What is Love? (CAC Edition)
Created | Updated Mar 19, 2006
(This is kinda a literary Journey, written the way I thought about all of this, but polished, enjoy).
So many things have been written about love; Songs, Poems, Plays, movies, you name it, someone did something about love with it. But has anyone ever come close to working out what it is?
Let us begin with the word itself. L-O-V-E, only four letters, no trick sounds like Knife, or Gnome, almost impossible to mispell. Truly, a "friendly" word.
But beyond this word has so much meaning that the majority of the male population of the species have trouble merely saying it.
My thesaurus gives plenty of synonyms for love, but most of these are pretty pathetic, like "Having a deep affection" or "Warm Feelings" or even "Hold Dear". Is love such a uniquely powerful concept that any attempt to describe it with less than a ream of parchment is doomed to failure?
Looking at the Rhymes shows that love just draws meaning away from the rest of the language. The only words that would dare share their final syllable with such an indominatable word are paler for the attempt, leaving words like Glove, and Above with plenty of synonyms and a less than memorable impression.
Do we Humans, the Creatures that supposedly invented the word, even know what it means? Parents "Love" their children, but have a different kinda "love" for the other parent. Seems like we're Calling Hammers Mallets here.
Theres also the constant abuse of the word this has to suffer, as in "I just *love* that dress" or "I *love* it when you do that" or even worse "Dont you just *Love* him", yet despite all of this, devaluation, the three little words "I" "Love" and "you" when stringed together have more meaning than any other phrase ever crafted.
What about "Making Love" that somewhat romantic Euphamism for reproductive acts, but isnt calling that love like saying that pregnancy and Nausea are the same thing, sure, they're often linked, but you can have one without the other.
I've heard people call Philosophy the love of wisdom, the relentless charge to understand what they dont understand. Is that love though? Wanting something that strongly?
Well, perhaps, it does seem to make a bit of sense.
Love, in its classical sense, seems to suggest that although you dont choose the one you want to love, you want them with all of your heart and being.
And, if you'd love an icecream, well then, you want an icecream, right?
I'm no churchie, but Ive seen enough "touched by an angel" to have heard the "god is love" line a few times. Does this explain why their god created everything, he wanted someone to want, and want him back? It would certainly explain why Priests choose a life of poverty and chastity (especialy in the catholic case), their constant wanting brings them closer to god, who, is supposed to be love, and therefore want.
If you make love, and the stars are all in alignment and the bits are all working as intended, well then you produce a baby, want incarnate. It wants food, attention and a cuddle from its mother, and dammit, it wants it now. While poor old mother wants a nights sleep. Mothers often talk about a special kind of love with a newborn, seems to me to be an extension of all of this want.
Yeah, it seems to be the best way to describe it. If you want somebody to love, then you'd love somebody to want you.
Sigh. I just wished the one I wanted would want me.....
So many things have been written about love; Songs, Poems, Plays, movies, you name it, someone did something about love with it. But has anyone ever come close to working out what it is?
Let us begin with the word itself. L-O-V-E, only four letters, no trick sounds like Knife, or Gnome, almost impossible to mispell. Truly, a "friendly" word.
But beyond this word has so much meaning that the majority of the male population of the species have trouble merely saying it.
My thesaurus gives plenty of synonyms for love, but most of these are pretty pathetic, like "Having a deep affection" or "Warm Feelings" or even "Hold Dear". Is love such a uniquely powerful concept that any attempt to describe it with less than a ream of parchment is doomed to failure?
Looking at the Rhymes shows that love just draws meaning away from the rest of the language. The only words that would dare share their final syllable with such an indominatable word are paler for the attempt, leaving words like Glove, and Above with plenty of synonyms and a less than memorable impression.
Do we Humans, the Creatures that supposedly invented the word, even know what it means? Parents "Love" their children, but have a different kinda "love" for the other parent. Seems like we're Calling Hammers Mallets here.
Theres also the constant abuse of the word this has to suffer, as in "I just *love* that dress" or "I *love* it when you do that" or even worse "Dont you just *Love* him", yet despite all of this, devaluation, the three little words "I" "Love" and "you" when stringed together have more meaning than any other phrase ever crafted.
What about "Making Love" that somewhat romantic Euphamism for reproductive acts, but isnt calling that love like saying that pregnancy and Nausea are the same thing, sure, they're often linked, but you can have one without the other.
I've heard people call Philosophy the love of wisdom, the relentless charge to understand what they dont understand. Is that love though? Wanting something that strongly?
Well, perhaps, it does seem to make a bit of sense.
Love, in its classical sense, seems to suggest that although you dont choose the one you want to love, you want them with all of your heart and being.
And, if you'd love an icecream, well then, you want an icecream, right?
I'm no churchie, but Ive seen enough "touched by an angel" to have heard the "god is love" line a few times. Does this explain why their god created everything, he wanted someone to want, and want him back? It would certainly explain why Priests choose a life of poverty and chastity (especialy in the catholic case), their constant wanting brings them closer to god, who, is supposed to be love, and therefore want.
If you make love, and the stars are all in alignment and the bits are all working as intended, well then you produce a baby, want incarnate. It wants food, attention and a cuddle from its mother, and dammit, it wants it now. While poor old mother wants a nights sleep. Mothers often talk about a special kind of love with a newborn, seems to me to be an extension of all of this want.
Yeah, it seems to be the best way to describe it. If you want somebody to love, then you'd love somebody to want you.
Sigh. I just wished the one I wanted would want me.....
