What Is Love - Essay Example

The man had always wondered why the world is the way it is and has attempted to provide and explain to himself why things happen as they do. Further in man’s personal life strange and unpredictable events such as ‘feelings’, ‘emotions’, and attractions were considered. Mostly by their myth, an early man attempted to humanize and personalize their life.

The dictionary defines love as ‘warm affection, attachment, likeness or fondness towards a person, for or a thing”. ( Gove, 1981) Over the centuries philosophers and psychologists have defined love as infatuation and lust. For me, love is not affection or attraction. Instead one can experience love only when the thing that is loved the most is missed. Love is merely not just an emotion or a feeling, but beyond that, it is the understanding and the need to love and be loved.  Love is worldwide and everywhere.  Only when an individual is capable of exhibiting and giving true love, can love be considered an act of true feeling. Love is an in-depth emotion of care, affection, and support.

Love can be taken in various forms such as love between parents and children, between spouses, brothers and sisters, relatives, friends, etc.

The love between two individuals is like a magical experience wherein the primary motive as human beings is to expand the inner self thus increasing one’s abilities and effectiveness towards life.

With this approach, the important aspect is to feel that one had the ability to be an effective person and to strengthen the relationship based on love. Normally, love takes place when attraction happens and thus leading to a situation wherein self-expansion and self-exploration are exalted. This very attraction offers a significant opportunity wherein an individual can feel a gush of elation.

Love comes in various forms and in different packages. As Erich Fromm stated “Love is an act of faith and whoever is of little faith is also of little love” while Maria Lovell said “Two souls with but a single thought, Two hearts that beat as one”. Robert Browning said that you “take away love and our earth is a tomb”. Milton emphasized the meaning of love saying “mutual love, the crown of all bliss”. (Sharma, 2007)

Further, if an individual bases their love on thinking that the opposite individual is attractive then this kind of love is mere infatuation. While on the other hand if an individual bases his love on other people’s perceptions then this is not love but mere compromise. Just because an individual was kissed, this does not mean that love had blossomed, instead, this is an inferiority complex.

When love is based on condition because an individual cannot leave the partner thinking that this breaking up would lead to hurt, then this is not love but charity. When an individual shares everything with another, this cannot be called love for this is friendship.

So what is love?    

When an individual is capable of feeling the pain of the other person more than their own pain and this individual cries for the attention of the other to feel experience his pain, this is love in its true form; and trying to alleviate the suffering of the other is the ultimate sacrificial love.    

So let us spread the love so that everyone will be loved.