this to say what I love, or who. I don't think I could honestly say there's a thing that I love out there. Not ice cream, or Coke with peanuts. These things are not worthy enough of me saying I love them and August would agree, it would be a shame if I did. I simply like these things and that's it. Now people? okay this is a bit harder. There is a numerous amount of people that I once told I love so much, but now reading and analying my actual definition of love, I recognize that I either just felt extreme lust and attraction for these people or I just cared about them an extremely great amount. But love? I can whole heartedly say I love Kayla. I have always put her before me, and that will never change. And there's probably only one friend (best friend or whatever you want to call it) out there that I can say I love, and not just care so much about. I've known Shon for an extremely long time and the discussions we have are never pointless or lack substance. He forces me to think certain ways and question certain things. It has taught me so much about myself. I can appreciate anyone who does this for me. But add the atttaction, lust, emotion, passion, need, and attachment to this, and you got love.
To George: Okay, once again your blog was hilarious (though I'm not sure if that was what you were going for this time). It doesn't surprise me at all that out of all things (or people) you ultimately love yourself. And I absolutely don't mean this in a negative way. I admire it, and of course chuckled at it. But there is so much truth behind your explanation for it. At this point in our lives we're discovering who we truly are. If there was any time to put ourselves before others and completely be in love with ourselves it is now.
ReplyDeleteTo Mimi: First, great allusion, "Such as…catching a grenade for someone, or jumping in front of a train, or taking a bullet through the brain." Ha, this is a terrible song though. It exemplifies the true "demonic possession" that love is capable of. I really enjoyed your blog, even though it was slightly cynical. Love does have the power to make people act insane. That's why I too believe it's definition involves something you can't live without. And I did the same thing you did. I looked back on all the people or things I once claimed I love so much but realized, with the definition I came up with, there's no way I actually loved them. I just really really really really liked them!
ReplyDeleteLove is easy to feel, and works as the conduit in a powerful bond.
ReplyDeleteThough I completely understand the plight that August has encountered, with the variability (or lack thereof) for the word ‘love’, I do not exactly agree. Sure we can say that we love Channing Tatum (I don’t) and Chocolate Tiramisu (I don’t) in the same breath, but that very versatility of ‘love’ is kind of what makes it beautiful. In family, in friendships, and in relationships, the forces of love are somewhat similar. They operate under countless characteristics; trust, companionship, loyalty, responsibility, intimacy (strictly for relationships), etc.
The strength of the word ‘love’ comes not from how sparingly you use it but from how strongly you really do love what it is that you are speaking of. The argument over the loss of value in that 4 letter word has resulted from a century of it being thrown around carelessly. Especially as teenagers, we like to laugh at and pity the naïve young couple who will be spitting “I love you’s” almost instantly into their “relationships”. But love is easy to feel. I personally have not been able to identify with that feeling of cheapening ‘love’, mostly because I have not allowed myself to think of it falsely.
Some lyrics by Snow Patrol are; “Those three words are said too much, they’re not enough.” I don’t know whether to cheer to this sentiment, around a burning Valentine’s cards and ash, or completely dismiss it. I believe in love wholeheartedly, and it’s power (when used properly). But I know that sometimes those words are not enough. Love is easy, like I said, but it is the proof of that love (in relationships) which takes years and years.
You can say that you love both your mother and spicy nachos, but what some people forget is that with a person, you’ve got something to prove. You could go back and forth all day on whether or not you love nachos, and they’ll never question it. But with people, you must uphold those words because at the end of the day, even the greatest advocate of ‘love devaluing’ will mentally defend its power when on the receiving end of those three words.
With all this being said, I could name one thousand things/people that I love, but I’ll try to cut that number down a bit. I love my family; My Mom, Dad, Sisters Mary Kay and CeCe, and my brother, Matt. I love my best friends who coincidentally also make up my Crew Boat (JV8, now V8<3); Nicole, Danielle, Victoria, Rachel, Sam, and Maria. I love my boyfriend, Brendan. I love tennis. I love peanut butter cups. I love my life.
Mimi, I wish you would have a little more optimism when it comes to something like love. I was taken back when you said “...chances are you’re going to break up, and that’s not love.” Love is not meant to be seen as an outcome. Technically, every relationship will end. After all, we will all eventually die. Rather, love should be seen as an experience. Just because a relationship ends, doesn’t mean love never occurred.
ReplyDeleteKendall, I appreciate your positive minded response. Love is definitely not age restricted, and I would wholeheartedly agree with you on that point. However, there is one tiny thing I did not agree with you on. You believe that love needs time to “grow”, and I understand your reasoning, but I think there are exceptions. After all, time is only relative. But besides that, I really liked your ideas.
Connie, thank you for distinguishing love for a person and object. Your line “...with a person, you’ve got something to prove” was perfectly put. There’s nothing wrong with “loving” a thing, but loving a person is much a more serious matter. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
What is love? (Baby don’t hurt me.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I had pondered this question before, but was suddenly overridden with work to do and I never really found an appropriate answer. From Google, I traveled to dictionary.com to search for some inspiration for my definition. It, much to my dismay, had twenty-seven definitions ranging from the personification of Cupid to a tennis score, but still did not quite fit what I was looking for. First of all, I don’t think that someone can “love” an object. Love is too strong a word. I feel that Love should be reserved for special people, someone that you can stand to live with for all eternity and never have to recalibrate your affection for them and you trust, even if you don’t know where the Love comes from. Loving someone loses its meaning when you love everything and everybody. So a definition of Love would be “A powerful, undying, mysterious emotional attachment towards someone.”
I understand that sometimes people hyperbolize and say they “love” people (I occasionally find myself doing it too), but I find that to be a horrible thing. By overusing “love”, its sentimental value is lost into the Ether. Our generation seems to use love for everything, despite never actually being “in love”. I believe that it should be cherished like… uh… well… there really is no accurate comparison to how it should be held on.
There are, in my opinion, three types of love, but two of them are more accurately expressed in other words (words less commonplace than love). The first is the love of close friends, as in the ones that will last literally whole lifetimes and will be with you through everything. The word I would prefer to use is ‘affection’, but nobody would want to say “I have affection for you” every time they want to express their affection for their friends. The second is the love of family, which seems to be very important, but not always as strong as affection. I would call it ‘fondness’, however, love is again a more convenient word to use in context. The love that most people think about, True Love, is the love of a single person that occurs spontaneously, but lasts forever. There really is no point in explaining the source of this kind of love. Of course, people find others that they think they are in love with, but realize that they aren’t, ending up in divorce and unhappy people. True Love isn’t something that people should throw around like horseshoes at the family reunion.
As for what I love, I don’t love anything inanimate. I obviously love my friends and family (or should I say I ‘have affection’ for my friends and I ‘have fondness’ for my family). But as for ‘true love’, she obviously hasn’t shown up yet… but eventually, I have no doubt that she will. Yes. I believe in “love at first sight”. And yes, I believe in true love. Go ahead. Make fun of me. I’m a romantic in a way, even though guys aren’t supposed to have feelings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ34LlaIk88&ob=av2e (hehehehehe)
Tom:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. We do you love in place of other words, it's just easier to say I love you than "I'm fond of you." I like how you split your view on love into three different ones. It makes more sense that there should be different forms for different levels.
Kendall:
It makes me glad to know that even though you're always lovey lovey and romantic, you're able to distinguish love from lust. Though this is the case, I do think sometimes young people can love at a young age. That does kind of make me angry when adults claim we can't love. It's an emotion everyone feels, but most just because most people feel it in adulthood doesn't mean you can't feel it when you're a teenager.
I have a problem with the word "love." I mean I have a problem when people claim to love each other. Over the years the term has become extremely convoluted. A Bunje mentioned, people claim to love everything. I find myself saying that I love clothes or when someone I very much dislike ends up in pain or when a test date is moved. But, on the other hand I say those mundane three words to my parents every time I leave the house or hang up the telephone. How can I compare my parents to my best friend's frog eraser? It's because "love" has lost it's value. I know a lot of people. From everyone I have met I can say that less then half of those people, that were married, actually loved their partner. I don't know if you can truely love something down to your core. I believe that the word love has come from
ReplyDeletepeole not knowing what to call a feelling that they get when they meet someone they really like or think they want to spend the rest of their life with. Because of this, when I think about love I don't necessarily think about LOVE.
Since I was about seven or eight years old "Moulin Rouge!" has been my favorite musical. Among underlying messages, the main
subject of the story is one of the four Bohemian Principles of Love; the other three are truth, beauty and freedom. According to these beliefs one must have truth, beauty, freedom and love to live a fufilling and worthy life. So when Christian first laid eyes on Satine did he love her? I personally don't think so, but he fervidly thought otherwise. To me, he thought she was sexy. He knew absolutely nothing about this women, ther then her profession. You can't love someone just because you looked at them. Love is a slow and steady race. It takes time and devotion to mature.
So I suppose my definition of love is devotion. Devotion becomes most evident when couples take that next step and they tie the knot. People don't realize how important and yoking their vows are. When you say "... until death do us part" it really means until death; and it should. If you are not willing to devote your every last breath for something then you don't love it/them. If your husband goes to war and gets half of his face blown off you need to stay. If your wife goes to work and gets hit by a car and is paralized for the rest of her life, it is your job to take care of her until death do you part. You need to be willing to stay up and work laboriously for the upwards of sixty years, I don't think that Ewan McGregor's innocent character loved a stage whore the first time they met eyes. After saving her ass from the duke and getting paid for
his script... maybe. He also didn't know she was dying. If he had, would he have stayed, or when he walked off stage at the end would he have
continued walking?
That is where my problem lies. The word love is thrown about with no meaning behind it. A sixteen year old doesn't love her twenty year old boyfriend and vice versa. Once a baby comes into the picture then the whole thing falls apart. There's no love there. There's no devotion. You can have love without truth and freedom, but you can't really love something or someone without devotion. Love is a safe word. People say it to cover their asses; to get something out of someone else, have that be money or sex or a car ride home. So when asked what I love, I have one practical answer. My family. The three people I live with the the tree people that live two blocks away. Six individual
beings. That's it. Over the last twelve years I think that my love(devotion) for my family has become very clear. I don't even love myself; I don't hate myself, I am quite content, but I don't LOVE myself. I care about a lot of things but I can't bring myself to put such a stong bind to them as love. Maybe one day I will find my Christian, but as for now I can't say that I believe it...
Janel:
ReplyDeleteI love everything about your post. I always claim I'm against marriage, and that I don't want to get married, only because I fear the commitment that comes with it. However, I am actually, truly jealous of people who are able to remain together through everything. So, I agree with you when you say love is devotion. All those times I see husbands or wives leaving once something happens, I always question if they ever really loved that person in the first place. I feel like now, even marriage is becoming one of those wishy-washy kinds of things. Many marriages end in divorce. But the ones that do last, are true indicators that love exists. Great job on this post!
To Mimi: I love your line about humans being confused about emotions. I couldn't have said it any better myself. In general people don't realize how powerful words are when they are backed up by emotions such as love. Emotions very easily break people. Saying that you love a different boyfriend every day of the week isn't love. That isn't even really really really liking someone. That's just being a slut.
ReplyDeleteTo Kendall: Your post was reassuring, in a sense. A common theme seems to be that people get the meaning of love mixed up. I completely agree. While I was writing my post I couldn't think of the word, but you did: lust. That's exactly what I was looking for. Lust is a great deception. It causes pain and sufferage, the exact opposite of love. People should be proud of love not scared or needy of it.
To Tom: Of course you were the one to put the song lyrics in, Michael G might be a little upset! Well anyways, it doesn't surprise me that love has 27 definitions. That's crazy though. How can you put a lable with such strong emotion on such small things. As opposed to you, I don't believe in love at first sight, but who knows!
I don’t believe that love can be defined into a blog post. I don’t believe any word (or any combination of words) in the dictionary does it justice. Love is seen through actions, and thus can only be felt. There is no way to capture the experience of love in words. I believe in the power of words, but I also believe love is mostly demonstrated through the power of actions. For instance, I would say my parents are completely in love, even though they don’t stare at each other with googley eyes or profess their love to each other every single minute of the day. But I can tell they are in love because of their actions. I can tell by the way my dad warms up my mom’s car on frosty mornings. I can tell by the way my mom waits up for my dad to get home from work if it’s late at night. I can tell by the way my dad covers my mom with a blanket if she falls asleep on the couch. I can tell by the way my mom’s face still seems to light up when my dad walks into the room. They’ve endured over twenty-five years together. They don’t need to make profound statements about their devotion for one another. So sure, I can list certain things people do when they’re in love, but I don’t think I can put it into words. Love is too enchanting and enthralling and incredible and mesmerizing to put into words. And so here I sit, just listing different adjectives about what love is.
ReplyDeleteOn that note, I believe there are different realms of love, and within those realms there are different levels of it. One realm is the love I have for my family. And currently, it’s the strongest bond I have right now in my life, and I adore that. Another realm is the one I have for myself. As a teenager, I’m creating who I want to be in life, and I’m truly learning to love some of the qualities I possess. I’m completely different from everyone else, and I like that. I love being different. I love possessing a specific set of qualities that no one else does. Another realm is the one in the sense of an intimate relationship. This is where the different levels come into play. There’s the level that includes puppy love, then teenage love, then newlywed love, then five-year-wedding-anniversary love, then fifteen-year-wedding-anniversary love, then sixty-year-wedding-anniversary love, with infinite levels in between. Every single couple is different and reacts to different situations in different ways, and experiences love in different ways. So there isn’t a specific age or a certain time period that a couple goes through these levels, and some couples just skip some levels all together. Another realm is one that I have not experienced, but have witnessed, and this is the love a parent has for their child. In my experience at least, a parent’s love for their child is eternal and possibly the strongest form of love. I only hope I can be lucky enough to experience this form of love one day. The last realm is the one for loving things or ideas. Love is what makes a person whole, so why can’t a person love a thing or a cause or a job or an idea? I’d say some athletes worship their sport and completely love what they do. I’d say some people absolutely love their job. I’d say some artists love making music. For me? I love a lot of things in my life and in this world. I love the smell of sun-tan lotion. I love the smell of my mom baking cookies. I love rocking out in my bedroom to my favorite songs. I love looking up at the sky when it’s snowing. I love getting in the car and just going on an adventure and seeing where the day leads me. I love running around outside during a thunderstorm. I love watching my favorite movie while lying on my couch. I love donating my time to help a good cause. I love finishing a good book and I love walking along the beach where the ocean washes over my feet. I mean sure, I love certain things more than others, but there isn’t any other word for me to use. So yes, I probably say it way more than I should, but I love my life and all of the little beautiful parts of it.
Love isn’t perfect, but the imperfection of love is what MAKES it perfect. Love is the one wild card in my life. It’s utterly unpredictable. It sneaks up on me when I don’t expect it. I can’t plan for it, and it always seems to take me by surprise. I’m completely detail oriented and try to organize everything, but I can’t organize my life around love. I like that. In fact, I might even love it. That’s right, I love love. I love the feeling of love. I’m sort of obsessive with trying to figure love out, but I’ve realized that I might never be able to. Love isn’t something I can put into words and define. I can’t write it out on paper or make a list or a chart like I usually do. I will never be able to look into the future and arrange my life around when it’s coming. That’s why I love it.
ReplyDeleteLove is what makes life beautiful. Love completes a person. Because without it, what are we? We’re just a lot of atoms rolled up into a ball of hate. That’s such a waste of time. Why spend your life being completely cynical when you’re surrounded by the beauty of life? You only live once so truly enjoy it. Surround yourself with people you love, and things you love to do.
So if you didn’t know before this blog post, you can probably now gather that I’m a hopeless romantic and always will be. And I could probably write a book on my fascination with love, but I’ll just stop here. And if you read all of this, I give you muchos kudos.<3
Tom: Aww! I love how honest your post is! I think it’s really cool that you believe in true love and love at first sight and all of that romantic stuff. It’s also pretty groovy that you aren’t afraid to admit it. I admire that. And about your one true love – I’m sure she’ll come. You’re a great guy and eventually your princess will come!! Also, you get plenty of brownie points from me for posting that link. (:
ReplyDeleteKendall: I agree with you on the fact that teenagers can feel love, but I think it’s a different level or type of love that people feel later on in life. I think that fits into my theory of different realms and different levels of love. I think teenagers throw the word around way too much to each other, and not all teenagers feel love, but some definitely do.
Nyamekye: I was somewhat shocked, but not necessarily surprised, when you said “chances are you’re going to break up, and that’s not love.” Just because a couple breaks up, doesn’t mean they never felt love for one another. Just because a couple breaks up doesn’t mean their love for one another ends. Sometimes other things come into a relationship that some couples can’t overcome, or the timing of the relationship wasn’t right. I don’t think a break up can define and invalidate the love that was felt during the relationship. Love is what happens during a journey, it’s not the destination. I hope someday you will see love in a more positive light.
Tom: Nice link! Haha, I was not expecting that at all! That was the perfect way to end your post.. smooth, like Dom, I give you kudos!!!
ReplyDeleteConnie: You say that the strength of the emotion that you feel determines the strength of the word, but if you love so many things with the same strength, wouldn't devalue the feeling? From this perspective, love is like currency. The more in circulation, the less valuable. The less in circulation, the more valuable. So by loving ten people/things, the value of love would be a tenth as valuable as loving one thing the same amount because it is more rare. I feel that love is the strongest form of affection, which is why I gave different names for different types of affection, so as to not devalue love.
ReplyDeleteJanel: I respect your points and your beliefs, though I like to think that not everyone who exchanges 'i love you's' are complete phonies. Maybe we've all seen the falseness in words and actions, but I would never allow a few cases of disappointment to completely ostracize me from believing in love. I don't know! Anyway, i enjoyed reading your post!
ReplyDeleteDom: Your post was absolutely beautiful! It was pretty much just what I was looking for after a day of bedridden boredom (home sick today :/). You were one of the many people who reflected on the different levels of love, but i LOVED the way you did it! The list of things you love was so endearing. I was sure that this blog would incite responses of pessimism and negativity, but your post provided enough sunlight to block out the clouds! :) LOVED IT.
Nyamekye: Like George and Dominique, that same line of your post really through me off. You've got to have a little more faith in love itself. George's response to it was perfect, a relationship cannot be defined by the outcome. And I know we all agree in the strength of the word 'love' when used fittingly...but what exactly is the difference between loving something and really really really liking it? Can't all those 'really's' be shortened somehow? Who knows. Either way, as usual I was quite interested in your post and respect your beliefs!
Love is a word that I think we all struggle to define in our lives. I do occasionally say the word “love” when speaking of a band or my favorite ice cream flavor. But this is something that I, as well as others, do without much thought. Saying the word “love” in this sense simply means we have an interest for it or we thoroughly enjoy it. The word “love,” in its truest form, does not apply to materials. Love is a deep connection with a living thing, typically another human, which is too sophisticated to express in words. I can admit that, as much as I “love” ice cream, I do not have a complex connection with it. I love my parents, I love my brothers, I love all of my family members. These examples are easily stated, but they require an explanation. I love them because their lives greatly influence my life. Likewise, their deaths would greatly influence my life. Everything about their existence influences my life. Also, the people you love are people you would make sacrifices for, whether you would let them choose the next movie or take a bullet for them.
ReplyDeleteThere should definitely be more than one word for all of the things we say we “love.” Because I truly love my friends, but not the same way I would love my life. Especially in the physical sense. But for the word “love” as we have it now, I will try to incorporate the best of all the characteristics. Love is a feeling, but it may just be more than that. Love is an affection that can’t be broken. When a man claims that he loves a woman, but later claims that he does not love her anymore, he never loved her at all. If you love someone, you love them for exactly who they are. The tricky part is that people change. All depends on how drastic the change is, though. I changed a lot in the past few years, but I would argue that I’m still the same person. Perhaps I’m just a little better or a little worse than how I was before, but I’m not a different person. The divorce rate is so high in this country and it may be largely because of this. Just another inevitable truth about the human race: people change.
I am vehemently against the overuse of the word “love” because I believe it still holds some value. To illustrate this belief, I will share an anecdote containing my friend Becca Adamo: I was sitting in the second row of the auditorium for the Tuskegee Airmen presentation, and Becca sat a few rows behind me. I heard her yell “Dan! Dan! Dan!” So I turned around and, as she cupped her hands around her mouth, she exclaimed “I love you!” Now, I appreciate a friend when he or she shows his or her affection because I am so used to my insensitive friends. However, I just smiled and turned around. She became upset, whether she was serious or not, and then began saying “I love you” to some other friend loud enough for me to hear. It was rather comical, as she probably intended for it to be, but I actually stood by my conviction by not replying “I love you.” So if you’re reading this Becca, this is my excuse.
I understand that I answered the questions out of order, and I understand that I didn’t really have any order. The fact that I rambled about this blog topic means that I was either completely uninterested in the subject or that I loved the subject. Let’s hope it was the latter.
To George: Now I understand what you meant when you told me in gym that your blog post is… egotistic. I feel that it is completely necessary for a person to love oneself. I don’t know if this is what you were trying to say, but if you love yourself does that mean you put yourself before yourself? Are you more important to yourself than your own being? One thing I must disagree with is what you said about heroin addicts. I would not consider a biological dependence on a drug “love,” because many heroin addicts only continue to take the drug so as to not face the adverse symptoms of withdrawal.
ReplyDeleteTo Connie: I once read a book that exemplifies the loss of meaning in a word from overuse, though it was a rather horrifying setting. When I first read your words “some lyrics” I thought “oh no…” but then I read on and realized that it was not so bad. I like how you distinguish the love between items and people, and your mention of Brendy-boo. I was looking forward to that.
To Tom: I particularly like your definition of “love” and your use of the word “mysterious.” Tom, guys can have feeling too. I’m surely as sensitive person and you know it. If you ever get tired of the insensitivity of Cole and Schuyler, I’m here for you buddy. And I also believe in true love, even if not everyone finds it.
Tom: I do not agree. Love cannot be compared to currency. Love is endless in power and can be endless in quantity. Yeah, I may value a person more than, let's say, oreos, but i'm not weighing the two against each other. With your logic, loving both my parents produces a lowering 'love value', so I can't love them the same, nor to the maximum amount because they are two people? And what is this 'maximum amount'? Does this mean that I can only truly love one person/thing, otherwise my love would only diminish in value? Please enlighten me on this.
ReplyDeleteDominique: You reminded me about a type of love that I would rename. The love of objects and activities and stuff would be an affinity. I have an affinity for watching the sun set. I have an affinity for playing tennis. I have an affinity for writing (even though I'm not good at it). And I guess we have that romanticist thing in common! (I think liking Taylor Swift is a side effect of being a romantic)
ReplyDeleteConnie: Alright this is just my opinion, so please don't be mad at me :(. I also think that "value" is the wrong word, but I'm not sure what other word there is.
ReplyDeleteSay a person loved every single thing in the world. That would make everything in the world give them the same feeling. But love is supposed to be something special, something reserved for few things. By loving everything, the person would not have any special feeling of love because every feeling would be love. So by loving more things the value of love is ever so slightly lowered that it is negligible, but the difference is still there.
I used currency as an analogy because when coins become old and rare, they are still worth the same amount of money, but they are still rare so people are willing to buy them for more money. You can still love your parents equally. And I never said that there was a maximum value of love. I believe that a person can love infinitely a single person.
Okay, here is another situation, this time is the loved person's perspective. Person A loves Person B and Person C infinitely. B and C could say that A's love for them is not as special as it would be if the other person was not being loved. This is why loving more things decreases love's value.
In wake of this topic, I can’t help but humorously reflect on an especially comical scene from the movie Anchorman. Essentially, all of the gang is in Ron Burgundy’s office and they are reflecting on what love is and how they would know they had felt love. Brick Tamland, the lovable idiot Weatherman blurts out, “I…love carpet…I love desk”. Ron Burgundy retorts with, “Brick, are you just looking at things in the office and saying that you love them?” Soon after Brick states “I love Lamp” Burgundy then asks “Do you really love the lamp or are you just saying that because you saw it?” Brick then emotionally and confusedly blurts out a few more times, “I love lamp…I love lamp”. Burgundy then begins to serenade us with his rendition of Afternoon Delight to explain what love is to him. The point is that love has become one of the more ambiguous and dubious terms in the English language; almost to the point that it’s really laughable when considering the loose uses of the word.
ReplyDeleteListen I could say I love funnel cake. But we all know that this is just a loose and careless sprinkle of the word. Despite my pallet’s affections for the powdered-sugar-covered-fried-delicacy, I cannot say I love funnel cake in the sense of what I truly believe “love” was intended to convey. Love from my understanding is an intense urge and pure desire, a need almost, for another person, and in some very rare cases a thing. I think there is a psychological term for the latter form of affection but that’s really not what love is about from a personal standpoint. Love is about relationships and the strength of that bond between people. I believe these bonds extend between family members, friends, and lovers. I don’t consider “things” such as funnel cake a family member, friend, or intimate lover; ergo not love. I just can’t see love in the purest sense extend to a bond between person and object; at least not sanely. I believe this has to be a term solely applicable to people.
So about these relationships, there needs to be some sort of classification on the intensity of the bond to be considered love. This love has to be pure. By this I mean that the love needs to be unhindered and extremely focused between the two specific people. This entails a capability to love the person despite their flaws and always have their back in the worst of situations. This also hinges on an urgency to comfort the person when they have fallen; to direct one’s fullest attention to that person in those times of need. These almost sound like wedding vows, and as much as I criticize marriage and the ridiculous ceremonies that surround them; the terms included in traditional wedding vows are the one thing I can’t disparage. The only problem is…well…we don’t follow them. I’m sure the high divorce rate figures are ones that we have all come to familiarize ourselves with in our infatuated hub bub society. If anything, this is proof enough of the lack of committed relationships (especially in America). There seems to be a simple lack of a certain ingredient in these love recipes that just isn’t producing a desired result. The mystery element is commitment. One needs to be fully committed to the other person for love to exist and be fruitful. So all those petty high school relationships? Not love. I mean, the chances of being fully committed to that person at this point are very low. This is not to say that some of these relationships won’t work out, the point of me saying this is to make those blinded by false love aware that there is much more to what love is.
ReplyDeleteWhat I’m saying seems a bit bleak and I will admit to that, but this is not to say I don’t believe in true, pure love. I think that some people actually are truly meant for each other, and that certain bonds between friends and family are indestructible. However, to fully meet the strict criteria that I have in mind for love in the purest sense is unlikely. These relationships don’t have to be perfect, this shouldn’t be a misunderstanding, but what they should be are; fully committed, trusted, and dynamic (all at 100% capacities). So who do I love by my definition? I can only say that a few friends and family members qualify by my definition. However, as I grow older and more in tune with my emotions and intellect, I am hoping to meet a special somebody that I can have one of these relationships with; but realistically, this is on my backburner for now. If pure love ever finds its way to me and carries me into a relationship with the perfect person for me, so be it. But to even consider or expect love to fall into one’s lap at first glance of another human being is highly and laughably unrealistic.
As for actually taking the time to put my ideological beliefs about love in a textual form, I can’t really say I’ve learned anything nor had my perspective changed. I’ve been very fixed in my beliefs about specific topics for a long time with love being one of them. But honestly, there are probably much better definitions of love than mine, one’s are just as right to others as mine is to me. I guess the most important thing to understand about love is that at heart it’s a really subjective emotion.
Ted:
ReplyDeleteIt makes me glad to know that I'm not the only one that thinks failed relationships aren't true love. Sure, at one point love could have existed, but if it was really love, then both partners would have done something to make it last. Anyways, I really enjoyed your blog. It encompassed characteristics of what I think love should consist of. Good job!
Tom: I'm not mad! I'm just trying to understand what you're saying...With your little equation involving the ten people, you are stating that the more things/people you love, the less it means. Therefore, the only way for maximum love to be achieved is to love only one thing or only one person. And that doesn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteAnd sure, if someone loved every single thing on earth, it would be a little ridiculous. But, that is not realistic, so your hypothetical situation doesn't exist.
Love can’t just be defined just by a string of words. Without feelings and emotion, the definition is incomplete. It has to be felt by the heart, mind, body, and soul. Love is passion for someone or something. A deep desire for someone or something (not always sexual.) Love makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. It’s a great emotion to feel and experience. It’s also a weird emotion. It’s mysterious and you never know when you can expect the power of love to take over. Ever hear that love comes to those who aren’t looking? Love is something I look forward to. It’s certainly something positive and a hopeful aspect of life. Unfortunately, love can also be a roller coaster. People in your life that you love can make you happy, sad, angry, betrayed. I don’t think love would be love without going through a whole spectrum of different emotions. But in the end, if you truly love that person, you’ll realize it’s all a part of the experience. I think that true love does conquer all.
ReplyDeleteYes, the word love has been thrown around pretty much everywhere. But for one thing, I love my family more than anything else in the world. Our bond is truly unbreakable. My family makes me laugh, cry, etc. Friends come and go, but family will always be there. With that being said, the love I have for my family is not the love I have for ice cream or pancakes. That’s a little weird. In fact, love for ice cream and pancakes is not love at all. It’s simply something you enjoy. I haven’t felt “romantic” part of love yet. I don’t know what it feels like yet. But I know that you can’t love someone right away. A trusting and intimate relationship needs to be developed. That takes time. So after 1 week of dating, you can’t possibly be in love. It’s only affection you feel for the other person. Also, love is unconditional. It can’t be measured. No limitations can be placed on love. A mother loves her child unconditionally.
Love isn’t completely meaningless. Sometimes love just doesn’t work out. People fall in love, but then they get divorced. I guess marriage doesn’t always equate to love. Wow that’s cynical, but it’s the sad truth. But then there are people that truly love each other. They’ve been through thick and thin, but they’re still in it together. Nothing warms my heart more than seeing an 80-year-old couple, holding hands walking down the street.
True love does exist out there. Somewhere.
and what is your third example... polygamy? What about a mother loving her two children? She can't love them both equally and still as intensely if she only had one?
ReplyDeleteI’ve confessed my love to food, clothes, and people. But I guess I lied to all of them.
ReplyDeleteLove is when you have an extraordinary, out-of-this-world, absolutely irresistible desire for and connection with someone, even after seeing their flaws. When you love someone, you are obsessed and cannot see yourself without them. Your love is someone who you cannot stop thinking about, no matter where you are.
I’d like to mention that I don’t believe in love at first sight. I think love requires some familiarity. However, I do believe in like at first sight.
I’m sure many people would say they find ice cream absolutely irresistible. However, love is a desire that is so much stronger than what average people feel toward ice cream. Though, I’m not saying that love with inanimate objects is impossible. It’s just rare. And disturbing.
I do think that it’s possible to love activities or concepts if it fits all the criteria. For example, it could be said that I love art. However, while art does take up a good portion of my brain, I’m not dedicated to it enough to be in love with it. I just really like it.
Alright, so I don’t love art. Then what do I love?...
I don’t love anything. Maybe I set my standards too high for what “love” is. But I do think “love” is a word that should be saved for the very best, and no less, even though I abuse the word myself. And the very best is something worth waiting for. (Hopeless romantic alert!)
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Dan: I constantly do the hand-heart “I love you” thing to people exactly like how Becca does it. I’m pretty sure Becca and I have even done it to each other. Your post actually makes me feel bad about doing it. It does cheapen the word “love” a lot, doesn’t it? Now I wonder where this whole hand-heart “I love you” thing started...
Janel: One of my first reactions to your post was “I love Moulin Rouge!” How ironic.. Anyway, I liked the line “ Love is a slow and steady race.” I agree with this a lot. I think love needs time to develop. I don’t think true love at first sight happens.
Tom: Your three “types” of love reminded me of something I read a while ago. Apparently in Japanese there’s separate words for love of friends/family, “love” of objects, and true love. (Or something like that.) The overuse of the word “love” really sucks, even though I am probably a large contributing factor to it’s suckyness. Now, if we just had different words for the “loves,” things would be a lot easier!
Love: a four letter word whose ambiguous nature causes
ReplyDeleteconfusion among everyone who tries to explain it. No, but really-how do we
define something that some aren’t even sure is a real feeling? The problem with
defining love, other than the obvious problems we always run into when trying
to describe an emotion or other intangible thing, is that there are various
different types of love. You can love a husband or wife and you can love a
friend and you can love your dog and your parents and children. Needless to
say, you don’t have the same feelings for all of these people. You would never
want to make out with your dog the way you would a significant other…or maybe
you do, but that is probably something you should seek professional help about.
The fact is, various types of love require various definitions, and so the real
start of this blog should be stating which type of love you are defining. In a
general sense, I think love is when you put someone or something before
yourself. If you love someone, you would do anything for them, no questions
asked. There’s a quote that says “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
While I’m not completely sure I agree with that 100 percent, I can appreciate
the message it is trying to give. Love is and isn’t many things. Love is
patience, love is willing to hear the other side of the story, love is constant
and never-ending. Love is not something that you can just “fall out of” and it
isn’t jumping to conclusions or promoting self interests. Of course, this
definition I’ve given mostly applies to love in relation to people. It is
possible to love something too,
although that isn’t my focus.
I will admit that I am in fact guilty of throwing the L word
around, but I can’t say that I really see it as a bad thing. Back to the
ambiguous aspect-I think that if you are saying this word to someone it should
be used sparingly-love isn’t something that goes sour or disappears or
evaporates, so you should really be sure of that feeling before blurting it out
to someone. However, if you are talking about things (which, as I said, is
different from the meaning of love when applied to people) why not use it as
much as you can? The one thing this world will never have too much of is love.
Maybe that’s a romanticized view on things, but I truly believe that due to the
difference in meaning, using the word love a million times a day won’t diminish
the value it has when you say it in reference to your feelings for another
human being.
So, what do I, Ashley Nicole Hall, love? I love many things.
ReplyDeleteI can say without hesitation that I love my family (even if I don’t always like
them). I love my dog, and my friends. I love kids and animals. But I also love
the smell of the air after it rains in the summer, the sound of the waves
crashing down at the beach, the view of the Gulf Coast at sunset, I love
music…the list goes on. This classification doesn’t change the things that I
have said I loved-when I say I love something, I mean it. So my list may be a
little longer than others, but as I’ve said-there are many things in this world
that I love. And, if you ask me, there is absolutely no problem with that.
George: Our definitions are pretty similar, but our blogs
went in slightly different directions. I admire your ability to care most about
yourself, possibly because it isn’t something that is usually true about me,
although sometimes I wish it was. Great post as always!
Mimi: I can definitely see your point, and I can respect
what you wrote, but the fact is that there is no set definition for love-everyone
has their own idea of what it means. Given that no one seems to be able to
describe it perfectly, I feel like people should be free to use the word as
much as their definition merits. Why not have lots of love—especially when you
think about some of the alternatives, like hate.
Kendall: I loved your post!
Especially the part about adults telling us we’re too young for love. I hate
when other people try to tell me what I think or feel. Love is a great emotion,
and I feel like it is something that everyone should experience. There wouldn’t
be so many stories, songs, books, and movies about Love if it wasn’t an emotion
worth feeling.
First I would just like to say that I am so happy that I am elated that this is the blog for this week.
ReplyDeleteLove is such a complex concept for people to understand and it is thrown around a lot for many different reasons. But for the word “love” context is everything! There is an obvious difference between saying “I love animal crackers” and “I love you”. The former is generally used to describe something that a person enjoys in this case the person enjoys eating animal crackers, and the latter describes a persons undying feeling of devotion to another person. However whether you’re describing animal crackers or a person love (for me anyways) always equates to passion. Moreover I feel that the things you truly love are things that bring out the best qualities in you while at the same time complementing the qualities you may lack, which applies to people and activities and I suppose animal crackers.
I have a hard time delinateing particular characteristics that would encompass love but when I think of love I think devotion and effort and addiction. When you really love something you go out of your way and do things you for the thing that you love, even things you normally would do, you also try a lot harder when you are love something you put that extra time and energy to doing things that have to do with what you love because it matters more than everything else. Loving something gives a person attachment to that thing similar to an addiction, it gets to a point where you need that something.
I love singing. Which probably seems like a typical “Olivia” answer and it is. I must have written about music and my performing in like all of my posts and I’m a lot of my writing in general, but honestly I don’t care because singing is so incredibly entwined into my life that to not write about it would be almost dishonest. But anyway, singing, I allow singing to encompass most of my day, everyday. Admittedly I sing to myself in my head, and when ever I feel that the song I’m singing will really add to whatever situation I happen to be in I often just sing out loud to the people around me, they love it ☺ (note sarcasm). There’s just something about it that is so intimate and like I wrote in my last blog, I think, it applies the emotion of music to words and its just wonderful in basically every way. Last week I lost my voice and I was really annoyed, first because obviously GREASE is tomorrow and I need to sing for that and secondly because I find my day really boring if I’m not singing (I’ve always wanted to have theme music, or have my life be a musical. Yea that would be pretty cool). But at the time I had decided even if I had lost my voice I would be singing at the show and I really didn’t care what the implications would have been because singing and performing are so important, there have also been several instances where I was sing to myself at home (really loud) and I hurt my throat the next day, but I was just having such a great time it was worth it.
ReplyDeleteAnd no I don’t think putting a definition to what I love has changed what I love. Even when it comes done to it even a love for animal crackers can become a devoted, passionate, and addictive relationship. I guess.
Connie: When I say that the love of the people has less value, I mean that the value of the love for the person being loved goes down, not the amount of love being given. The person still loves the person the same amount, it's just that loving more than one person equally makes that amount of love more common. And the amount that the value goes down can be completely insignificant too, it doesn't need to affect anything at all. And this is all theoretical because my nerdy guy-brain needed to use math to calculate the value of love :P, which is really dumb, I know.
ReplyDeleteLove is certainly a favorite topic of people. I resent how some musical artists can find no other topic to sing about. I mean, there are only 7 billion other things to talk about. However, it is understandable. Besides perhaps hate, love is the strongest of human emotions. Love is happiness, or at least a form of it. Love can make somebody sacrifice their life. Love can make a person become a not-so-bullet proof vest. Love can send a body sailing effortlessly over a cliff. Hate can do the same. Hate can make somebody take a life. Hatred is the severest and most potent form of anger. I feel as though true hatred and true love have very similar and simple definitions. I abuse the words just as much as the next person, but these definitions apply only to the pure (if hatred can be pure) forms of these emotions.
ReplyDeleteHatred: The feeling of a person that they cannot bear to live WITH a person or thing.
Love: The feeling of a person that they cannot bear to live WITHOUT a person or thing.
To the core, I think it’s that simple. Physically, we only need so many elements to live. We just need some shelter, some food, and some water. I’m not saying I love Oxygen, although I suppose I really should. Love and hate are all mental. If we took emotions out of the picture, of course we could live when somebody we loved died. But just the thought of somebody we loved dying, should, if it is true love, send us over the edge.
Of course, love and in love are applied somewhat differently. We tend to associate “in love” with relationships and marriage while simple “love” is used to describe family and friends. So, even if we only have one word, at least we have prepositions to differentiate a little bit…
It’s not enough to not be able to imagine living without love. I can’t imagine not being an only child, but I certainly am far from loving it. I can’t imagine getting to come home and relax and watch television, but I don’t love it. I can’t imagine life without tripping over my left foot, almost on a ten minute basis during lacrosse season (sprints aren’t so fun when you trip), but well… I don’t exactly love it. It’s one thing to not be able to imagine something. It’s a whole other thing to not be able to bear the thought of it. My Dad is 65 now (no that is not a typo), and just typing it out is making me break down. I can’t imagine life without my Dad. It seems utterly unendurable. Even if I haven’t accomplished any of my lifetime goals, I would give those up to just freeze time here and now. If Nicole, my best friend, ever died, I can guarantee you I’d be an emotional wreck for months. Love is pretty simple. It’s not only something you don’t want to live without. It’s something that you couldn’t live without. Something in you would have to change in order for you to cope. Heartbreak is changing. Death usually leaves a person a lot stronger. When you lose something you love, I’m not so sure it’s possible to move on without changing. It’s impossible to move on from it as yourself because that love has become a part of you. So you change.
I love… come to think of it I don’t love much. I’m pretty sure I could be happy no matter where I end up. I don’t require much to be happy. I love a lot of simple things. I catch myself smiling a lot when I’m outside. Sometimes just a calm breeze, sometimes just a clear sky will do it. I could live in a lot of different places with a lot of different people. I find a lot of beauty and happiness in the littlest things. I could live without a lot of things. I really only truly love my father and my best friend. I appreciate and really like everything else, don’t get me wrong, but those are the two necessities. That’s what I love and can’t live without. I want to fall in love, but not anytime soon. I’d rather dither about and live life for me now. When I fall in love, knowing myself, I’m probably never going to fall completely out of it. I don’t want to spend my adolescence and college years living my life for somebody else. I want to do what’s best for me now, and when I’m settled I can afford to live for somebody else.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes right down to it, loving yourself is far more important than anything else. I genuinely one hundred percent believe that you cannot be happy without loving yourself. I don’t think it’s wrong to search for love, though that’s definitely not me. But I do believe that it is wrong to constantly need to be loved. I can’t respect it. At the end of the day, the only guarantee you have is yourself. Love is emotional, not physical. If you are loved, that’s great. I am adamant in my belief that nobody ever needs a boyfriend of girlfriend to be happy. Having one won’t make up for whatever issues you have with yourself. Maybe I’m just getting rant-y, but I’ve known one too many girls who are desperate for a boyfriend. According to Schuyler I’m the patron saint of non-commitment. I can barely handle any form of clinginess among all but about two of my friends. I’m infamous for neglecting to respond back in any kind of technology driven conversation. I despise compliments. They feel nice I guess, but I just don’t enjoy receiving them. If I receive one via text message I will throw my phone thoughtlessly and dive in the other direction. My blush is more one of embarrassment and disgust than happiness. If I decide to respond back, I will most likely respond to anything except the compliment. I do it unconsciously. It’s the same with questions. Without I thought, I have the most natural aversion to questions. My only guess is that it’s the thought of somebody caring. The truth is I’m much happier loving than being loved. I’ve always had an outrageous motherly instinct. I don’t like when people take care of me. I like when people like me; I’m not sure anybody doesn’t. But I practically sneer when somebody asks if I feel okay. I just simply do not like being taken care of, of being the center of attention, of being the most important thing to somebody. I’d much prefer to love than to be loved. I’m practically attracted to people who have problems.
Ultimate confession of proof: I’m attracted to people in wheelchairs.
Dan: I agree that if you fall out of “love” you never truly loved. I think it’s entirely possible that the person changed, but you should still love the old version of the person. And I remember when that happened with Becca. She is the person I think of the most when I think of the overuse of love (I love you Becca). Just kidding, according t0 my blog post I only love my father and Nicole. But, I mean I still really like you and Dan. Okay, this comment is too confusing, I’m not sure if I’m talking to Dan or Becca anymore. But Dan, I enjoyed this blog post. I agree with it very much.
ReplyDeleteDominique: “We’re just a lot of atoms rolled up into a ball of hate.” I like that, a lot… I know we were talking about this in gym today. I didn’t really put it much into my blog post, but I agree with your definition of love and your optimism about it. I think it’s the most beautiful part of life for sure. It’s certainly a hard word to define and I agree that it is only really defined by actions, but I do think that, even if words can’t do it justice, love can be put on paper. You did it, just there with the story of your parents!
George: Shoot, I had heard that your blog post was ridiculous but it kind of matches up with mine… Maybe I’m not quite as extreme as you (although I considered mine somewhat extreme towards the end) but I have the same sentiments. I think you should always be the most important person in your own life. I think love changes that and makes you vulnerable. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you fell in love. I don’t really think it’s something you can control, like Dominique said. You can still put yourself first because you love (and should love) yourself more. Maybe you will never fall in love; that’s fine too. As long as you don’t equate loving yourself the most to being better than everybody else, then I see no problem with it. You have the official Amber stamp of approval (like that matters).
Love is not an emotion. If I were in the middle of my drama class (which wouldn’t really be that fun if you know Lockwood) and Mr. Lockwood asked me to feel the emotion of love I would not be able to do it. When you are angry, you can throw together a furrowed brow and a subtle frown and bam you have anger. Upon trying to show love, I might go into a happy state, but that would be happiness and not love. Next I would try to showing passion as if I were looking someone in the face, but that’s passion. I think that many whores and douche bags have shown passion to someone without it being love. Love is more, love is the connection that you have between someone or something that you would die in order to save the person or thing.
ReplyDeleteWhen do you know that you are experiencing this phenomena? Well, that’s a question that I’ve been trying to figure out since last summer. We’re high schoolers. I don’t believe that there is any student in this school who can actually claim to having felt love. For all of you hopeless romantics out there, this goes for you as well. At our age, we can only know love to an extent. We know it as far as we’ve felt it before. Have any of you been in a relationship, told that person that you loved them, and the one day loved another more? Well that happens. It just does. Don’t question it. But that’s my general concept with love, eventually there is a greater love out there until you find the upmost of all love. I don’t think I’ve found that yet though.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve told my girlfriend I love her. And NO I did not lie. I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone else. Does that mean that I think we’ll end up together as husband wife? Probably not, but heck I’ll end up wherever the wind blows me untilI feel like settling down. For the moment, I’m a teenager and I want to have fun. After all, that’s all that relationships are at our age. So all you kiddos who are trying to find love in all the wrong places, just stop. Enjoy life. Enjoy others. And if you feel the need to do the naughty at least be safe about it.
Love, as much as I’ve been able to feel it so far, is as if you took passion, happiness, romance, stupidity, and adventure filtered them into a needle. Love is only found when you take that needle and puncture it into your blood a hundred times.
“Eric, I love you…”
ReplyDelete“I love… cake…”
I’ve never understood why society puts such a high premium on the word “love.” If you say it to a friend of the opposite sex, it’s all in good fun. If you say it to your boyfriend or girlfriend of two weeks, suddenly you’re some insane, overemotional nut bag. I can’t say that I haven’t told a friend of mine that I love him when he says something funny, or that I don’t cringe whenever my boyfriend even hints at saying “I love you.” I just don’t understand WHY. I mean, the word has lost all its significance – it’s tossed around nonchalantly in everyday situations, yet is some holy word in relationships. It’s absolutely baffling.
Love (noun) – A feeling of intense passion or fondness shared between two individuals that can never, EVER be replicated or broken.
By my definition, the loving of an inanimate object, like someone’s hair or outfit, is just silly. You can LIKE someone’s hair, sure. And yeah, you can enjoy someone’s outfit. But you can’t love it. Love also, by my definition, can’t be a one-way thing. You can’t love someone if they don’t love you in return; it’s not love. It’s a feeling that is often confused with love; one usually can’t tell the difference between this feeling and love until they’re older and wiser, and therefore able to make the distinction. Love can never be broken, I don’t think. You can love just anyone, either. Love, in its truest and purest form, can only be shared between two people who were MEANT to love one another (yes, I am that hopelessly romantic and corny), and that love will never go away. It doesn’t only have to be between two lovers; family members were meant to love one another, certain friends were meant to love one another – whether it is romantic love or simple caring love, love is love. Even if the two people are no longer together either by choice or by force, love doesn’t go away. If love really meant what it was supposed to mean, LOVE would never disappear, never fade away, never break.
I guess, by my own definition, I love my family (of course), I love Chelsea, I love Taylor, but I knew that already. They’ve been in my life for longer than I can remember, they’ve been with me through thick and thin and are still here for me. Of course I love them. How couldn’t I? But I guess, this also means that I love my ex-boyfriend, and I’ll always love him. Just not as strongly as I once had. What we had was passionate and wonderful and beautiful, but the love we shared is far different than the love I have for him now. Cheesy as it sounds, I’ll always have a special place for him in my heart. But I could never let him back in. I suppose that’s not really news to me either.
The only revelation that came out of writing down what I think love is, is that, going strictly off my definition of course, I love my current boyfriend. He and I have been the best of friends for a while and I’ve loved him for a long time, but it’s growing stronger and stronger every day I’m with him. Not that I’m going to tell him that. At least not yet… That’d totally go against what society dictates as “proper.”
Who wants that?
Everyone uses love often. “Man I would love to have a McDonald’s hamburger right about now.” Any case in which “like” could be substituted as love isn’t really a misuse of the word given my definition. Love is just being used as a hyperbole. It’s the equivalent of saying “I’m so hungry I could eat a cow!” Obviously you wouldn’t eat a whole cow unless you were some god-like creature named Schuyler. However, you are pretty darn hungry. The same thing goes for love, you don’t actually love the thing, but it is an exaggeration of the word “like.”
ReplyDeleteNow that this blog is pretty long, I won’t really ramble about what I do love. For a short list that would suffice in letting you know the types of things I love: family, friends, my girlfriend, the performing arts, leading, and laughter. These are the things that I would die to protect. These are the things that help me wake up in the morning and make my way to school. These are the things that I love.
Out of all the things on my endless list, the one I love the most is inhuman, performing. When I perform I transfer myself to another world. I go to a place that has never been seen by another person because I make that place my own. Beyond that I get the chance to show that amazing world to anyone who’s willing to take a peak at it. Each time I perform something different a new character is created. I take the time to learn so much about that character until I’ve had an extremely intimate relationship with that person. The best part is that I am not the character, I pretty much just share my body with that new character (in a non creepy kind of a way.) For that reason, I love performing.
To Kendall: I think when old people say that they don’t actually mean that you can’t feel love. They mean that we mask the meaning of love for the lust that you were talking about. They also mean that as you get older you will understand love more and experience on whole new levels that are miles and miles beyond love for family and the honeymoon period that you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteTo George: I definitely saw that plot twist at the end! I won’t blame you for only loving yourself. You may miss out on life though if you block out the possibility of loving another. Only advice for you is to continue your mentality, but leave an open mind for someone that could one day mean the world for you. Just don’t become a crazy cat lady...
To Tom: I don’t know if I can agree with you about love being restricted to people. If you read through mine you’ll see that what I love the most isn’t really a person at all. I get what you mean though. Which is all that really matters. And don’t worry, I still affection you. The hyperbolic state of love isn’t necessarily bad either, the word “love” has lost it’s own specific meaning. The power of the word though, for the purposes of using it correctly without exaggeration, isn’t expressed with the simple word. It is expressed with an amazing connection and a specific tone of voice. That’s when love can be expressed to the “one.”
Tom: That last paragraph/link just made me increase my respect for you by 1000x. Seriously. Haha. Aw it’s nice to know that you’re somewhat of a romantic! And that you weren’t afraid to admit all of that stuff. I pretty much agree with your last paragraph wholeheartedly. I feel the same way you do about true love :)
ReplyDeleteDominique: I like how you said that there are different realms/levels to love. You’re totally right. That love feeling isn’t the same for everything. It’s interesting how you separated the intimate relationship realm into newlywed, and different anniversaries. I said in my post that relationships have to develop in order to be defined as love. And love is constantly developing and growing stronger.
Mimi: Yeah I’m pretty sure love makes you do some wild things, but I don’t like the idea of blowing myself up for someone else. But anyways, I like your post. I agree with what you’re saying about love as a go-to phrase. But I don’t really worry about the word love being thrown around everywhere. I rather have love thrown around than hate.
What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more. Haddaway’s words rattle around in my cranium while I ponder the question: what is love? Over and over again, Haddaway poses the question, yet, the group offers no response other than “baby don’t hurt me.” Just like Haddaway, I cannot pinpoint the exact location of love. Love is nebulous, the concept whizzes around my head like neutrons around the nucleus of an atom, like bad similes on a middle schooler’s essay.
ReplyDeleteLove is one of the most primal sentiments the human brain can experience. It stems from the need to feel compassion, and to care for another. Love can be classified, quite clearly actually, into a few categories (rhetorical mode is given here if you’re doing an RRL). There is mutual caring love, attachment, and passion. Love for another person can be found in any one of these three forms, or a combination of any number of the three. In addition, love can be found towards objects for those more materialistic types. However, this type of materialistic love cannot come close to replicating the love that can be felt between people.
The first type of love, mutual and caring, is sort of a symbiotic dependence between people. Children feel this type of adoration towards their parents. In this type of love, the other person seems essential to you, and you regard them with the utmost respect. Out of this respect comes the attachment that is the second type of love. This second type is encapsulated by the first two, it’s the attachment you feel for another person. That twinge of melancholy that you feel when they aren’t around. Finally, love can manifest itself as passion, as it so often does. Passionate love does not last long, as it is an easily combustible tinder, that shall quickly explode and fade out. This type of love is dictated by our sexual desires and needs. It is also the most common type of love.
I love a few things in this world. The things I love, at this point in life fall under the realm of mutual and caring. I love my mom, obviously. Moreover, I love the first warm breeze of spring, I love the sweet taste of melty chocolate, I love long walks on the beach at sunrise, I love the sounds of the boardwalk, I love classic clothes and classic cars, I love every person I meet, I love anaphora, I love bathos.
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ReplyDeleteDan: Hey, okay, callin' me out. Well, I noticed that for most of your post, you made similar points that I made and I ultimately agree with you. But yes, I know I may randomly burst out and profess my undying love for you, you know it's all jokingly. I understand I'm one of the biggest offenders of misusing the word, but hey. It happens. I don't really love you. I mean, you're awesome! But I don't love you. And also, you said in your post that "love is a deep connection with a living thing, typically another human, which is too sophisticated to express in words." But then you said you hope you loved the subject... YOU'RE CONFUSING ME.
ReplyDeleteTom: I enjoy how you broke it down into three types of love, it's all very true. It's adorable how hopelessly romantic you are. :) & as for the link, you're a dork. This song is horrible by the way. ;P
Amber: When I read your definitions of hatred and love, I just stopped myself, looked out my window all reflectively and whatnot, teared up a little bit, and thought, "that is so. true." *insert stupid crying blonde girl voice* As for the whole "loving yourself" and your preferring to love over being loved, I think that right there is part of what makes you such an incredible person. I'm not just saying that because I want to make you squirm by complimenting you, but I honestly believe that the fact you're self-aware yet selfless is why I think you're so great. I mean, I idolize that. I wish more people (and by more people, I mainly mean myself) could be like you. You're naturally such a kind-hearted person, it's almost sickening. ♥ Oh, and yes I know that I overuse love far too often. It's a bad habit. Sowwy. /:
So I'm sitting here, reading your comment. I read the first part and start laughing, well, not really laughing, more of a "hahah, awhhhhhhh," kind of thing as you're talking about tearing up. Then I get to the word "incredible" and I cut out laughing and just stare at the screen very silently.
DeleteSquirm effective.
But no really, I overuse love and hate just as much as you do :p
And just by saying you wish you could be more selfless really does make you more selfless than you think.
Nyamekye: in defense of all those couples that are in love with each other after 2 weeks i don't think that its entirely their fault. I feel like this is a product of society and what they have seen other couples do. Or its that they honestly do think they are in love, because they are trying to compensate and find love in any meaningful relationship they have because they don't have love in other situations.
ReplyDeleteKendall: it makes me so happy that you whole heartedly love your sister, i just had this huge "aww" moment and it reminded my of my sister :)
Mike: You say that were just high schoolers but i disagree with the fact that just because we are a certain age means we cant feel certain emotions. How many life changing things do you expect to experience between now and the time you're "an adult"? Im just saying that especially since you cant really include what love is as an adult because you're not an adult and if you keep thinking that you don't know what love is because you'er waiting for something to change your opinions or you'er understanding of love i don't think you'll ever really "know" what love is.
After having eviscerated every last corner of my mind to figure out how I feel about love, and after having typed 576 words on how I would define it, I realize that I just can’t seem to agree with myself on any of the descriptions I’ve painstaking mustered. I’m not exactly sure why I seem to be so split on this one word. Love. Maybe it’s because my definition of love is growing as quickly and as haphazardly as I am. Or maybe it’s because, as only my closest friends can verify, there are actually multiple Rachel Filippones in existence.
ReplyDeleteThe first Rachel is the cautious one. She is aware that true love exists, but more than that, she is aware that heartbreak exists. When she looks around at the pain in people’s lives, she views their distress as their own fault. That’s what happens when you love someone, she thinks. This girl is a captive of her own fear. She is afraid to get too close to people. Afraid of judgment and rejection, but, most of all, afraid of the inevitable pain that comes with love. Because when you love someone, or something, you give it power. This version of me, this awful, hideous version of me, sees love as something to be ashamed of, for it is nothing more than a source of suffering. Love yields desire, and desire ultimately yields pain.
Don’t worry. I can assure you that this Rachel isn’t the real me. She merely holds the real me in a firm headlock. In fact, the real me is ashamed of her. Ashamed of her pessimism and ashamed of her cowardice.
Rachel number two, on the other hand, is as romantic as romantics get. She loves sunrises, chocolate milk, her parents, all puppies, waterfalls, her best friends, her annoying brothers, key lime pie cheesecake, her overbearing sister, snow days, and even her crazy boyfriend. She loves these things because she can. She sees no limits to love. No limits to the amount of objects we can love, nor the depth with which we can love them. No stringent rules or guidelines. This Rachel is much more beautiful simply because she sees much more beauty. She understands that it is the ability to love that gives people strength. The ability to care so deeply about an object or a person to the point where its destiny is emotionally entangled with your own is…nothing less than miraculous. This is the Rachel that understands that that love gives us power, not depletes it.
The first Rachel is the one who is most often on display to the world because, unfortunately, she is the one who wins most of the battles fought within me. Rachel number one is powered by fear, and I hope that one day her source of power will diminish, and that Rachel number two will finally triumph.
On a side note, the day Bunje posted a blog question about love, a mysterious heart-shaped bruise appeared on the back of my hand. Coincidence? I think not.
Matt: Yeah that simile was really bad. But it still served your purpose, which is what matters! I find it peculiar how so many of us categorized different types of love, and I find it weirder that most of us came up with similar categories. Maybe some ideas about love are universal. Or maybe I'm full of shit and can't think of anything else to say.
ReplyDeleteBecca: Hater.
ReplyDeleteYes, yes I am.
DeleteConnie: I must say I did not agree wholeheartedly with your first statement "Love is easy to feel". I mean I know love is instinctual and that might make it easier to feel however, I feel some people will sometimes unintentionally get in the way of themselves to feel that special feeling we call love. Other than this one thing, I agree with most statements made in your blog.
ReplyDeleteBecca: You share almost the exact same ideal on love as me. We both feel that love is never broken and that its an extreme passion. You also share in my believe that love can grow stronger. Its crazy how two minds think alike.
Dom: Well if I remember correctly, you have always said that you wear your heart on your sleeve and your blog post tells that. I always expect you to have cool insights on love, i don't know why. I enjoy your blog. :)
To Mike: Haha, at least you are propagating safe sex. That was pretty funny, “doing the naughty”. Nice allusion there. Anyway, I agree a lot with what you said about relationships and love, especially in high school. The only point of contention is that I don’t even really consider having high school relationships worth it. I might be overly fixed in my opinion of this, but I believe wholeheartedly in the sentiment that relationships are solely for the purpose of discovering that one individual that you can experience true love with. Regardless, what you said had merit to it, and any man’s opinion is just as good as the next; provided they are sane of course.
ReplyDeleteTo George: Okay, some people don’t seem to be willing to give you a fair criticism of your opinion on love, but I will. I would call your definition of love and your personal understanding of it more of a “free” form of love. By this I mean, you are a free soul unhindered by the trivial aspects of relationships, you seek to find and experience others in different ways. I wouldn’t necessarily call this being a “player”, more of being open and real about relationships and their base value. As for your love affair with yourself, I can’t say I don’t respect that. I feel like at this point in your life, you should love yourself more than anything else, at least in certain circumstances. But I feel that as you accomplish more of your desired goals, you will begin to lower the breadth of your view of love and will feel a need to settle down eventually. Or maybe not, who knows?
To Tom: I’m with you with the whole true love thing, that it does exist but that it should not be casually tossed around, that it is rare and special. But I wouldn’t consider replacing the word love when considering family or friends. I would say that there is a good deal of love that can be shared between people in matters of friendship or family. I would say it’s just as good if not better in some cases and for some people than true love. But that’s my opinion. Anyway I liked that you weren’t afraid to get emotional about the subject and that you were man enough to admit you are a romantic.
L.O.V.E... Four single letters that combined to make one little word that holds so much power. To me love is the most powerful emotion ever experienced in human nature, it's an instinctual emotion. We all want to feel love or at least give it to some other person or thing. To me love is never evanescent, it's something that can never be lost with just the flick of a wrist, it stays constant floating down a stream possibly getting bigger and bigger but never diminishing. To me love is extreme passion and dedication to any person or thing, never wanting anything less than that things best interest. This is love.
ReplyDeleteThis is the way I have always seen love however, I catch myself now and again saying something such as "I love snickers" or "I love this show", even though I know love is much more personal and emotional than food and entertainment. I mean I like food and entertainment don't get me wrong but if there were suddenly no more snickers in the world I wouldn't kill myself out of saddens that there's no more left. However, there is an instance were I said "I love..." and I truly did mean it with every fiber of my being. I've only said it to one girl that I ever dated and that's probably because she knows me better than anyone and I knew her. There was a deep connection rooted in our history and we experienced so much together, side by side every step of the way. Whenever we'd text or talk I would say "I love you" and she always said it back. I remember the first time she said it to me, it felt awkward to say it to her, until I searched my feelings and finally brought myself to say it. Saying "I love...." shouldn't be easy to say, it should take some searching until your really comfortable and confident about the emotion that your experiencing. It can be used for just anything unless you have some deep connection rooted in the item that you love. Now that her and I have broken up however we still have those feelings of love, they never vanished or lessened just changed form. We still want to make each other happy and will do anything for one another.Don't get me wrong love is great and powerful, buy it hurts all the more when lost. Imagine losing a close companion that you have been with since kindergarten suddenly gone from your life. Do the tears start to show in your eyes? That is love. You can't bear the thought of losing that something that made everything in your life calm. And when it's gone all that's left in your heart is the cold empty room of nothingness, waiting to be filled with tar.
This blog helps put thing in perspective for me. One thing I can truly say I love, that I have mentioned in many blogs over and over again, ( to the point where your probably getting sick of me repeating myself) is my friends. Second thing I love is not really a person or object is just more a feeling is making people happy and keeping smiles on peoples faces. This are the two things I can truly say I love without feeling the need to take back the word "love" and replace it with the word "like".
(Just wanted to add...) Love is "walking 1000 miles if I can just see you tonight" -Vanessa Carlton 1000 miles ....Sorry couldn't help myself my Italian class was playing it this morning.
Ok, so I thought of something, just an idea I thought was really interesting.
ReplyDeleteRight? So, basically, there's love embedded into everything. Inherently. Trapped like ores are trapped inside rock. And the power that people have is to realize the love that is in everything. Some people can love the world and some people can't find the love, or it's buried too deep for them.
But I don't think you need to be an idealist or a romantic to find love. Even the most cynical person can find love, even if they can't bring it to bear. But that's because my love is just the beauty that every object holds in being itself and in its relation to the rest of the world.
I don't even care if you have to make those things up, since in a more cynical mood I'd say the key to being happy is being able to delude yourself into believing good things and disregarding everything else. But I digress.
I admit with this definition I can't really characterize love, because each love takes a different form. The love inherent in one's child can manifest as a parental bond, or a close friendship, depending on who is working it.
But this doesn't really change my perspective, mostly because I've never really figured love into my life. I feel like I've always avoided that particular word to describe my relationships because love is all around me, I'm basically swamped in it already.
And that's all there is to it, really.
I guess?
I guess.
I'm going to begin by treading on the toes of all the romantics that read this post by saying that love is purely chemical. Anyone who thinks otherwise has an overblown sense of cosmic importance, to consider that the laws that apply to all of life that we know of simply don't apply because humanity as a species is mildly self-aware. So when the idea gets thrown around that “love,” is being used too lightly, I laugh to myself, because “love” at its core is really just a biological imperative, a chemical release selected over the early history of humanity because it was beneficial to the survival of the species.
ReplyDelete“BUT JAMES, THAT'S LUST NOT LOVE” all of the romantics must be screaming. I chuckle again, because in reality I'm not confusing lust with love, you're confusing love with other emotions that English has better words to describe. The reason “love” is thrown about so meaninglessly is that it no longer has any meaning, it has been applied to so many situations that it has become a blanket term for feeling positively towards something. This is why I restrict love to its chemical meaning, because while that definition may not be particularly romantic, at least it means something. Instead of saying that we “love” shoes, or “love” each other, or “love” our sports or our lives or whatever we should stretch our vocabulary to some less trite diction. Next time you want to tell someone you love them, tell them you admire them, or tell them you're thankful for them (yes, that word exists outside of November), say that your shoes are aesthetically pleasing, because really, you don't love your shoes. (Not to say you can't, that's one area where I don't judge.)
Moooooving on, I guess I have to talk about what I love now. Well guess what? TOO BAD. I'm not talking about what I love, because based on the definition of love I just gave, if I talked about what I love things could get pretty freaking awkward. Instead, I'm going to talk about what I appreciate about my life.
What I appreciate most about my life, and life in general, (what I 'love', so I at least sort of answer the question) is laughter. Seriously, anything that can make me laugh has immediately earned my eternal admiration, because I think laughter is both the simplest and most powerful of human joys. Laughter is the purest reaction that can exist in human contact, because what causes laughter can be so impossibly difficult to classify or predict. Laughter is hardwired, and while it's possible for a person to fake laughter to others, it's impossible to fake laughter to yourself. It's possible to convince the human mind that it “loves”, that it hates, that it doesn't care; but laughter isn't something that can be indoctrinated. By extension, my appreciation for comedy leads to an admiration for comedians. Especially because most comedians provide this service not for personal gain, but for the feeling of self-fulfillment that comes from a room filled with laughter, the pride from giving an audience a simple, distracting pleasure from the difficulties of their lives.
I urge you to revisit this post after you've fallen in love for the first time.
DeleteDang, Connie, sorry not all of us have experience falling in love for the first time, cool girl.
DeleteTom: Holy cow, we both referenced What Is Love, and we both used the division and classification rhetorical mode. Either way, maybe I can be your true love?
ReplyDeleteGeorge: Your narcissism is charming. I do find much logic in your views, as I know you are all about logic. In a survival of the fittest society, you obviously will be the one to survive. Congrats, you are the future of the human race.
James: I always have to commend the biological approach to human emotion. Know why? Because it's fact. That's why. Also, you talked about laughter. I like laughing. That's why I'm mentioning it. Laughing is really good.
The cynic in me is casually mentioning the fact that love is nothing more than another chemical process in the brain. Of course, that doesn’t mean it feels any less important. Well, okay, maybe it does. But not much. Considering I’ve felt a strong attraction towards some, I like to know that it isn’t all my fault. I can’t will my heart to stop liking its job of keeping me alive. That’s not how it works.
ReplyDeleteSo what is love besides this stupid chemical process that picks people up as easily as it throws them down? I suppose it’s an attraction. A yearning for something or someone. Maybe even a desire. Not in a sexual way. I think a few people mentioned lust. And that’s just this strong sexual desire for someone. Love (for people, anyways. I’ll talk about material things later) is more like the desire to be with someone. Just to have their company, and hang out. I suppose sex plays a role in relationships, but I wouldn’t be able to say how much. But it doesn’t come first, because then it just turns into lust again. Love is just enjoying someone’s company. Simple as that. Of course, it really isn’t. I’m talking about really enjoying it. Joy levels are reaching critical mass. And it’s as simple as that. I’m not expanding on it anymore.
I’m going to put family in its own category, because I feel like it. I also have a lot to say on the matter. I suppose my parents love me unconditionally. My brother is just annoying, as all middle school children are. And I don’t think he loves me. I don’t love him either. I’m not sure if I love my parents though. They provide for me, ensure that I live comfortably, and encourage me. And they’re my parents. So why am I not sure? Probably because I’m so different from them. I just can’t connect with them. Although I will say I love them in a way. I’m not sure what kind of way though.
And I think we can love certain things as well. Movies and music are what come to mind. But they have to be especially good, or have a significant impact. I could say I love Requiem for a Dream, if only for how much emotion it pulled out of me. I don’t think any other movie can do that, save for Return of the King. Aragorn’s all like “My friends…you bow to no one,” and then I’m all like “It’s okay everyone! I’m just…chopping onions is all…” As for music, I don’t know how to put it into words. Some songs I just love, simple as that.
So now that I’ve defined love in a few different ways, rather poorly, might I add, it’s time to figure out who and what I love. First is friends. I won’t go into further detail because you would be able to feel the sap running through your fingers. I love some of my family, in a way. Not the same way I love non family. And I love music as well as movies. I won’t distinguish what music or movies because it’s all there, and millions of people have made, make, or will make music so I can listen to it. The same goes for movies.
And I suppose it’s important to say that I love myself. Because I do. I really enjoy my company, and can’t stand not being around me. In fact, I loathe the very thought of it, and would never try not being in my own company. I do plenty of things for myself out of the kindness of my heart, because it makes me feel good. My joy levels are just reaching critical mass all the goddamn time. Not really. But I’m always there to cheer me up. And I can always rely on me to show up when I need me. I’m just so in love with myself, and I don’t think I’d have it any other way.
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ReplyDeleteLove- A substitution for a feeling we can’t describe; caused by having too many confusing feelings at once.
ReplyDeleteAs a teenager, I can personally say we experience quite a lot of feelings on a daily basis. One very common feeling that you hear very often is a four letter word that starts with L. I think at one point, the word love had a great deal of meaning. Not anymore. Nowadays love is used way too often. I’m pretty sure, more than half of the time, we don’t even truly mean it. I know when I use the word love, what I really mean is that I really like it. This is probably why so many others use it too. Which is why you hear it in the hallways when a couple separates, you hear it when friends see each other, you hear it when someone sees something they really like. I am one of those people who uses the word way too often. Before I leave the house, I say I love you to my mom. Before I close the phone, I tell my sister I love her. When i see someone I haven’t seen in a while, I tell them I love them! See? Way too much love!
I use it so much because I think the word has no great meaning. To me, love is like any other word in our vocabulary. It doesn’t stand out at all because of how loosely we use it. In fact, while writing this blog, I have used it several times just on facebook. I think sometimes we are just so confused because of all of the feelings that we have, that we use the word love as a substitute for a word we can’t find. I think what I really mean is that I like something with a great passion. I do not think that we can truly “love” something or someone at our age. We are still little babies. What do babies know about love? We cant actually know what love (if there is such a thing) feels like until we grow up and experience everything there is to experience in the world. At the moment everything we feel is just either attraction or a great deal of liking something/someone.
I wish I could tell you that I really loved something or someone, but I really don’t. I honestly don’t know what love is. I could tell you that I loved silly things like Red Robin burgers, or chocolate, or tennis, but I would be lying. All of those things that I named, aren’t things that I love, they are just things that I care about a lot. I even think the feelings that I feel toward my family aren’t love, it’s something else, something more. I just don’t know what to call it exactly.
I agree with your teenager emotional roller coaster extravaganza statement, we're all right there with ya!
DeleteConnie- You say that the variety of meanings for love are beautiful. I would respectfully disagree. I feel that the variety of uses of love speaks far more of a linguistic laziness than it does of the wide range of human emotions. We can't love nachos. We can enjoy the taste of nachos, but we can't love them. This is also a point where I should clarify something I said earlier, that love is chemical in nature only, that doesn't mean just lust, that also means our feelings for our family members. Those feelings, while wholly different, also have a biological purpose and a chemical origin.
ReplyDeleteDan- I often make similar love declarations about everyday things, and I would like to use the context of your post to dispel any possible attempts to police my use of the word “love” in the future, because even though I said “love” was used out of linguistic laziness, I never said I wasn't lazy. Anyway, more in regards to your post, while I admire your crusade to protect the integrity of love as a word, I think you may have already failed. Sorry.
Amber- I would think that your definition of love, the feeling that you cannot bear to live without a person, ties in rather well with my highly more analytical view of love. This feeling has some pretty obvious evolutionary advantages when connected to the origins of humanity, in a hunter-gatherer society, the bonds of family of friendship were crucial to survival, and this is reflected in the way we “love,” chemically speaking (I mean, emotions are really just chemicals, like anything else, love isn't special).
Oh James, I knew somebody would respond to this blog post as scientifically as possible. I just knew it would be you.
ReplyDeleteInsert sticky-outtie-tonguey-face here.
I look at most things pretty scientifically, I'll admit, because really everything is scientific.
In fact, I just comforted something in a scientific way.
But love, I mean, can't we at least pretend it's something more?
I will cling onto my hopeless romantic side.
To James: Well, we have another one who likes to think in chemicals. I think. Anyways, it looks like we’re agreeing on that. And I also like that you kept things totally not awkward. As a man who’s been awkward, I can appreciate. Overall, your blog was impressive. I just liked its different approach.
ReplyDeleteTo George: I expected no less of you. Your blogs are always so blunt and honest it hurts. And I guess that makes me a masochist, because I always read your blogs anyways. I suppose love of one’s self comes first. Most of the time. Sometimes people love another more than themselves and would gladly take some bullets for them. But at this point in time, in high school, it doesn’t seem like something most people are thinking. This comment is so convoluted. I’m sorry George.
To Amber: What do I even say. Your blog was good, and also different. I feel like you said things I’ve heard before, but made the ideas your own. I don’t even know how that works, but it’s pretty neat. You pulled it off splendidly. Also, loving people in wheelchairs isn’t a bad thing. I can hook you up with a great job at this lovely nursing home I once worked at. Let me tell you, the experience was absolutely wonderful!
George: While I was reading your blog, I seriously paused for a long minute after you said I love myself. But then when I kept on reading I realized what you meant and I like what you said about loving yourself because that’s what your supposed to do at our age.
ReplyDeleteRachel: Could I be that close friend you’re talking about? I only got you confused with Mike ONCE! haha but anyways I don’t think that the first Rachel is that wrong. I think she is just realistic, she protects herself from getting hurt which isn’t so bad. But i don’t think you should always let her win, i like the Rachel that likes rainbows!
Kendall: Your blogs are so cheery, i really like them! I think your idea of love is really sweet, it kind of made me feel bad for my blog and how I think there is no such thing. I love your definition, i wish i could feel that way towards the idea of love.
“Love,” “appreciation,” and “infatuation:” three versions of what is essentially one concept, expressed at different levels. The truth of reality is that all things can be classified. The further we as a society advance, the more specific our categories of classification become. It is true that the word “love” is overused; I do believe it to be rather silly that someone can say that they, say, love their grandmother and also love Dr Pepper. Obviously, the word “love” means two different things in this context. So why do we use the word in both instances? What makes “love” so universal?
ReplyDeleteIn order to prevent the world from descending into a state of Orwellian linguistic simplicity a la “good,” “plusgood,” “doubleplusgood,” et cetera, I have taken it upon myself to make sure words are used correctly and never expanded to mean the meaning of another word. Case in point, I do not “love” Dr Pepper. I “appreciate” it. One could argue that I might as well say that I “enjoy” it; this would be an incorrect assumption. Love, appreciation, and infatuation represent perpetual, continual emotions. Enjoyment is fleeting; I stop enjoying Dr Pepper when I’ve finished a bottle of it. But no matter what my current status of Dr Pepper imbibing may be, I will perpetually appreciate its existence.
Now that appreciation is out of the way, it is safe to say that the difference between love and infatuation can be easily summed up in a way that everyone can understand: If you are in a mutual romantic relationship in high school, then those warm, fluttery feeling you experience around your significant other is probably not love. Rather, it is in all likelihood infatuation. I love my mother because my life would ACTUALLY be significantly worse without her. If I had a girlfriend, I would say that I would be infatuated with her, because I would only THINK I would be worse off without her. The difference between what we love, appreciate, and are infatuated by are all determined by the difference between reality and our inward observations.
Okay so, love, yeah, love such a great thing experienced by most animals. It starts at birth, motherly comfort (comfort, not survival is what creates parental love, clearly explained in Harlow’s rhesus monkey experiment) brings the secure attachment between a mother and a child (there are also many other forms or parts of love that are prominent in society, like attraction and if you were to go of Sternberg we will have three loves, commitment, intimacy, and passion). This is absolutely universal and extremely protean. So in essence I would describe love as the strong attraction between two LIVING BEINGS (emphasis on insentient objects and ghosts, however I would allow the love of ideas and emotions). Loves versatile nature and power makes it one of the most equipped deceivers, decadents and frauds of all time. However we cannot forget the benevolent puissance of love. It brings peace, laughter, happiness and all that other mumbo-jumbo that hippies believe in. Either way, when in love one does not care for the feelings or beliefs of others. Ones emotions are riveted in place, and one does bolshie and illogical decisions for the good of this "marvelous" emotion, or the other person. I think those statements probably go against the ideals of every single one of my idols. Right now I think John Lennon, Josh Ritter and Gram Parsons are groaning in their sleep.
ReplyDeleteI use the word love like everyone else, for absolutely everything, I love books; I "love" Apple, etcetera. Nonetheless I think that the word has not lost meaning at all, it still holds that strong sentiment in which most people want. Due to context clues, tone ... We can clearly distinguish the strength of that meaning. It's like that argument with the word bitch and fuck, does the habituation of those words etiolate its power in any circumstances? Absolutely not.
Okay, so let's move on. Who do I love and why? Okay so who do love, I would have to say I love my doggie, I "love" doggies, but more importantly my doggie. But sincerely I love animals mainly due to their innocence and how youthful they are. Okay either way I also would, because of social acceptance, have to say I love someone in my family. To tell the truth, I don't hate my family, I don't dislike them, I'm content with them, and no I'm not a ungrateful bairn who ignores his parents gifts. For the sake of love I will say that I do love my parents in some way, more my mom than my dad but that's another story. I'll end this post like every other one with a quote (by now, through Facebook and this, I hope you have realized that I "love" quotes).
ReplyDelete"Never question the relevance of truth, but always question the truth of relevance."--Craig Bruce
Schuyler- hmm interesting, I to wish we were swamped with love, love is all around us, we are love, our brains are love and love is us.
Dan- Dan I truly love you, that was not that hard to find, love is all around like Schuyler said and one day we will all be swamped with love.
James- I too like humor, I don't know one person who dislikes humor. But apparently you think my humor is dry, I hope you don't think I'm Vulcan dry, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Dom: Just because love is an intangible concept doesn't mean that revolving one's life around it is a waste of time. People do similar things, replacing love with "God" or "the prospect of a President Santorum." A person can't be a hopeless romantic as long as hope as we know it exists, even if it isn't quantifiable.
ReplyDeleteAmber: Everything is better in moderation. That being said, if someone experiences something way too frequently, not only will it have an adverse effect on him or her, but he or she would slowly build up a tolerance to it. "Back off with the freakin' love!" is a very acceptable response when you feel overloaded.
Matt: I love 80s music. That is all I have to say on the matter.
I don't think I ever said that revolving one's life around love is a waste of time because it is an intangible concept. If you read my post you can tell that a lot of my life is about love, so I really have no idea what point you are trying to prove by telling me this...
DeleteLove needs something to back it up. It needs something to substantiate it, much like gold and silver would back up currency. Caring is to love, I believe, as gold and silver were to paper currency. Sure, you can say you love your shoes, or grape soda, or that kid for making a funny joke. But do you care about them? If a puddle decided to drown and ruin your shoes, would you spend the rest of your life tortured by the loss? If somebody drank all your grape soda, would you forever feel that void? If you never saw that kid again, would you forever be incomplete?
ReplyDeleteLove is caring to the extent that is becomes an inherent and core part of your existence.
I, of all people, know that adequately expressing emotions can be an arduous task. However, I am a firm believer that paying attention to the smaller details helps to better see the bigger picture. Therefore, ostentatious proclamations of infatuation and gratuitous gifts of appreciation are not the best illustrations of love. Rather, it's the things that people overlook, like cooking a favorite meal for a birthday and quoting their favorite song in the card. It's sitting in complete silence, because the sole presence of the other is enough. It's jumping from topic to topic, blubbering like a complete idiot because all you want to do is talk to them. It's reaching to comfort them when the tone of their voice even slightly slides towards upset. It's the joy you get out of seeing their smile. It's accepting the fact they sleep in ridiculously absurd positions and steal all the blankets. It's knowing that they completely disagree with you when it comes to the idea of religion, but you still accept and value their thoughts..
It's when life would be significantly different without them.
If your entire life changes due to the absence of something, that's a sure sign that caring existed. If you hadn't cared, it wouldn't affect you.
Of course, this is all explained in terms of people, but it can go for other beings and objects as well. For instance, I love my dog. She died about 2 years ago, but everyday I realize again and again how different life is without her. I love the area in which I grew up. I often think of how blessed I am to have grown up in such a town with all its hidden treasures.
I love Thoreau and Kidd and Palahniuk and Bukowski.
I love RHCP and Pearl Jam and Modest Mouse and Elvis.
I love words.
I love music.
The meaning behind each phrase. The thought behind each meaning.
The subtleties in the layering of sounds. The subtleties dripping with emotion.
I love my life. Everyone I've come into contact with, every item I've touched, every moment I've cried, screamed, cursed, smiled, talked, laughed, fallen, shrugged, and gotten back up again- I care about each. Without all of this I would not be who I am today. I would be living a different life. I, me,this Ciara typing right now, would not exist, and that matters a great deal to me.
I've never before thought I would say I love my life. I actually never thought it would happen. Yet, here I am. My perspective must have changed a bit then, huh?
Thanks, Bunj.
Nick: I like how you broke it down into levels. I mean, we all know you have to split love into levels if you're going to look at it that way, but I think your divisions were pretty neat. Also George Orwell.
ReplyDeleteJames: No fun allowed. Look, I don't think any of us here think love comes from the love fairy or anything, but saying it's just a chemical process doesn't explain anything anymore than saying water is H20 and expecting the other person to automatically know the density, adhesive ability, etc. etc. without any forward knowledge. Love makes people do crazy things, and we don't fully understand it even if we do know what it 'is'.
Mike: I like how you keep it short. You've got your priorities in order, and also it makes commenting easier. But anyway, loving acting is not a chemical process so much as the biological love, so I think there is something more to discuss there.
Dom:
ReplyDeleteYour blog post was by far my favorite. I love how you described true love through the relationship of your parents. My parents are the same way, and while it’s kind of gross to watch my mom and dad be romantic, it’s also kind of beautiful and inspiring. I hope to have exactly what they have someday. I also agree with you that negative emotions are a waste of time. People spend so much energy trying to decide what is and isn’t worthy of love, when they should just love all that they can.
Connie:
I agree with so much that you wrote. I never could understand why people fear overuse of the word love. The number of times a person uses the word love does not dictate the depth of their feelings behind it. People treat “love” as though it’s more profane than the strongest of curse words. But we shouldn’t be afraid to love a million things all at once, and we certainly shouldn’t be afraid to admit that love.
Becca:
I absolutely love (yes, I mean love) your opening quote. And I love That 70s Show. It makes me giggle. And I think that’s all there is to love. It brings happiness. I understand why you might say that I only LIKE That 70s Show, but in my mind, “like” just isn’t a strong enough word. Saying “I like…” just doesn’t have the same umph. I agree with you though that once you love someone, you never stop. There are different levels of love: some that describe cake, and some that describe people you won’t stop caring about until the day you die.
Matt and James: First thing that ran through my head, ahaha. Especially scenes from Night at the Roxbury.
ReplyDeleteSchuyler: Your blog hollowed me out. I sat there, staring at the final "I guess" and felt... empty. Sad? I'm not sure. I don't know if I know why. What if some people are like, magnets to love, and they just pull it out of everything and never have to look, whereas others need to put in the effort? What if those never put in the effort? Maybe they're the ones with a shortest range of years in the obituaries.
Why am I thinking this.
Cole: I love that you did insert the whole loving yourself thing. You're future self loves you too. Very dearly. It appreciates your love for it.
Schuyler- People do crazy things for obsession, not love. The entire basis of my argument is that love is an inadequate descriptor of emotion, so I restrict love to its scientific and biological denotations in favor of words that have not lost their meaning to overuse.
ReplyDeleteBLOG AMNESTY #2
ReplyDeleteThis is really weird. The other day I honestly just wrote a song for my new mixtape and called it "What is Love?". It's about how people throw the word around, but no one can give it a true definition. My favorite line in that song is "So here's the question, what is love? Does it come from deep inside or does it come from high above?".
So with that, I tell you, I cannot define love, and I'm not really sure what love is. I think it's something along the lines of strong feelings for something or someone. For the sake of my blog that's my best definition, but honestly I think it's much, MUCH more than that.
I think I do have a love for music. (I know here we go again sorry) but seriously though, I think I do. It's weird because I wrote a song about how I don't know what love is, but in the song I speak about how I love music and how I'm confusing myself. (I think people underestimate the thought I put behind all my songs that I've been writing recently, by the way.) I mean, just writing the lyrics to a song and putting them to a beat and recording it is something I'm always willing to do. I've done a song at 8 in the morning when I woke up, and I've worked on a song until 4-5AM before. It's honestly something I have found that I'm never tired of. And when I hit writers block, or can't find a good beat, I just lay in bed, put my headphones in and listen to other music of all different genres not just rap.
So what else do I love? Well I can say that I love my family. And my family isn't just those related to me either. By family, I mean the people I'm close with. So my best friends are more family to me than my cousins, and I honestly mean that. I love all of my close friends from the bottom of my heart for everything they do for me. No matter how egotistical I get, or how emotionally charged, or how grumpy or how annoying, my FAMILY is always there for me. It could be my mom, it could people in our lang class. I just love having people there, and I love them for being there for me.
When it comes to love, I think you know it if you feel it. It's really hard to explain. When you really find a passion for something or you find someone that you hate when you don't talk to them for like a day, that's love. And love implies too much sexually as well. I hate how every time you say you love someone, especially as a guy, it means you want to have sex with that person. It doesn't mean that. At all. Love is emotion stronger than any other towards anyone or anything. That's it, point blank. Well, at least as point blank as you can get in words.
I agree with the family love thing!
DeleteAll you need is love. What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more. I wanna love you, love you, up on the floor. Wow, love is such an important word in this society. Everyone loves to love everything. It's probably hard to find something that somebody doesn't love. I love a lot, or at least i say i love a lot, maybe i don't, maybe i just like a lot of things.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of like that age old question, do you like her? Well yeah, as a friend, i don't like like her. It's classic, you see it all the time. This is a lot like the love and like relationship. Truly, only a few things should be loved, but instead nearly everything is loved. Love is the emotional feeling that you can't live without something, the maximum capacity in your heart can't fit this "thing." That is love.
The word love really has been lost for what it means, now i still believe that love in a relationship is still scarcely used and for good reason because it's a scary word to just throw around. I know for myself i can't even say how many times a day i say that i love something. I'm sure i don't actually love every single thing i claim to love. There's just no way.
Good characteristics of love are loss of breath, butterflies, a theoretical burning feeling in your theoretical heart, a wandering mind, a short attention span for anything other than what you love, and most importantly a feeling felt like no other.
I haven't yet found true love, i'm just a little baby in the grand scheme of life so it's hard to say i love my family or friends in the way i described up there, but that's really the only thing in this world that i can say i truly love. My family and my friends, they're always there, they always have been, and they always will be.
It's weird after doing this blog response, i might not monitor what i say i love, but i'll know in my mind what i truly love when i say i love something for now on.