Love is not exactly anything, as we can see by the definitions above and surely the definitions below, as well. I don’t think there will ever be any agreement about what love is. There might be a pretty vague consensus, but that’s it.
In recognition of that, the first thing I will say about love is that it is an individual thing. Individuals decide whether they love or not. The lover knows if they are a lover. I would say that, depending on age, if you ask whether you are experiencing love, then you are. Love can cover so many situations and so many relationships.
It is a feeling and an emotion, and it can be both a strong, demanding emotion and a calm, supportive emotion. It could feel like a lot of different things, depending on who you are and how you grew up and what your past experiences with love have been.
Love is something that creates uncertainty in many people. They want some guarantee that what they feel is love. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. We are all on our own when deciding if what we feel is love.
Love generally is associated with good feelings about a partner. Sometimes one puts the partner on a pedestal. Sometimes one puts their life ahead of your own. A lot of people think these things are unhealthy. I think there’s more than one way to express your love. Not everyone wants an equal relationship.
Generally, though, there is mutual respect, although that can play out in many ways. There is a desire to face the world as a team. There is a desire to spend time together regularly, although the amount of time can run from all the time to once a year or even longer. Most people want to live together, but that doesn’t mean other arrangements are not love.
Love is felt physically and also expressed physically. There are many forms of physical expression, from prostration (love for a deity) to hugs and kisses and taking care of each other in a myriad of ways (providing shelter, cooking, cleaning, and everything people do to serve each other). Perhaps the most thought of form of physical love is sex.
Sex fits with love in so many ways. The feelings of sex can be as high as the feelings of falling in love. Sex is a creative act in many ways. One way is in how you make love. How you express your feelings by being sensitive to what makes your partner feel good. But perhaps the most significant way is procreation. Sex, for most people, contains the possibility of creating a new life—the ultimate creative act for humans.
There are many typologies of love, and I’m not going to go over them here. They give these different types of love names. I don’t find it a very useful way to think about love. I tend to think about love more holistically.
The last thing I want to say here is that love is a spiritual thing. What do I mean by that? Well, for me, spirituality is about getting outside your own head and connecting with others—sometimes physically, and sometimes perceptually, and sometimes indescribably. Most often indescribably.
Sex initially creates the physical manifestation of being connected spiritually with someone else. Not all sexual acts, however, are aimed at that spiritual connection. Some people believe sex can just be a good feeling. But for a large number of people—most people, I hope—sex manifests the spiritual connection as symbolized by the physical connection. In some cases, people can not tell where they end and the other person begins when they make love.
Making love can also get you in touch with the larger reality. It can feel like you are connected to all the people and all the things on the planet and in space. Somehow, you know that we are all part of a whole which means we are not really separate from anyone or anything. Whatever that implies.
I’ve talked about a few things, but by no means all the different kinds of things that are love. i don’t think love is magic. It’s made of concrete things and concrete relationships. It does, however, also have amazing mental and emotional effects that can put people on top of the world. Everything that all the songs say. Dancing on sunshine. A many-splendored thing.
For me, personally, the experience of love is what I live for and what keeps me alive. Without the love of a number of people, I would probably be dead by now. I am blessed by love. Many of us are. Perhaps most of us are. Even those who don’t believe in it may experience it. It doesn’t matter what I say or what anyone says. Love is an experience that everyone interprets for themselves. But no matter what people conclude, love still makes the world go ‘round.
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