So, what is love?

[darkfyre_muse]

Main Entry: love
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: adore, like very much
Synonyms: admire, adulate, be attached to, be captivated by, be crazy about, be enamored of, be enchanted by, be fascinated with, be fond of, be in love with, canonize, care for, cherish, choose, deify, delight in, dote on, esteem, exalt, fall for, fancy, glorify, go for, gone on, have affection for, have it bad, hold dear, hold high, idolize, long for, lose one's heart to, prefer, prize, put on pedestal, think the world of, thrive with, treasure, venerate, wild for, worship


I've been thinking about love and relationships a lot recently. And passion and connection.
I find it interesting that the thesaurus provided me with very few one word synonyms for love. How is it that we are using one tiny little word for such an expansive range of emotions and actions.
Love for a sister, a friend, a lover, a partner, a father
love that burns, grows, flourishes
Love that dies, withers or just fades away
I am finding the single word, 'love', more and more limiting. There are situations that just don't seem to fit into any of the available monikers.


Love is complicated
It should be
That is why it is beautiful and scary and worth every burning second
I feel like I spent a life time searching for it, A lifetime getting it wrong
I get a second lifetime to work on getting it right

Van Morrison sang of Crazy Love
We found our own complicated dance of sweet honest crazy
We’re good at crazy
We’re that place where dark and innocent intersect
A dark dryad and an anime character

Here’s to a lifetime of love and passion and sweat and blood and tears


All those musings led to collecting quotes. I love quotes. There is something great about them that gives a warm, happy feeling. Little bits of other peoples' thoughts and dreams.

She walks in beauty,
Like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
~ Lord Byron ~


Love is like a friendship caught on fire.
In the beginning a flame, very pretty,
Often hot and fierce,
But still only light and flickering.
As love grows older,
Our hearts mature
And our love becomes as coals,
Deep-burning and unquenchable.
~ by Bruce Lee ~

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature
To stop speech when words become superfluous.
~ by Ingrid Bergman ~

If I know what love is,
It is because of you.
~ by Herman Hesse ~

My love, you know you are my best friend.
You know that I'd do anything for you
And my love, let nothing come between us.
My love for you is strong and true.
~ by Sarah McLachlan ~

Love does not consist in gazing at each other
but in looking together in the same direction.
~ by Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~

"...before the big bang, before time itself, before matter, energy, velocity, there existed a single immeasurable state called yearning. This is the special force that on the day before days obliterated nothing into everything. It is the unseen strings tying planets to stars. It is the maddening want we feel from from first breath to last light."

"I stare agape at Sunday couples. Sidewalk strollers, fingers laced, heads on shoulders, hearts laid bare. Audacious highwire artists, soaring netless. Oblivious or brave? Ignorant idiots, I observe from my spectator view. Hoping no one hears this screaming inside my head."

"Help, every now and then, is something more than a four-letter word. Sometimes, it's just a baby crying for her sister from the confines of her crib. And sometimes, if you're lucky, help comes without asking, because somewhere nearby, there's someone who'd rather keep you from falling than help you up after you do."

Comments

[julesk.livejournal.com]

This is one of my fav quotes from Brian Andreas:

I read once that the ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand & the Eskimos had a hundred words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but all that comes to mind is the way you move against me while you sleep & there are no words for that.

[darkfyre-muse.livejournal.com]

perfect.

[ndkid.livejournal.com]

I often run into the problem with people that they take advantage of the breadth of the word love, whereas I prefer to reserve it for the strongest of cases. For me, love has a relatively simple metric: putting the feelings of another above my own. That metric allows it to function in platonic and romantic cases perfectly well, but it seems to be a far more stringent metric than that of most people.
As a result of the asymmetry, I'm occasionally faced with a difficulty when another person expresses love for me, because they inevitably mean it in a lesser way than I do. So they insist they love me, while I know perfectly well that they do not. And, when love is what I want, someone telling me that they love me when I know they don't just heightens the feeling of being unloved.

[darkfyre-muse.livejournal.com]

I think I have a similar use of the word as this, though possibly less stringent definition. At the moment this definition applies to 3 people unconditionally. Followed in a more obligatory sense by the remaining members of me bio family. (I am still playing a politics game there. Call me a wuss)
Where the problem comes in is in my 'tier 2' relationships. I do truly love these people I would do a lot for them. Though probably not take a bullet for them. (and really when applied to this and the first 3 I mean literally) So I want to express deep intimate feeling but not in the same way as Love with a capital L. I feel a serious lack in vocab here. Especially since I am now involved in a poly relationship. I haven't found something adequate to use with her and it is very frustrating. Especially since we are now past infatuation and moving somewhere else, slowly.

[ndkid.livejournal.com]

Well, there is, of course, the titular stuff vs. the emotion stuff. Primary vs. secondary is easy for the former, but I agree that the emotional stuff is harder.

Being the analytical/mathematical sort I am, I've often toyed with developing a scale. I am reminded of how, ages ago, when mrstickman would suggest playing Morton's List at any opportunity, learning of one particular game from the book. Each person makes a list of their moral rules, from least to most important. They then spend an hour starting at the top of the list and breaking rules.

I think of love in similar practical terms: love is what leads me to do things that I would otherwise consider unworthy of effort and/or wrong. From that perspective, your bullet-taking measure is spot-on, I think: it's recognizing how far you're willing to go for someone, and recognizing that such a thing is probably the truest measure you can provide of your depth of feeling for them.