Love

China

True love is something which we are unable to "make happen" or "create"....

It can be love in any or all its forms, but we cannot turn it on, or unfortunately turn it off either.

We are powerless against the most powerful force in our lives which coexists (often in conflict) with our desire and need to survive, find shelter and sustenance, good health, knowledge and comfort.

I think china, waxes poetic, and thinks deeply.

I can love someone enough, to lay my life on th eline for them, I love can love my country enough t o go to war for it, I can love my fellow man enough to try and save them.

But allas, as long as there are those willing to love unconditionaly, there are those that are willing to exploit them.

curiosity : True love is something which we are unable to "make happen" or "create"....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
....which implies that there is love which isn't true ....?

China

There is "hopeful love" - but that is one of our human weaknesses - we wish to love so desperately - we create that feeling.

True love cannot be created nor deleted from our souls/hearts. It is not something we can make.

We can attempt to replicate the feelings - the good things - even the pain - but that kind of love is
manmade.

We have to be still and let the voices have their way so the feelings may be experienced in serenity even to the point of loss.

Modern man has spent untold hours and billions in attempting to attract "love" among people - but those attempts are a poor and fleeting substitute - and words on a forum cannot describe love for others - in all its manifestations. It is either there or not.

CDNBear: I can love someone enough, to lay my life on th eline for them, I love can love my country enough t o go to war for it, I can love my fellow man enough to try and save them.----------------------------

You are a very brave man ,CDNBear ,how many times have you done any of these above ?

But allas, as long as there are those willing to love unconditionaly, there are those that are willing to exploit them.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

obviously there must be a difference between the love that I,m inquiring , and stupitidy.

curiosity
There is a story that I've read somewhere before ,perhaps you know it .
Satan was walking with his friend and they see this man in front of them bending and scooping something of the ground ,smiling, and puting it into his pocket .What is it that he found ?.asks the friend, LOVE,replies the Satan with a smile on his face. But isn't that sort of against you ?..asks the friend.
Oh dont wory ,replies the Satan, I will help him organize it.

Love is merely a trust relationship.

[quote=china;737019]
You are a very brave man ,CDNBear ,how many times have you done any of these above ?[quote]

To many to count, I will live with the images and demons, for the rest of my life. I regret nothing, but wish I had chosen my battles more wisely.

A huge difference, but what I was saying, is, I agree with you. Love could be the catylist that turns the world around, but there are those that would try to exploit those that take the first steps. It would have to be instant and everybody at once, to be of any use.

I think you are a deep thinker and I take pleasure in the thoughts you conjure up in me. Your spirit is rare and even more beautiful. I wish the eutopias you and I see as we ponder these thoughts, were attainable. I fear though, I myself lack the control to grasp the tools needed to allow it to take place, and I consider myself enlightend. I'm quick to judge, and even quicker to react, with violence no less.

Ty for calling me brave.

the carcal kid
Love is merely a trust relationship----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey c kidd ,you'r on to someting .

What is love? The word is so loaded and corrupted. Everybody talks of love - every magazine and newspaper and every missionary talks of love.Love is merely a trust in a relationship ,I love my country, I love my king, I love some book, I love that mountain, I love pleasure, I love my wife, I love God. Is love an idea? If it is, it can be cultivated, nourished, cherished,twisted in any way you like. When you say you love God what does it mean? It means that you love a projection of your own imagination, a projection of yourself clothed in certain forms of respectability according to what you think is noble and holy.... so to say, `I love God', is absolute nonsense. When you worship God you are worshipping yourself - and that is not love.The purpose of this thread is to see if we can perhaps find the answer to this very question ...what is Love?.....hope we can.

True love dissolves boundaries between individuals. I see it as the universal solvent.

S-lone :
True love dissolves boundaries between individuals. I see it as the universal solvent---------------------------

It does that also,but the question is ....what is the"It",....that disolves the boundaries between the individuals ?

Having been, at the age of 51, in a love relationship for over 35 years, I am forced to disagree...............

It is the "merely" that got me.............a trust relationship between two people is much more significant than a "merely".....

And besides, love can be many things all mixed up together.....it can be trust, friendship, concern, lust, partnership..........

I love my mother, but not the same way I love my brother. I love my best friend, but not the same way I love my wife.............

Love defies definition, but I think the best attempt to define the greatest, or truest Love is the emotion that leads you to care so much for another person that you would take their pain on yourself if you could.

I think there are many levels of love below that..........

The whole damn thing is confusing, chaotic, confounding, and wonderful.

colpy,

By "merely" I was not reducing the relationship, but attempting to "de-mystify" the construct.

Indeed, you may love your mother differently than your brother. They are different relationships, both being trust relationships.

China, I think you may be trying to reduce a very large and complex idea to a simple definition that can't possibly cover it adequately. Is there such a thing as love? Of course there is. My wife and I will celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary at the end of this month, and even after all those years she is still my best friend, my closest confidante, the person I trust above all others to understand and care about me, and she can still make me seethe with lust to a degree no other woman I've ever known can do. That's one kind of love.

I have five siblings, two sisters and three brothers, and they are always welcome in my home, I will always be happy to see any of them, and if they ever get into trouble I can help them with, emotionally, financially, materially, whatever, help will be given freely and unconditionally. And I know they'd do the same for me. That's another kind of love.

We have two children, both grown up and moved out now, but while they lived with my wife and me they got every kind of support and assistance and attention we could give them (though not without discipline and rules), which of course is still available at need and they know it, and they've turned into secure and confident adults that we are both very pleased with and proud of. That's yet a third kind of love.

There are four people--two married couples of longevity similar to ours--that we call our dearest friends. We socialize a lot, we talk a lot, we've had similar life experiences and have come to similar understandings of them, and the sibling rule applies to them as well: you need help I can give, you got it. A fourth kind of love.

And there's a fifth. My wife's mother, still going strong at 88, a magnificent old lady who looks like she might outlive us all. And a sixth: my wife's five siblings, three brothers and two sisters. I don't feel about them quite as I do about my own siblings, but my wife of course does, so the sibling rule applies there too. And a seventh: this evening we were at a dinner party hosted by one of those two married couples, their children were there, and one of their sons-in-law, and the man's mother, another magnificent old lady in her 80s. More people whose company I enjoy and I care deeply about. Three days ago I was a pallbearer at the funeral of that particular magnificent old lady's older sister, because her son, one of my dearest friends, asked me to do that for him and his mother. You can't refuse a request for help like that.

So I'm up to seven different kinds of relationships that the word love legitimately applies to, without even having to think hard about it. I'm sure that with a little more effort I could come up with a dozen more, from certain co-workers we depend on to the abstract notion of "our shared humanity." The common threads in them all are trust, care, and concern. Ever seen somebody injured and rushed to help? Isn't that a response rooted in love?

Love means way too many things to be able to pin it down to a simple definition. I love my wife, I love my children, I love my siblings, I love my wife's siblings, I love my friends, I loved my parents (both, alas, gone now), I love my wife's parents, I love my best friends' parents... same word, but it means something different in every case. Complex questions have complex answers.

Good to hear from you Dexter Sinister,First let me congratulate you and send you and your wife my best wishes for the next 26 years of loving marriege .You are a lucky man Dexer Sinister (though I know that it,s not "luck" that keeps two people together),and I congratulate you once again.---------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dexter Sinister :Love means way too many things to be able to pin it down to a simple definition. I love my wife, I love my children, I love my siblings, I love my wife's siblings, I love my friends, I loved my parents (both, alas, gone now), I love my wife's parents, I love my best friends' parents... same word, but it means something different in every case. Complex questions have complex answers .-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.......and all complex answers are full of b....!
What is love? Can love be divided into the sacred and the profane ,the human and the divine ,or is there only LOVE? Is love of the one or of the many? If i say that I love you;does that exlude the love of the other?Is love personal or impersonal;moral or immoral ? If you love the menkind ,can you love the particular? Is love a sentiment? Is love emotion? Is love pleasure and desire? What is love?
You love your wife,and in that love is involved sexual pleasure , the pleasure of having someone in the houce to look after your children ,too cook.You depend on her; she has given you her body ,her emotions ,her encouragement ,a certtain feeling of security and well being. Then she turns awy from you; she gets bored or goes with someone else, and your whole emotional balance is destroyed and this disturbance which you don't like is .... jealousy .There is pain in it ,anxiety ,hate and violence .
And what you are really saying is.. 'as long as you belong to me ,I love you ,but the moment you don't , I hate you'? As long as I can rely on you to satisfy my demends, sexual and otherwise , I love you ,but the moment you cease to supply what I want ,I don't like you? So there is antagonism between you , there is separation and when you feel separate from another ,ther is no love.But if you can live with your wife without your thought creating these contradictory states, these endless quarrels in yourself then perhaps- perhaps ,you will know what love is. And then you are completely free and so is she . Whereas if you depend on her for all your pleasure ,you are a slave to her.So,when one loves ,there mut be freedom, not only from the other person, but also from YOURSELF.
when you are....love is not
when you are not ....LOVE IS !

Please don,t accept my points of view I,m not an authority .

Trying to define what love is exactly is a bit like trying to describe a color. We experience it so directly that it is very hard to describe it in words.

In complex matters such as this one (love ), it is interesting to reduce our thought to pure rationaltity and objectivity.

Is love an abstract illusion? Or is it a concrete reality?

Thank you my friend, heartfelt good wishes are always gratefully accepted and returned tenfold.

Um... no, I think that's wrong.


No, no, yes, both, no, both, neither, yes, yes, yes, yes. And more. That doesn't even begin to cover it.

No, that's not what it's like at all. She doesn't look after our children, we both look after them together. I do most of the cooking, because I'm retired and she's not, and frankly I'm better at it than she is anyway. And she has never turned away from me. I have never had occasion to doubt her fidelity or loyalty, she is my favourite person and I am hers, and we tell each other that regularly.


Not even close. Not even in the ballpark. To put it crudely, she's not always horny when I am, and neither am I when she is. You learn to roll with it. We are together because we want to be, not because we have some kind of sick co-dependency. We were friends first, long before we became lovers, and we haven't always been madly in love with each other, but the friendship has carried us through those times and we've fallen in love with each other over and over again through the years. Which is fabulous, I highly recommend it. Somebody you can do that with... well, that's the one you marry.

That much is obvious, but you get big points for at least trying to understand. Frankly though, I don't think you have any idea yet what a successful intimate relationship consists of.

and yet, dex, all you have given are examples of trust relationships.

Can you not think of a situation where one loves a person they DON'T trust?

I can.......

Not me, Thank God.

Dexter Sinister,

Quote:
Can love be divided into the sacred and the profane ,the human and the divine ,or is there only LOVE? Is love of the one or of the many? If i say that I love you;does that exlude the love of the other?Is love personal or impersonal;moral or immoral ? If you love the menkind ,can you love the particular? Is love a sentiment? Is love emotion? Is love pleasure and desire?
No, no, yes, both, no, both, neither, yes, yes, yes, yes. And more. That doesn't even begin to cover it.


Quote:
You love your wife,and in that love is involved sexual pleasure , the pleasure of having someone in the houce to look after your children ,too cook.You depend on her; she has given you her body ,her emotions ,her encouragement ,a certtain feeling of security and well being. Then she turns awy from you; she gets bored or goes with someone else, and your whole emotional balance is destroyed and this disturbance which you don't like is .... jealousy .
No, that's not what it's like at all. She doesn't look after our children, we both look after them together. I do most of the cooking, because I'm retired and she's not, and frankly I'm better at it than she is anyway. And she has never turned away from me. I have never had occasion to doubt her fidelity or loyalty, she is my favourite person and I am hers, and we tell each other that regularly.



Quote:
And what you are really saying is.. 'as long as you belong to me ,I love you ,but the moment you don't , I hate you'? As long as I can rely on you to satisfy my demends, sexual and otherwise , I love you ,but the moment you cease to supply what I want ,I don't like you?
Not even close. Not even in the ballpark. To put it crudely, she's not always horny when I am, and neither am I when she is. You learn to roll with it. We are together because we want to be, not because we have some kind of sick co-dependency. We were friends first, long before we became lovers, and we haven't always been madly in love with each other, but the friendship has carried us through those times and we've fallen in love with each other over and over again through the years. Which is fabulous, I highly recommend it. Somebody you can do that with... well, that's the one you marry.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dexter ,I don't know you...( so please agree with me ,if only on this point) therfore it only makes sense that my observations in this post could not be aimed at you personaly ,obviously they were just ... general observations.Don't be so defensive.

China : I am not an authority.....

Dexter States:
That much is obvious, but you get big points for at least trying to understand. Frankly though, I don't think you have any idea yet what a successful intimate relationship consists of.

China : There is one difference between you and I ,Dexter ;I know I,m not an authority...and trust me ,I'm not being defensive ( if you know what I mean).

Dexter Sinister, it's quite nice to hear you speak about your love relationship with your wife. I always figured that IF I was gonna get married, it would be with a girl that I will have known and befriended for quite a while. Your story tells me that I might have the right attitude and it gives me hope.

Good morning China....still at it I see....

I think our conundrum here is we personalize "love" and the concept of what love "is" from our own experiences and that is reasonable, but the word love is in our world in a myriad of forms - even when missing - the "absence of love" and its impact is probably one of the most significant in our world of humanity as we are in this stage of evolution. I am not speaking here of the honor of "being in love" as some have described for that great gift is but one of many we are capable of having.

As we grow to understand ourselves and what we wish for ourselves as we grow through our lives, we try to incorporate "love" into our lives is as many ways as we can - to the point of creating illusions of love as well as ignoring real love -

Whether mankind can appreciate this or not: We are surrounded by the opportunity for love from the moment we are separated out of our mothers into the vast creation called "our world". For those first
few minutes on we begin our sensory journey, eventually integrating experience into knowledge for the
primary goal of survival. Love becomes a necessary part of our journey and whether we seek it, reject it, never acknowledge it, or deny it, we can do nothing about love - it isn't "ours" to create - it is merely there for us to experience.

If I can make a clumsy analogy: Life as we know it is a vast sea of water - if we jump into the water and allow panic or fear to take over, we fight our innate buoyancy - and we begin to fail and sink...spending our lives in anxiety and terror, constantly trying to remain the winner in a battle with the "water" or life....whereas if we turn ourselves over to the water "life" and allow ourselves to become a part of it - we float and are supported by it. Love is part of that water (or life).

For some reason we humans continue to fight at what is going to be - and love is one of those experiences as I said before, we have absolutely no control over - while insisting it is "our choice" when it never was.
What "we do with love" is our choice - but the love itself in all of its many forms, is just there....

I believe we have dishonored the gift we have been given - the ability to have love and give love in all its forms. Until we learn how to unleash what is more powerful than all the nuclear weaponry and our silly meetings and discussions and negotiations and military and fighting and laws and governments.... until we surrender to the gifts we have been given - all of us - we will never experience life itself.

Need to add something else here: One of the moments of "clarity" in those who reach the taste of love for another is that moment when one can truly forgive another who has harmed us in some way. We have witnessed in the past weeks the Amish people extending forgiveness to the killer of their little girls, the monster who forever changed their pastoral and peaceful lives, and they have in their simplicity without dissent, cleared the path of forgiveness so they may not have to carry the burden of "hate" or "absence of love" with them - it is a heavy burden and they choose to love. One example, but so fitting because we are immediately in touch with the event.

I would be remiss in understanding on a world wide basis, we cannot have a moment of forgiveness - there will always be some who choose to fight life - those who drag us down with their panic - but on a personal level - we are in charge insofar as what we do with love and how we choose to live our lives.

WORD HISTORY A friend is a lover, literally. The relationship between Latin amīcus “friend” and amō “I love” is clear, as is the relationship between Greek philos “friend” and phileō “I love.”

In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend. At that time, frēond, the Old English word for “friend,” was simply the present participle of the verb frēon, “to love.”

The Germanic root behind this verb is *frī–, which meant “to like, love, be friendly to.” Closely linked to these concepts is that of “peace,” and in fact Germanic made a noun from this root, *frithu–, meaning exactly that. Ultimately descended from this noun are the personal names Frederick, “peaceful ruler,” and Siegfried, ”victory peace.”

The root also shows up in the name of the Germanic deity Frigg, the goddess of love, who lives on today in the word Friday, “day of Frigg,” from an ancient translation of Latin Veneris diēs, “day of Venus.”

Thanks JimMoyer

I like that close relationship between friend and love.

We humans have an aversion to using the word love for so many things which we really do regard with love or friendship but dislike allowing it out into the open for fear of rejection perhaps.

you made me think of the line "you can trust me with your money and your life, but not your wife."

relationships can be complex and as such the trust levels in various conditions can vary. So yes, a person can trust (love) another in one way, and yet not in another.

s-lone : Is love an abstract illusion? Or is it a concrete reality?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOVE FIRST, and you will have an answer to the above.

curiosity : Hi EYE Spy.
If I can make a clumsy analogy: Life as we know it is a vast sea of water - if we jump into the water and allow panic or fear to take over, we fight our innate buoyancy - and we begin to fail and sink...spending our lives in anxiety and terror, constantly trying to remain the winner in a battle with the "water" or life....whereas if we turn ourselves over to the water "life" and allow ourselves to become a part of it - we float and are supported by it. Love is part of that water (or life
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beautiful anology. Yes , I think it is Love that keeps us "afloat", makes "the ride smooth", withot us realizing it.

There is also much sorrow in our life and we do not know how to end it. The ending of sorrow is the beginning of wisdom. Without knowing what sorrow is and understanding its nature and structure, we shall not know what love is, because what I read from the posts above , for some of us love is sorrow, pain, pleasure, jealousy. When a husband says to his wife that he loves her and at the same time is ambitious, has that love any meaning? Can an ambitious man love? Can a competitive man love? And yet we talk about love, about tenderness, about ending war, when we are competitive, ambitious, seeking our own personal position, advancement and so on. All this brings sorrow. Can sorrow end? It can only come to an end when you understand yourself, which is actually 'what is'. Then you understand why you have sorrow, whether that sorrow is self-pity, or the fear of being alone, or the emptiness of your own life, or the sorrow that comes about when you depend on another. And all this is part of our living. When we understand all this we come to a much greater problem, which is death.But that's not a topic of this thread .