Love, eh? Sounds cool! But... um, what is it?

[zerorawk]

Now, I'm not entirely sure if something like this has been done in the past, but I'm gonna go do it anyway. Why? Because I feel like pumping some life into this forum and because someone once told me that acting all anti-establishment is cool. Am I usually anti-establishment? No. I'm far too much of a wimp for that. However, that's beside the point. Far, far beside the point. In fact, so far beside the point that if it weren't for the fact that I spent the last five minutes banging my head against the wall to kick-start my memory, I'd almost forget what the point was.

What I'm trying to do here is get a ball rolling about love. (now I bet you couldn't see that coming even if it was heading right towards you) But, you see, I'm not here to get a discussion going about relationships, dating, romance or even that brand of cologne your significant other has a fondness for. What I want to see is a discussion about the concept of love itself which I hope will bring us to our own understandings of exactly what love is.

The idea for this topic stems back to a rather reflective retreat (alliterations = the most fun one can have without hurting anybody) that my school had a few months back. Part of the retreat focused around our fears for the future. The task involved us anonymously writing down those fears and having them read out without anyone knowing who said what. We were then asked to think of a fear that stuck out in our minds and use it as a starting point for discussion.

The one fear that stuck out in my mind was, of course, a fear of not knowing what love truly is.

When discussion time came, I stood up in front of the entire 12th Grade of my school and said that I felt that love is a confusing thing and that there isn't really a definite answer as to what love is. That it's a very open-ended subject that you define for yourself from your experiences with 'love'. I said that true love is a hard thing to find, but if you have enough patience and enough faith... you will eventually be able to find it. This led to me admitting that I'd never been in an intimate relationship and that I'm just taking my time holding out for the right person.

Since and even before then, I've found myself contemplating a definition of love and whilst I haven't found my definitive answer I've discovered that love is a heavily complicated thing. It can be deceiving ( how do you truly know when you're in love or if love's just playing a trick on you?), it can be difficult ( love isn't everyone's and some people aren't always prepared for an intimate relationship) and it's quite possibly the hardest word in the English language to properly define. (love is often mistaken for lust, infatuation, passion, sexual drive, etc.)

But despite all of the cons I've listed above, I still think that love is indeed a beautiful thing when you do find it. It is something feels our hearts with a joy that is unmatched by no other emotion. It's something to live for, to die for and to keep holding on for. The only thing is that you have to be sure of it once you do find it, because whilst love fills the heart with happiness, it has a habit of clouding the senses. You can't have your rose without its thorns.

Right, I think you've had enough of my optimistic pessimism (contradictory statements, FTW!) and hopeless romanticism. Time to throw the ball into someone else's court. But before I do, I just to make things as clear as the rays of light which reflect off of Billy Corgan's head. (that's probably the stupidest SP-related simile I could ever conjure up, but you get the point) I'm not trying to pick at any emotional scars or anything, I just want to start up a healthy, clean and possibly even fun topic about our individual perceptions and understandings of love.

So let's get that ball a-rolling!

[boelsen]

one things clear to me: you should do good in year 12 english

[zerorawk]

Jun 8, 2009 20:34:20 GMT 7 boelsen said:

one things clear to me: you should do good in year 12 english

Bit late in getting a reply out. Been so busy!

Thanks very much, boelsen. I'd probably be doing well if I got my work in and done most of the time.

I'm so slack. Perhaps I need to stop thinking it and start writing it.

[catdemogogery]

not sure if this is what you're after....
i found it contradictory within myself to be an aethiest (which i stuggled to truely be) and still believe in love. so i stopped trying to find love too. i could not not have faith in god or spirituality and understand how i could love someone. why? because i thought it was foolish to believe in something i could not prove was real. how can anyone prove love is real other than saying they can feel it?! do you have scientific evidence that what you feel is love? had your brain waves scanned, chemical compounds analysed, does your partners pharamones correspond with the dna of your scent receptors? i dont think anyone goes to that length to prove they love someone , they just say they feel it. just like someone who has faith in a higher being they can only say they feel it. loving each other is what humans do best so just let it happen

i read an interesting book about love and other topics by psychologist M. Scott Fitzgerald 'The Road Less Traveled' type that into wikipedia. i am sure there would mountains of psychology books that have have studied your topic. let us know what you find too.

[AlmostOz]

Some of my fav quote about love from my fav book: Magician by Raymond E Feist

"some loves come unbidden like winds from the sea, and others grow from the seeds of friendship"


After many young teen short relationships, and one very long and fruitfull relationship that I'm now in and always hope to be in (7 years) I've found that as you grow with someone your love dynamic changes. It's no longer butterflies, maybe a longing, or just a feeling of partnership.

Love is being in it for the bad times as well as the good.

But mostly if there's any advice I'd give to someone about love, it would be that love is what you make of it

And for me, love always came when I'd given up on trying to get someone and wasn't trying so hard. I guess then girls saw me as who I really was and liked me for that.

It takes effort and the more you stoke the fire, the more you'll get out of it. It can take a long time for the fire to die out, but if romeo doesn't put any wood on the fire even juliet will hate him.

[zerorawk]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get a response out. Had a few things to deal with as of late. But I can honestly say that I'm quite pleased with the responses so far!

catdemogogery said:

not sure if this is what you're after....
i found it contradictory within myself to be an aethiest (which i stuggled to truely be) and still believe in love. so i stopped trying to find love too. i could not not have faith in god or spirituality and understand how i could love someone. why? because i thought it was foolish to believe in something i could not prove was real. how can anyone prove love is real other than saying they can feel it?! do you have scientific evidence that what you feel is love? had your brain waves scanned, chemical compounds analysed, does your partners pharamones correspond with the dna of your scent receptors? i dont think anyone goes to that length to prove they love someone , they just say they feel it. just like someone who has faith in a higher being they can only say they feel it. loving each other is what humans do best so just let it happen

i read an interesting book about love and other topics by psychologist M. Scott Fitzgerald 'The Road Less Traveled' type that into wikipedia. i am sure there would mountains of psychology books that have have studied your topic. let us know what you find too.

Very interesting response. I can certainly understand the sort of struggle you'd have to not believe in God and find it hard to believe in love as well. But, as you said, there's certainly more to love than the scientific aspect of it. As humans, we've been given the gift of thought and that's what separates us from the Animal Kingdom and throughout history we've used that gift to explore and explain the universe which surrounds us. That is how Religion was invented.

I wouldn't at all consider myself to be religious, but instead spiritual. I do believe in God, but not in the conventional sense. I believe God exists as a concept, rather than existing as an all-seeing omnipotent being staring down at us from a land beyond the stars.

How does this connect to love? I believe that God and love are similar things. For it to truly exist, there must be someone who believes in it. I'm not entirely sure, perhaps I still have a lot of thinking to do before I can fully understand it.

I guess sometimes all you need is a bit of faith. I am by no means condemning your choice to be atheist as I can understand what a struggle it must be to fully become one. But you've definitely raised an interesting point. Can someone who declares themselves as being not of faith still believe in love?

And thanks for the suggested reading. I'll definitely look it up!

AlmostOz said:

Some of my fav quote about love from my fav book: Magician by Raymond E Feist

"some loves come unbidden like winds from the sea, and others grow from the seeds of friendship"


After many young teen short relationships, and one very long and fruitfull relationship that I'm now in and always hope to be in (7 years) I've found that as you grow with someone your love dynamic changes. It's no longer butterflies, maybe a longing, or just a feeling of partnership.

Love is being in it for the bad times as well as the good.

But mostly if there's any advice I'd give to someone about love, it would be that love is what you make of it

And for me, love always came when I'd given up on trying to get someone and wasn't trying so hard. I guess then girls saw me as who I really was and liked me for that.

It takes effort and the more you stoke the fire, the more you'll get out of it. It can take a long time for the fire to die out, but if romeo doesn't put any wood on the fire even juliet will hate him.

After reading this I'm starting to wonder if fire would be a more fitting symbol for love than the traditional heart. Love can burn just as fire does, but it can also keep you warm. It needs to be kept alive or else it will go out.

I've picked up from your post the idea that love stems from truth. Love can only be forged if you stay true. As you said, you could only find love when you were truthful to yourself.

As the Imploding Voice says: "Your love must always be true. Your love must always be you."

Anyways, keep the responses coming!

[australianonline]

Jun 8, 2009 19:50:07 GMT 7 zerorawk said:

Now, I'm not entirely sure if something like this has been done in the past, but I'm gonna go do it anyway. Why? Because I feel like pumping some life into this forum and because someone once told me that acting all anti-establishment is cool. Am I usually anti-establishment? No. I'm far too much of a wimp for that. However, that's beside the point. Far, far beside the point. In fact, so far beside the point that if it weren't for the fact that I spent the last five minutes banging my head against the wall to kick-start my memory, I'd almost forget what the point was.

What I'm trying to do here is get a ball rolling about love. (now I bet you couldn't see that coming even if it was heading right towards you) But, you see, I'm not here to get a discussion going about relationships, dating, romance or even that brand of cologne your significant other has a fondness for. What I want to see is a discussion about the concept of love itself which I hope will bring us to our own understandings of exactly what love is.

The idea for this topic stems back to a rather reflective retreat (alliterations = the most fun one can have without hurting anybody) that my school had a few months back. Part of the retreat focused around our fears for the future. The task involved us anonymously writing down those fears and having them read out without anyone knowing who said what. We were then asked to think of a fear that stuck out in our minds and use it as a starting point for discussion.

The one fear that stuck out in my mind was, of course, a fear of not knowing what love truly is.

When discussion time came, I stood up in front of the entire 12th Grade of my school and said that I felt that love is a confusing thing and that there isn't really a definite answer as to what love is. That it's a very open-ended subject that you define for yourself from your experiences with 'love'. I said that true love is a hard thing to find, but if you have enough patience and enough faith... you will eventually be able to find it. This led to me admitting that I'd never been in an intimate relationship and that I'm just taking my time holding out for the right person.

Since and even before then, I've found myself contemplating a definition of love and whilst I haven't found my definitive answer I've discovered that love is a heavily complicated thing. It can be deceiving ( how do you truly know when you're in love or if love's just playing a trick on you?), it can be difficult ( love isn't everyone's and some people aren't always prepared for an intimate relationship) and it's quite possibly the hardest word in the English language to properly define. (love is often mistaken for lust, infatuation, passion, sexual drive, etc.)

But despite all of the cons I've listed above, I still think that love is indeed a beautiful thing when you do find it. It is something feels our hearts with a joy that is unmatched by no other emotion. It's something to live for, to die for and to keep holding on for. The only thing is that you have to be sure of it once you do find it, because whilst love fills the heart with happiness, it has a habit of clouding the senses. You can't have your rose without its thorns.

Right, I think you've had enough of my optimistic pessimism (contradictory statements, FTW!) and hopeless romanticism. Time to throw the ball into someone else's court. But before I do, I just to make things as clear as the rays of light which reflect off of Billy Corgan's head. (that's probably the stupidest SP-related simile I could ever conjure up, but you get the point) I'm not trying to pick at any emotional scars or anything, I just want to start up a healthy, clean and possibly even fun topic about our individual perceptions and understandings of love.

So let's get that ball a-rolling!

Fantastic article ... rsa certificate

[zerorawk]

Holy crap. I totally forgot this post was here. (I forget I have an account on an SP message board sometimes too. I'm a bad SP fan )

I'm busy at the moment, but when I have time I'll make a new reply as these sorts of things have been leaving me in deep philosophical thought recently.