What is love?

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This is a spin off from Paolo's thread, but it kind of got me wondering...

Paolo asked ~

What does 'love' mean to you?

Over forty years I've been in like and lust, but never love. The word left my vocabulary a long time ago.

Yes, I was wondering about lust myself Could it be said that it is the physical expression of love? Or are the two things totally unconnected?

I've been asking myself that question all my life. I've gotten closely acquainted with what it isn't, but have yet to define what it is.

Maybe it would help to say what it isn't?

That saying 'love is never having to say you're sorry' gets on my nerves. Maybe I'm being too pedantic but I don't see how being in love stops you admitting if you've done something wrong and to apologise if you're sorry. I don't think love means you can take people for granted.

Well, lots of us have been asking this question...

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=nsCXZczTQXo[/youtube]


i dunno personally :x it doesn't mean anything to me atually...

Lust is that involuntary rush you get when first meeting someone you're strongly attracted too. I don't think it's based solely on sexual desire, although a strong physical attraction is certainly part of it. It's your brain releasing whatever it releases to tell the rest of you, hey wake-up, this person's pretty groovy mating material. While it can last a while, it's a relatively short-term response.

Love (sorry if this sounds a bit harsh) is the response your body has come up with to keep you in a monogamous breeding relationship after lust has worn-off. Whether or not there's more to it than that, I couldn't tell you.

ALANIS MORISSETTE expresses it quite well, I think:

"Knees Of My Bees"

We share a culture same vernacular
Love of physical humor and time spent alone
You with your penchant for spontaneous advents
For sticky and raspy, unearthed and then gone

You are a gift renaissance with a wink
With tendencies for conversations that raise bars
You are a sage who is fueled by compassion
Comes to nooks and crannies as balm for all scars

You make the knees of my bees weak, tremble and buckle
You make the knees of my bees weak

You are a spirit that knows of no limit
That knows of no ceiling who baulks at dead-ends
You are a wordsmith who cares for his brothers
Not seduced by illusion or fair-weather friends

You are a vision who lives by the signals of
Stomach and intuition as your guide
You are a sliver of god on a platter
Who walks what he talks and who cops when he's lied

Or how about:
Alanis Morissette - Everything Lyrics

I can be an as*hole of the grandest kind
I can withhold like it’s going out of style
I can be the moodiest baby and you’ve never met anyone
who is as negative as I am sometimes

I am the wisest woman you've ever met.
I am the kindest soul with whom you've connected.
I have the bravest heart that you've ever seen
And you've never met anyone
Who's as positive as I am sometimes.

You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can’t relate
And you’re still here

I blame everyone else, not my own partaking
My passive-aggressiveness can be devastating
I'm terrified and mistrusting
And you’ve never met anyone as,
As closed down as I am sometimes.

You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can’t relate
And you’re still here

What I resist, persists, and speaks louder than I know
What I resist, you love, no matter how low or high I go

I'm the funniest woman you've ever known.
I am the dullest woman you've ever known.
I'm the most gorgeous woman you've ever known
And you've never met anyone as, as everything as I am sometimes.

You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can’t relate
And you’re still here

And you’re still here
And you're still here...

To quote the episode "The Quest" from Northern Exposure.

Adam: "How do you keep the one you love?"

Joel: "You don't. Love is selfless, non-possessive. If you truly love somebody, then you have no desire to possess them. You don't keep them."


& another of my favourites.

"The way to truly love something is to realize it could be lost" - author unknown

"True love is like a ghost; everyone talks of it, few have seen it."
--La Rochefoucauld

Along the same lines is a poem by William Blake

He who binds himself to a joy
Does the wing-ed life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise

Oh that's great. I haven't read that before, thanks for sharing. That has siggie potential.

First you experience crushes, you are very young, normally a teen, they don’t last much. Something also very deceitful is the coupe de foudre. Here you may be very advanced in age and it’s a serious thing, especially for an old man, Blue Angel (Von Sternberg with Marlene Dietrich, Slow Man (Coetzee), Death in Venice (Thomas Mann). All catastrophes. Then there is the very common lust. It may end in an honest deal, also with affection. When there is affection, attraction, reciprocated esteem, communality of interests and similarity of backgrounds (generally underestimated), it may work very well for a marriage or something of the sort. This may seem talk of a priest but…

Once I have been in a reciprocated love affair. I have always been an insomniac, but for two o three years I have slept divinely. It’s more complicated than that of course.

I suspect that, statistically, arranged marriages in Asia and Africa are more successful than those founded on “romantic love”.

That would depend on the definition of "success".

Right now I'm thinking that love is a social construct, and--in the case of romantic love especially--it is based around a dopamine, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine cocktail.

But the nature of love doesn't matter as much as the quality of love.

Love is something that you have a natural drive to seek it from others but you always end up getting shat on in one way or another, thus making it a complete waste of time and rough burden in your life.