love is not the vested intrest of any system of organized belief. nor of any idiology, economic theory or any other form of hierarchy. it is not a healthy hornyness either. though of the two, that is by far the more innocent. nor is it even emotional attatchment to the emotional attatchement of others to ourselves. no; love is caring more about the kind of world we ALL have to live in, then about what anyone thinks of us individually as a person. =^^= .../\...
So true! Love is moving our perspective beyond ourselves. Giving without expectation of returns. Reaching out to a stranger. Forgiving the hateful.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Once I experienced real unselfish love, I then realized that all the feelings that came before it, paled in comparison.
while that may very well be true, or not as the case may be, many, if not most, people hearing that, conclude it still has to be one of those three things people tend to use that one word interchaingably for. either what some belief says it is, what they feel in their loins, or their emotional attatchement to having others emotionally attatched to themselves. if as you say, we cannot define this other thing, the point still needs to be made, that there really is something besides those three, and that if we put other things ahead of the effect we have, however indirectly, on this kind of world we all have to live in, then we have only doing so to blame, for the ever increasingly unignorable consiquences of having done so. really trying to perpetuate some kind of mythical mumbo jumbo because it's romantic to do so, isn't just an aesthetic disservice, but a real threat to our only home planet's continued ability to support the existence of our species. =^^= .../\...
My point is that love is something we feel - not an intellectual proposition, not something constructed by religion, sexual lust or 'attachment'. I do wonder if there can be love in any meaningful sense without attachment, even if that were just attachment to love itself. Poets come closer to expressing it than philosophers. Sorry if that sounds 'romantic' but I think it's probably true. One of the main dangers of religion is precisely the attempt to define love and even codify it. Even to seek to command it. Trouble is only having the one word 'love' to define so many different things - I love my child, I love my girlfriend, I love cats, I love banana smoothies - in every case it's really something different that is meant. So I guess we agree? Certainly I'm not trying to perpetuate 'romantic mumbo-jumbo' - I just feel that some things are beyond definition or communication. We have to find love for ourselves, within ourselves. As a side note, I wonder what people mean by 'romantic'? Do they mean modern hollywood style romance, or romantic in the sense that Byron, Beethoven, Shelly etc were romantics?
I think love is a divine gift, and agree that it defies any narrow interpretations. You are right that it is feelings, but I think you also have to have the mental decision, b/c that is what holds it steady when emotions are topsy turvy.
Yes I agree. Sometimes we get into doubts and so on, and at times like that, the mind needs something to hold onto.
ah love, could thou and i but with the fates conspire to change this sorry scheme of things entire would not we shatter it to bits,and then rebuild it nearer to our hearts desire. 'omar khayyam'
