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| Preach: By any other name... |
Posted by
Geist on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 04:02 AM PST
Love. Everybody wants it, and once they have it, they don't know what to do with it. Most people don't even know that they had it until it's gone. It's also pretty scary. I'm here to try and help you with that. I'll explain what it is, as best I can, and then we'll talk about what you have to do to find it.
I want love. I'm content without it, but I would like it. I'm not even referring to a lifetime commitment, or the kind of love you find in fairy tales, but romantic love would be nice. Now, there are some kinds of love I am not content without, such as familial love, for example. We'll be discussing five types: Romantic Love, Sexual Love, Sacrificial Love , Familial Love, and Platonic Love .
"If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?"
-- Lily Tomlin
Romantic Love
This is what most people spend their time looking for. It's the kind of love where you send flowers to someone for no reason, or you do the little things that truly matter to them. For me, I'm absolutely thrilled if someone offers me a backrub, or they give me a little note just to say they're thinking about me. I would be overcome if someone did something spontaneously romantic, from something as simple as bringing me a single flower that they picked on their way to see me, to being as extravagant (though not expensive) to plan an evening of surprises, like filling balloons with small items and having me pick which ones to pop, or blindfolding me and driving me off to somewhere I've never been to have a picnic. Personally, I've always wanted to have a picnic in the middle of a sidewalk.
Romantic love is what's probably most important to me. It helps people feel loved, adored, and cherished. It's a beautiful thing if you can express it appropriately. But be warned -- if you let someone know you're capable of expressing it, and show it to them, and then you stop, you're probably in trouble.
"You can't buy love, but you can pay heavily for it."
-- Henny Youngman
Sexual Love
This is what most people actually experience in their lives. It's the sort of love that's just that much stronger than lust. It's not even necessarily just about sex. It's all sorts of physical attraction, and the expression thereof. It's appreciating the way a sunbeam glances off of someone's hair, or the way their eyes shine down deeper than you can imagine. It's how you feel when someone's touch glances across your hand, how just being near them is the most wonderful thing you can possibly have hoped for. Part of it is even that wonderful warm and fuzzy feeling you have inside when that one person is even close to you. When it becomes true sexual love, and not lust, it's absolutely glorious.
This is not as easy to come by as most people think. Lust is easy to come by, but sexual *love* is not. I don't think I can really emphasize that distinction enough. Lust is the uncontrollable desire to get inside someone's pants, my dears. Sexual love is, along with everything I've described above, loving someone for what they're willing to do for you sexually, a love enough on your part to ensure that they are fully satisfied, and above all, appreciating their body for what it is. And loving it for that.
"The closer I'm bound in love to you, the closer I am to free."
-- Indigo Girls
Sacrificial Love
Sacrificial love is the kind where you're willing to sacrifice anything and everything for someone. I'll bite down and admit it for this one. I've got this kind of love for my friend Jamie. This is actually the hardest to come by in a healthy situation. Most people willing to do this are either very codependent, or passive-dependent. Either way, that's bad. Now, I feel that it's healthy in this situation for one good reason. Jamie will never ask me to do something that's bad for myself.
How do I know that, you may ask? I don't. But I trust him, because I have this love for him, and I know in my heart he will never betray that. I've also known Jamie for 6 years now. That makes a large difference, and plays a very large role in why I'm willing to trust him as much as I do. Be very careful in committing yourself to this kind of love. It is not something to be taken lightly.
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."
-- Matt Groening
Familial Love
This love is the sort that you have for your family, whether they're blood family (family of origin) or spiritual family (family of choice). It's when you want to take care of someone when they're sick, or make lunch for them, or help them with their problems. For me, anyhow, it overlaps a great deal with platonic love, but I consider my close friends to be a part of my family. It's also a sort of deep understanding; the kind that comes from having known someone your (or their) entire life, and still being able to somehow love them and interact with them as human beings.
"When yer in a funk, people in love are a royal pain in the patookus."
--Berkely Breathed in Outland
Platonic Love
This is the love you feel for your friends. It covers helping with problems, being willing to do things for them, talking to them for hours about nothing just because you can, going out and having fun, and forgiving them when they mess up. This is, in my opinion, the best kind of love. (read in a Scottish accent:) It's great! It's really great...
"Dance like no one's watching, love like you'll never be hurt, sing like no one's listening, live like it's heaven on earth."
-- William Pukey
Other Comments
So now that we've covered types, lets go into sordid details. First, remember this, if you learn nothing else from what I've said here. Love never dies. It changes, but it never dies. With that said, do not misinterpret that so that you can believe that someone who loved you in one way won't love you differently later. (Example: moving from loving someone romantically to loving them platonically, or moving from loving them sexually to loving them sacrificially.) I believe very strongly that if all 5 types of love explained here are attained for one person, that is what most people would call true love.
You can not make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved; the rest is up to them. And you can not be someone who can be loved until you learn to love yourself. If you are unhappy, you can NOT be happy with another person. Just as you are not responsible for anyone else's happiness (or any of their emotions, for that matter), no one is responsible for yours but you. YOU are the only one who has to wake up with you every single day, for the rest of your life. You are the one who sees yourself in the mirror. You are the one who spends every waking moment with yourself.
And so you have to care for yourself. And if you don't care for yourself, you CAN NOT care for anyone else. You will put too much energy into your insecurities and pain, and things will fall apart. Again, you may feel free to learn from my mistakes. I learned these things the hard way, and if I can spare one person this pain... it won't fix everything I've done, or justify it, but my losses will not have been in vain. I have done a great many stupid things in my time, as everyone in this world has. Few of them rival the things I have done to those I loved because I was too insecure and frightened to be able to express it in a healthy way to them. Saying "I love you" is not enough. Words can never convey what actions do.
Be true to yourself, and your heart. Be someone who can be loved. Everything else will fall into place. It may be someone you least expect. It may take time. But if you truly learn to be who you are, and love who you are, people will love you for that. I love you for that.
"Who needs a dream? Who needs ambition? Who'd be the fool in my position? Once I had dreams, now they're obsessions; hopes become needs, lovers possessions."
-- "Where I Want To Be," Chess
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| By any other name... | Login/Create an account | 25 Comments |
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Re: By any other name...
by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com)
on Apr 15, 2003 - 07:35 AM
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This was very well stated. It makes sense, and is a good guide to what love is and what love can be. Thanks for writing this, Geist...
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Re: By any other name...
by Dolorosa (SixOfSwords@IU.zzn.com)
on Apr 15, 2003 - 10:52 AM
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Damn. Well written, and looks like experiance was the best sort of research. I applaud your efforts, they most certainly were not in vain. Love's one of those things that although an intimidating subject, is immensely difficult to portay without seeming an ass, or experiance without killing yourself. You have succeed admirably my friend. Fair winds and following seas to this.
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Re: By any other name...
by Merry_Widow on Apr 15, 2003 - 06:18 PM
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For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, or screaming across the alkaloid fats in a jet-powered, monkey-navigated...
That's love baby.
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All You Need Is Lunch
by Monolycus on Apr 15, 2003 - 09:25 PM
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I applaude your aristotellian approach at codifying that most elusive of qualities, but you forgot the outdated concept of courtly love (minne). It is close to what you have filed under platonic love, but not quite. Should you ever come to any definitive conclusions, I'll be all ears.
"I really don't know love at all"
--Joni Mitchell
~M.
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Eros, Philio, Agape
by KatB on Apr 15, 2003 - 10:20 PM
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I though I’d bring up the three aspects the ancient Greeks had for love:
Eros: The sexual love (duh…) – more like a ’force of nature’. Associated with the god by the same name, or by the Romans as Cupid. Passion and lust sorts under this term.
Philio: Familiar, or brotherly, love. The ’noble’ love.
Agape: The Divine Love, often called unconditional. The term used originally in the Bible to describe Jesus’ bid for his followers to love one another.
Radical Xians claims this kind of love is impossible to obtain for unbelievers, as it derives from God.
I suppose I truly hope to feel these three things for one and same person and have them returned, at some point.
Right now I’m settling for a crush – it’s spring! ;D
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Re: By any other name...
by Closetgothbabe on Apr 16, 2003 - 01:56 PM
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I dont know love nor does it know me! I mean does it really last till the day you die, or does it always fade away? This doesnt bother me, its just a question. I can live without it or just live with it being here occasionally. This was nice to read though. Maybe this happens for some people.
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Love, love, love
by Arthegarn on Apr 16, 2003 - 03:24 PM
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I also congratulate you on your effort, Geist, which has managed to wake me up from my slumber and make me say something.
And as usual that begins with "I don't agree"
I see your effort is focused on analyzing love by dividing it into separate concepts and then analyzing each one. But is that the real way? Well, Father Arthegarn, who spent a year understanding the Trinity and disagrees.
It's like you are looking at a cube and you want to describe it to us by telling us what's printed on each of the sides of the cube. That will give us a good idea of the appearance of the cube, that's true, and that's what most people will see when they look at it but is it really that? I mean, is there nothing more, or is it there really so much?
You talk about romantic, sexual, platonic love, but not about Love itself, with no surnames. What is it? Does it even exist? Well, I'd say yes it does exist and it is what all those facets of love you have so skillfully described share. It is the condictio sine qua non of the surname, that quality that, if lacked by a feeling, it can never be called love. It is the cube in which the pictures are printed, which has one more dimension than the prints themselves.
We could talk a lot about the characteristics of love, about how it is a projected feeling felt towards someone (or something), how it is a living of another's life. But I do here say that there is only one feeling that can truly be called Love and that all those you describe is Love seen through a different prysm or with different clothing. What is really important is what there is underneath. What is there of sexual love if I take away the sex? Is there still love? Or of family love of I take away the family tie? Is there still love? I say there is and that all these share one quality and that this quality is Love
And that quality is simple: Love is the desire to make someone else happy.
Arthegarn
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Chemistry
by KatB on Apr 16, 2003 - 06:43 PM
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Aaah, I was hoping for someone more knowledgeable than me to bring up the facts om chemistry, as it is a topic I'm not all that good at.
What I DO know though is that the feeling most people know as 'love' is made up by a chemical reaction in the brain, and usually wears off after 2 years, +/-.
So when two years have passed, whatever you are left with, is the Real McCoy, IMHO.
THAT is one of the reasons I worry about friends committing themselves before that time have passed, although I'm pretty sure I'd have done the same in their situation.
After all, love IS the best thing that may happen to you, whatever it derives from.
So please, anyone with a better knowledge of chemistry, join in?!
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You forgot one
by JohnnyWormtown on Apr 17, 2003 - 09:04 AM
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My understanding was:
Attraction = The triggering of one's imbedded sex-scripts (what turns you on) ... often interpreted as physical & emotional wants and needs; Alleged instincts.
Familiarity = the unique bonds between people who have contact with one another frequently
Mate Selection/Marriage = the act of searching/finding a person to spend the rest of your life with/have children with.
Romantic love = The sad and confusing attempt to smash familiarity, attraction and mate selection together into one game of courtship. Good feelings and bad feelings included. Some would consider it torturous. Many pre-conceived rolls and rules to follow.
but what you forgot was Authentic Love.
From an existential viewpoint (sorry it's the only one I have), once one has gotten beyond the all the ridiculous made-up rules and existing rolls in life and made their own path based on what is intrsically worth doing, they will have life-goals and perhaps a life-project. They will devote most if not all of their time to this project/goal. This is authenticity.
If, while working on that project, two authentic people find common goals and can work together on that project/towards that goal ... that is authentic love. It is a decision to be together and do together and is compatable with attraction, familiarity and mate selection but not governed by it. It is as unique as the lovers life-goals.
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"Live like it's heaven on earth"
by kelpunkoi on Apr 17, 2003 - 01:21 PM
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I have to say Im honored, cause I first received this well from CGB, and she told me you were inspired to write this because of the pains I was going through. When I read it, I loved you for it. You're very very talented. And more than likely a true romantic just like me. Through different things in these recent times, I've grown a lot and I need all the words of wisdom possible. I think you did a great job, and that one quote "you cant buy love but you can pay heavily for it" it's the truth, but when you have it, it's so worth it. I think, and it's kindof sad, that with love you can only have the all of the above love when you're extremly young, and not completly aware of how cruel the world can be or when you're older & matured and finally settled with the thought of how others are & excepting of it. Right now I know my heart can't be open to something so extreme as the all of the above love, but Im okay with that. And that's a partial thanks to you. Im learning to cope with not being able to change things all the time, and that leads that hope for the all of the above love later in life for me, because Im begining to cope with people in general again. All I got to say is ignorance is bliss, I miss it, but I love who Im becoming. I know some of this doesnt exactly go along with everything, but love is what makes the world go round to me at least, and I know Id be nothing with out it. It's nice to know, that other's question it, as tough as all of us may want to seem or unwanting of love I may want to seem, in some way one of the above ways we all want love obviously.
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Re: By any other name...
by schmitty on Apr 20, 2003 - 11:00 PM
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truely beautiful insite in to the human heart. i truely agree withe you i was lucky enough to find romantic love and am going to marry her in 3 weeks.
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Re: By any other name...
by gothicmorman (litty_klj@hotmail.com)
on Apr 30, 2003 - 01:06 PM
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just an idea im not saying nething i write is final word and feel free (as im sure you will to contribute comments ideas to my analogy)
it was asked, something about love with out any surnames. that ones hard to wrap the mind around but maybe thats just it and LOVE all on its own is when your mind kinda wraps with another persons and melds into them almost and you dont need any senses or chemistry to have love...
the ruthless
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