another thinking post: love

[mckitterick]

While exercising today, I got to thinking. This is something that I enjoy about mindless activities: They turn on one's mind to deeper consideration, because turning a wrench or lifting something heavy doesn't require much mental effort.

I have a question, one that I've been trying to understand for a couple of years now; not that I haven't always tried to understand it, but of late it's become a core need to grasp it:

What is love?

I have always considered myself an optimist (as does everyone I know considered me that), and I usually find the good in everyone. I have always believed in romantic notions (often with the capital R, as in the movement); I have always believed in the notion of true love and the possibility of tomorrow being better than today and so on. That's to put this in perspective. Keep in mind my questions don't indicate that I'm leaning in any of these directions; I'm just trying very hard to understand what is "love" right now, and these are things that people use to define love.

Is it chemical?
Surely, that's part of it, at least for passionate love. Those drugs our bodies create when near the object of our love can overwhelm us and lead us to believe love is more important than anything else. Thus it like addiction.

Comfort?
In my last post, I equated comfort to dying. All animals seek comfort, but why? If it leads to stagnation and intellectual death, why do we seek it? Thus, why is this a good thing?

A cure for loneliness?
How can we separate a salve for loneliness from the real thing... if there is such a thing?

A proxy for the numinous?
Being "in love" feels a lot like being in touch with the transcendent, and this likely leads back to the chemical aspect. But what if it really is the source for the numinous? Jesus seems to have taught that, though using different language.

Service?
Lots of people get pleasure from service or helping others; I do, for one, in certain ways. This is part of why I teach: I can see how what I do helps those around me, and that gives me pleasure. But is that love? Do I love everyone? Hm.

History?
Does the mere proximity of someone to you lead to love? Or time with that person - can people who like each other and enjoy fucking become true lovers and call one another, "My love"? Do shared experiences - good and bad and everything in between - build into something that lays the foundation for love?

Affection from the other?
Does repeated display of love from someone else lead to feeling in love, one's self? Does the mere act of reciprocation become love?

Expedient or practical?
Being in love leads to living together which leads to reduced bills and greater security both in the now and for the future. It's like the feral cat who discovers that allowing those big, scary humans to pet it leads to food and bowls of milk on the back porch. It's how we turned wolves and wild dogs into creatures who roll over on their backs when we scold them for barking. This is domestication, a synonym for becoming tamed, becoming under someone's control. So does love lead to comfort which leads to the mind-death?

I could ask other questions, too, but you get the idea. A cynic might wonder if love is pure selfishness - but mindless biological selfishness. That is, love makes us feel better, less lonely, and in touch with the numinous while it satisfies other needs. Biological selfishness is something that drives us rather than something which we understand and can control; and if we're driven toward something that kills us by inches, why do it?

I love tatsuko_shikibu, my kitty. I don't understand that. Yes, she's a pleasure to pet, and she does things which suggest that she loves me, whatever that means to a conscience-less predator. I protect her and feed her and clean her litter box; I make sure someone is home to watch her while I'm away. We have more than a decade of history together: I watched her evolve from a puff of fur to a violent play-partner to an adult cat who sleeps on the comforter of my bed in the winter. I behave in these and other ways that suggest I love her. But is that love?

I want to believe love is something magical and core to being alive, but what if it's just these things, just a biological drive no more important in the scheme of things than clean water or a roof over one's head - or less important, really. What if it's just a program in our mammalian genes to ensure the survival of our species, no different from LJ's line of code that translates my typed text here into a post others can read?

What is love? What are your thoughts?

Thanks,
Chris

Comments

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

At it's very base, love is the driving force that allows humans to bond for the sake of community survival. However, love, in many variants of modern society is laden with so much baggage that has nothing to do with the actual experience of the emotion that it is rarely experienced with any level of purity, in a sense.

Love, when experienced freely and unabashedly, is something that contributes wholly positively to one's life. It improves one's health, it raises one's mood and sense of self, it allows for hope, and in the best of senses allows one to step from selfishness to one of the better forms of selflessness, the inherent positives becoming the thing worth living for.

The things people do to each other, however, in the name of "love" is what gets people into trouble, ultimately. This is, invariably, a product of what we allow each other to get away with (that is to say, bad behavior that goes unchecked under the guise of "but he/she said he/she loves me!") rather than anything having to do with the real byproducts of real love between people.

Is it worth it? Absolutely. It is the thing that reminds us we are alive and interconnected.

A very wise friend of mine once summed it up nicely:

Love makes you a better and bigger person. It is not really love if either of you become less.


D.

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Too many pieces to respond to all at one swoop.

I will, however, just about guarantee you that the wild chemical surge of "in love" and the ecstatic numinous spring from the same roots -- and may replace one another like chemical locks and keys can have more than one thing to fit an available configuration.

Or as my mother used to say: "everyone in your father's family is overboard into either sex or religion." They also had a strong manic-depressive streak that they dealt with in interesting ways, since there were no drugs available for most of their lives. Read that as you will :)

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Love makes you a better and bigger person. It is not really love if either of you become less.

Yes. Even loving our pets makes us bigger and better people, more thoughtful and selfless.

[blzblack.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem is that we use one term to refer to many different things. If you made "love" to a person, it doesn't mean the person loved the lover (unless that person wanted to beautify every act the person did).

The love that one feels toward a marriage pardner is not the same as the love one feels toward one's children. That is, usually the parent does not consider divorcing the children (although that may be possible after a fashion). Likewise, depending on the age, the death of a child appears to affect people quite differently than the death of a parent.

The said, I think the love of a lover belongs in a category entirely separate from those of spouse, child, parent. The former is often fleeting, the latter more durable.

just a quickie here...

[roya-spirit.livejournal.com]

My dear mum, who often has odd notions, did give me this small rejoinder to your statement love is more important than anything else. Thus it like addiction.:

Love may not be the be-all and end-all for us, but let's face it, when your love life is going badly, everything just seems to go wrong.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_starlady_/]

I'm an optimist, too. Chris.
Thomas Seay helped me write an article for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, which is viewable in a PDF download here. It's in the February 2006 issue, Volume 292, and it is titled "101 Ways to Show That Your Characters Are in Love." You might find it interesting.

Personally, I don't see modern love as a positive trait toward keeping Darwin's human species alive and well. It is rarely practical. It's hardly a cure for loneliness. It frequently doesn't lead towards comfort and security, or, for that matter, control. None of that matters.

Love transcends.

taking a swing at this

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

As the world is made up of relations, intertwinings, and oppositions,
thus is the world made of connections.

Some connections are viewed as more positive or beneficial by us humans, often these are the connections that cause the least discord.
{Discord: who put all this noise in my signal?}

So to my way of thinking,
Love is the upper end of the spectrum of Connection.

-=-
Even on my more pessimistic days, I try to treat the human concept of love as something magical (Magic is science I am too small to grasp the whole of: something that can be greater than my personal knowledge of the thing).

I am reminded of my opinion concerning Chi (energy) in both life and the martial arts.
Whether Chi exists in the strictest sense of reality, much is to be gained by practicing as if it was quite real. It lends a larger rhythm and structure to the everyday movements, leading to better practice in the long run. The value of this should not be ignored.

Love might not exist as an extrinsic number to be measured by science, but the value that it lends to my life is something that I do not wish to diminish.

Love lends a larger rhythm and structure to the everyday, adding to to the possibility of a better life across the years.

-Adam

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

Chemical - actually I think that our reactions cause the chemical (not the chemical causes the love) that gives us the reminder to focus on this

comfort - security - safety - (I don't equate that to dying) - I don't agree that comfort leads to stagnation - when i have a comfortable home base I'm more willing to take risks cause I know I have a safety net

history - for some people shared history can lead them to 'grow to love each other' - but not for everyone. This can cause stress between people that are opposites in this way "When will this become more serious" vs "I just dont' see you that way"

just cause someone loves me dosen't make me love them - in fact after time it can lead to annoyance if anything

Love is knowing without a doubt that you are there for someone and they are there for you, it is having a partner that you can be yourself around, that you don't have to edit yourself around, that you want to be around not only when things are 'good' but all the time.