What is love? That question instantly brings to mind several different songs and books. We live in a culture where love and inadvertently sex is in almost everything. The entertainment culture portrays love as being all about sex and infatuation. They also make love look like it is about what another person can give you, and not what you can mutually give to one another. Is that what love is actually about? Webster’s Dictionary describes love as being a strong affection (“Love”). A strong affection is still a vague description. In the ancient Greek culture they used three main words for love. The three words are Agape, Eros, and Philos. Each word was used to describe a different type of love. Living in a culture where love is almost everywhere we should consider what love really means.
The most common love that is portrayed in entertainment is Eros love. Anne Wilson, in her article “Love Changes All”, described Eros as being the type of love that is felt. She also said it is the overwhelming attraction felt at the beginning of a romantic relationship. I would describe Eros as being a type of “because” kind of love. It is the type that makes people say, “I love you because you are attractive right now, because I want you, because you currently don’t have any problems, and because it feels good to be with you”. It is similar to when you first start getting to know that somebody that you have liked for awhile. Normally, you were first drawn to them because they looked appealing. Then you started to talk to them and your realized how funny they were or how much you had in common with each other. It is the type of feeling that you get when you spend time alone together, and you wish that time could just freeze. You want to spend eve...
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... a friend. Many people also know how it feels to love somebody in spite of their imperfections. It is probably safe to say that almost everybody is in love with something or is looking for love. After all, isn’t that how we are designed?
Works Cited
The Holy Bible. Nashville: Nelson Bibles, 1982. Print. New King James Vers.
“Sunday Observance.” Catholic Insight. 7.1 (1999): 22. General OneFile. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist. “Baptism.” Seventh-day Adventist Believe…A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines. Hagerstown[MD]: Review and Herald, 1988. 189. Print.
Perrine, Stephen. "Your Get-Out-of-Hell-Free Cards." Best Life 5.2 (2008): 20. General OneFile. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.
McClory, Robert. "Baptism Creates Wet, Oily, Dazzling Christians." National Catholic Reporter 31.42 (1995): 10 General OneFile. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.
When Eros comes to mind, one imagines a couple falling in love and growing old together; one could even imagine a man looking at a woman with lust. While Eros is a love between a man and a woman, it involves much more than lust and the event of falling "in love". Gatsby, a character in "The Great Gatsby", forms a love that is equal to Eros. He does this through desiring only one woman and by unfortunately making Eros a god in his life.
Love: a small, four-lettered word that oozes with possibility. What is the meaning of love? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines love as “a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person.” However, can love really be defined? In the short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” by Raymond Carver, the four main characters discuss just that: what is love?
Love is said to be one of the most desired things in life. People long for it, search for it, and crave it. It can come in the form of partners, friends, or just simply family. To some, love is something of a necessity in life, where some would rather turn a cold shoulder to it. Love can be the mixture of passion, need, lust, loyalty, and blood. Love can be extraordinary and breathtaking. Love being held so high can also be dangerous. Love can drive people to numerous mad things with it dangerously so full of craze and passion.
Why does one love? One loves for the sake of happiness. This was the common mindset in the pre-modern worldview from the time of ancient Greece. The ideas present in Plato’s The Symposium have however been replaced with a more contemporary view, particularly in Western societies. Allan Bloom details this transition in his work Love and Friendship. Bloom argues that the idea of “eros” has lost its true meaning; it has been morphed into a selfish and self-less act of mere sex: “Eros, in its Freudian version, is really all just selfishness and provides no basis for intimate human connection” (Bloom 24). Sex is no longer a form of a strong, intimate connection, but rather our contemporaries have allowed sex to become “no different from a description of eating habits” (Bloom 20). Society today sees sex everywhere, it is forced upon us by the media, but there’s no beauty in it. Love relationships once were for the purpose of exchanging knowledge, today it is a label frequently and erroneously used.
Eros as described above is a love that is seen not only as sexual desire, but a “general, unspecified pre-occupation with her (the beloved) totality (Lewis, 133)”. Although the positive side of Eros is experiencing passionate love, individuals are indulging in their own desires, the end goal to please themselves. This mindset is selfish therefore Eros is no longer able to be morally correct. Eros requires is that the lover has some initial interest in the beloved that gave them some sort of self-gratification or pleasure. This does not make Eros any less of a form of love, but this does inhibit Eros from being considered honest in the lover’s true intentions for loving the beloved. This dishonestly goes against my definition of
"I wanna love you and treat you right; I wanna love you every day and every night: We'll be together with a roof right over our heads; We'll share the shelter of my single bed; We'll share the same room, yeah! - for Jah provide the bread. Is this love - is this love - is this love - Is this love that I'm feelin'?"--- Bob Marley. Bob Marley wrote and sang about love just like hundreds of people before him. His idea of true love was sharing with someone in order to meet the basic needs and spiritual way of life. The security of a relationship is one important part of a complex number of needs that have to be met for truelove to exist. The Merrian Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, defines “truelove” as “one truly beloved or loving”(1343). The meaning of truelove is not as simple as the dictionary would lead people to think. For the person who has not yet become educated in true love will find themselves on a wonderful quest. The most powerful declaration one can make to another person is a pledge of love. Most individuals will desire the intimate affection that a special someone can provide. Is there such a thing as truelove? Difficult as the answer is to find, many people have ideas about truelove. By comparing ideas of love between women and men, looking at religious love, investigating chemical love, and love in marriage will show what the meaning of true love is today.
First, to get back on track, it is important to look at the three separate levels of love, and it would make sense to first look at eros. Eros is a romantic love, the kind of love one would have towards a beautiful object, or person. It is that sexual drive that is most apparent at the early stages of a relationship. This could be considered to be the first definition people would think of when questioned about the meaning of love. In fact in a more layman attempt at understanding eros one can think of the feeling one has during a crush, where a person’s affections are aimed at a single individual.
The Greeks had a philosophy on love. Greeks divide love into three terms eros, philia, and agape. Eros being the term for erotic and passionate love and desire. Eros is the physical attraction to a person, idea, or thing. That indicates that you cannot properly have that attraction without finding it attractive in some form or other. Today, we often refer to this as lust. Lust is not love. Therefore, if you only have lust towards something, someone, or an idea, it is not true love. It then becomes desire. Although lust and love are often confused, they are two different ideals.
Love is an interpersonal relationship developed, maintained, and possibly destroyed through communication, but also can be enhanced by communication. Love is often described as a feeling of closeness, caring, intimacy and commitment between two people. There are six different types of love: eros, ludus, storge, pragma, mania, and
Love is not usually well defined. People often think that they are in love, but they can�t explain it. There is a great dealing of confusion of the words love, and infatuation. Love may include romance, infatuation, affection and tenderness. But it could be love if one or more of the elements are not present. The definition of love varies from person to person. Love is essential element for all relationships. Much of what is written about love is either brief or mocking. Society in general is very cruel and heartless toward real love of any kind. Modern writing mocks marriages, husbands and wives, but condones adultery, and other obscene values. Real love is a mystery to most people. Most people never realize the true potential or value of love, nor do they learn to practice the art of love.
The Definition of Love Love by definition is an emotion explored in philosophy, religion, and literature, often as either romantic love, the fraternal love of others, or the love of God based on the definition found in The Encarta Encyclopedia. As I explored the definitions through the Internet, books, and articles, I noticed the definitions changed quite a bit, but yet had the same basic understanding. The definition I found in The Encarta Encyclopedia is probably the most simple and most basic. It refers to love in the whole aspect, which is Godly, fraternal, and romantic. All of which can only be defined by one word and that is love.
The word love is usually misused or misinterpreted. There are numerous meanings and definitions to this overly used word. Not many of them make much sense to me. Love is a feeling of complete bliss. Love is something that can’t be touched or bought, but is something that is much better than money and earthly objects. I can stay here and describe love all day long and still have so much more to say about this word days later. Love isn’t a word that should be used lightly, but usually is. I believe that love is the most commonly used, but most understood word ever known
Love is one of those things that means different things to different people. If you would look the word love up in the dictionary, you would find this: “an intense feeling of deep affection.” For some people, love can be purely romantic or even just purely sexual. For others, real love can only exist between family members or between people and a god. For some people, it is felt for your partners, family, pets, or even inanimate objects. None of the people are right or wrong, but I do know one thing, love is very powerful. Love is overused in today's world, people say they love someone because of the way they look or their body. That isn't love. To me, love is the most spectacular, indescribable, deep euphoric
What is love? Love is a very special and meaningful word to each human being. Each human being has his/her own thoughts about love to guide himself/herself to land safely and smoothly into the kingdom of Love. Without this preconceived idea of love, people would be acting like a blind person searching for the light with thousand of obstacles in front of him.
Poets and philosophers for centuries have been trying to answer the question, what is love? Love has an infinite number of definitions, which vary from one person to another. Love cannot be measured by any physical means. One may never know what true love is until love it- self has been experienced. What is love? A four letter word that causes a person to behave in a way that is out of character. What is love? A first kiss, childhood crushes on a teacher or friend’s mom. What is love? A choice that people make by putting their partner’s wishes, desires and needs above everything else. What is love? The act of forgiveness, the infatuation with someone, the communication between two people. What is love? A friendship that turned into a lifelong commitment, that special someone who has vowed to spend the rest of their lives to honor and protect, to love each other “till death do you part.” When in love nothing else in the world matters. According to the online Encarta Dictionary love is the passionate feeling of romantic and sexual desire and longing for somebody. Poets and philosophers may never know what love really is, and we may never truly understand the question what is love.