Something I posted elsewhere and thought was pretty good.

[xiphias]

So, in anyquestion, someone asked:

What's love? How do you define it?

I'm not trying to be cute, or stupidly cute. I really have no idea of how to define it. I'm specifically curious about romantic love, but anything is better than cluelessness, i guess.

I thought I had a pretty good answer.


One reason you are confused is that, in English, the word "love" is used to refer to many distinct emotional, spiritual, philosophical, societal, and psychological states, emotions, conditions, and relationships.

And many of them have very little to do with one another.

Robert A. Heinlein defined love as "The state or condition in which someone else's happiness is essential to your own," which is a pretty darned good definition of one of the things which is called "love".

For me -- I love my wife. And for me, that means that, every time I see her (having been married for six-and-a-half years, and having lived together for about ten or so), I feel my throat go dry, I get a catch in my breathing, and my vision swims for a second. I mean, this happens several times every day. I feel toward her, well, like what I imagine someone who's trying to quit smoking feels about a cigarette.

That's one form of love.

My wife's feeling toward me is a quiet happiness when I'm around, a desire to spend time with me, a feeling that, whenever she learns something cool, sees something neat, experiences something interesting, the pleasure of that discovery would be multiplied if, ideally, I experienced it too, or, almost as good, if she told me about it.

And that's a form of love.

I teach Hebrew school, and, when I see my students, I feel a responsibility to each one of them, a desire to seem them learn, and to grow, to learn how to figure out what the right thing to do is, to learn to be strong enough to be able to do the right thing, and to learn to desire to do the right thing. I want them to become good people, and be able to use their goodness as one of the things they have to be able to become happy.

And that's a form of love.

A philosopher I know -- who is also my doctor -- says that he believes that there are only two basic emotions, "love" and "fear".

"Fear" is that which pushes away. It constantly scans the environment to look for dangers and to protect the self from those dangers. It's a vitally important emotion -- if you don't have it, you'll die. But he believes that anger, hatred, non-chemical depression (as opposed to clinical depression) -- they're all ways that the emotions push away, destroy or separate from dangers.

And "love" is that which draws close. Any emotion which is about attracting, connecting, belonging -- those are forms of love. They're not necessarily pleasant -- "sadness" may be a form of love: it draws close to memory.

The Greek roots "philos" and "phobos", as they are used in English to form other words, follow this meaning. A "hydrophilic" substance absorbs water -- it "loves water", or, it draws near to and attracts water. A "hydrophobic" substance pushes water away -- it'd be hard to say that it genuinely fears water, since it's just a chemical compound.

Let me generalize again:

Love is a type of connection between a lover and a beloved.

Let's start with the characteristics of the connection.

It is an "attractive" connection -- that is, it's a connection which seeks to pull the lover and the beloved closer. The lover seeks some sort of closeness with the beloved. It is trying to "pull close", not "push away".

What are some forms that this closeness could take?

It could be a sense of belonging to, a sense of identifying with, a sense of responsibility for, again, just as examples. Could be any of a number of other things.

The lover could be a person, but I am convinced that most mammals and birds I've met have some ability to feel it, too. I've seen lizards who clearly have preferences for certain people -- that could certainly be because of a form of love. I suspect that you need a certain complexity of brain to feel love, but I don't know that for sure -- I did once meet a goldfish, or, I guess when they are over twenty pounds, you'd pretty much have to call them koi, who appeared to recognize certain people and would come to the surface of his tank in order to be petted. Monstro appeared to have lived long enough and grown big enough to grow a brain complex enough to feel emotional attachment to people.

I don't think insects have brains complex enough to feel love, but I've been wrong before.

What of the beloved? "Love" has an object. You have to love something or someone. It is possible for that object to be "everything", "the world", "the universe", or "God and all of God's creation", but that normally only happens with great philosophers, deep religious ecstasy, or really good drugs. For most of us, most of the time, "love" is more specific.

Most of the time, when we use the word, we are thinking of a person. But, again, the specific connection between the lover and beloved is going to be different from case to case. The emotion I feel to my wife is entirely different from the emotion I feel to my father, which is different from the one I feel for one student, which is slightly different from the one I feel for a different student.

Heck, the connection I feel to my wife is different from the one she feels to me. So, even person-to-person love has vast and nigh-infinite variety.

But people aren't the only possible objects of love. You can love an abstraction, such as a country. Or a community, or a religion. You can love your family as an ABSTRACTION, in addition to loving the members of your family as PEOPLE. My friend Scott loves his clan, the Clan Buchanan, even though he would spit on Pat Buchanan if they actually met.

You can love an object. I genuinely love my guitar. Tools, toys, books, weapons, musical instruments, vehicles -- I can think of examples of all of these that are beloved by me or by friends of mine.

You can love an animal -- my cat is in the other room, and I certainly love her.

You can love an idea.

You can love an ideal -- I love honor, justice, and ethics. I don't care so much about morality one way or the other; it's okay, but I don't love morality the way I love ethics or honor. I love certain philosophical systems -- I love Stoicism and Epicurianism, but I just don't really care for Utilitarianism or Objectivitism. I mean, eh. I can see that OTHER people might love them, but I don't.

You can love an experience or sensation, like the experience of having sex, or eating good food, or drinking good wine, or listening to good music, or exercising.

You can love the CONCEPT of sex, or good food, or good wine, or music, or exercise.

All of these are different, and all of these are called "love."

And what they have in common is that they are an attractive connection in which a lover wishes to draw closer to a beloved.

Comments

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

What you wrote is very beautiful. I am proud to be your mother. Would it be ok for me to forward your thoughts to my family? I'd love for them to read your words. And I love you.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I don't consider it a beautiful piece of writing: I consider it somewhat dry and technical.

But you're certainly welcome to forward it as you like -- in general, if I don't friends lock a post, feel free to show it around, so long as my name is still attached to it.

[(Anonymous)]

You wouldn't settle for something simple, like for instance wanting to cook for someone even if you are not hungry?

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

A philosopher I know -- who is also my doctor -- says that he believes that there are only two basic emotions, "love" and "fear".


Me, too.

[navrins]

Thank you. Something in here just helped me gain more clarity an argument I've been having with myself.