PART 2: Other Valuables that come with Love

I hope you didn't think I would leave Love to its simple fate and dismiss it!

I actually think there is a lot of value in the other things that we call Love--Just I think we need to expand our use of language about these things and focus on the right things.

--Thanks for being a loyal reader, let me do some of the heavy lifting and explain away these other things that poets and philosophers call love:

1- Pure Love - A permanent, caring interest in another person's life and their success.
2- Equality - Treating another person as an equal, or the belief that one's self is another's equal.
3- Emotions - Positive emotions triggered by another that motivate someone to shape their own life.
*4- Selflessness - Motivation to put another person ahead of one's self.
*5- Connection- [Two parts:] Mental - Curious desire to understand and learn more about another. Emotional - Curious desire to experience things with another person.
*6- Passion & Lust - Desire to live through a fantasy with another person.


Explanation:

1- I've already touched on pure love. --This is what I think we should call "love" because when you take everything else away, this is what you are left with is the sincere interest in the other person. The rest of these associations with love often come along with this kind of love.

2- Some people are attracted to the feelings associated with being an equal with another person. We like to be around equals because it enforces our beliefs, values, and lifestyle (our choices). When we feel we have found someone who is our equal on some level, we are attached to having them around us and we start to feed off of them.

3- Any relationship will trigger emotions; but when the majority of the emotions that another person triggers in us are appealing to us, we start to desire to have that person around more often. When excitement is triggered in us, it means that our subconscious is expecting something positive to happen and for us to be prepared for it. When desire is triggered, our subconscious is urging us to reach out and strive for the thing we desire.


The latter three associations people make with love, in my opinion, are branches from the original three.

4- Selflessness comes about after we possess a caring interest in another person and want them to succeed. We put ourselves on the line because we want the other person to live on and to reach what they are searching for, whether it's happiness or some other success.

5- Connection comes from desiring to be an equal with someone else. --Let me be clear, there is no way you can really be an equal with another person--we're too different and we are shaped differently. The influence that someone has on you merely shapes you in a new direction, it doesn't replicate itself into you because you still have to interpret and internalize it for yourself.

6- Passion and Lust come from emotions you feel. Sometimes your conscious and subconscious dream up a fantasy between yourself and another person--often times this is physical, but it can apply to anything emotional or mental as well. Once you have a dream and you see the possibility of it coming true, then it starts to become a passion as you work for it. It becomes a lust when it occupies your mind a majority of the time or is capable of putting you out of your thoughts because it is so overwhelming.



Selflessness makes for a better world.
Connection makes for a better world.
Passion makes for a better world.

I'd say these are all GREAT things! Emotions are good, Equality is good, and love is good.

Keep love simple.
Start using the correct terms please--people will understand you better and they'll probably be more likely to give you what you want the more direct you are with them.


PART 3: Coming Soon!

PART 1: What is Love? Passion, Feelings, Connection,Selflessness, Friendship--All are Explored!

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" -- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Inversely, just because you call it a rose does not mean it is a rose. Plato seemed to be arguing this when he described Truth as what is actually there rather than what the majority of people think is truth.

PART1: What is Love?


People over-complicate Love. They call things that aren't love, "love;" and they call things that are love by different names. Love really isn't that difficult to understand, and so I've provided a lovely definition below which I would love for nay-sayers to argue with me over and tell me I'm wrong so that I have opportunity to further argue why I'm right. As well, I decided to debunk a few of Love's mysteries here--the things that people claim is love but really isn't--You know...Lust, Friendship, Good Feelings, Connection, or the desire to be Selfless.

Love is a permanent, helpful interest in another living organism. 

A) It is an Interest in that it is a concern for the other; desire to know about, hear news of, and be involved in the life of the other.

B) It is Helpful in that it is a positive desire to benefit the other person.

C) It is Permanent in that it can never go away once you have it.

If you don't have all three, then it isn't love, because the policeman might have an interest in what you are doing and be helpful to your cause, but he doesn't love you. Your enemies might have a permanent interest in you but not want to be helpful. Charity groups can be permanent and helpful (they will always help you), and yet not really take an interest in you or keep track of you, but that does not mean they love you.

1 - Love is not Passion--those intense emotions that lure you in and instill desire within you for the other person, or the fantasies you want to act out--those are Passion and not Love. The word Passion should be used instead of Love when describing this sensation.

2 - Love is not a Feeling. Excitement is a feeling, Suspense is a feeling, Confusion is a feeling, Worry is a feeling, but Love is not a feeling. "You are Excited to see her," not, "you are Loved when you see her;" when you confuse Love with emotions you sound like a little child who is incapable of describing how he or she feels because it is a new feeling for him or her.

3 - Love is not a deep Connection. When two people love each other, they might be on "separate pages." Their motivations, goals, and aspirations might be very different and the direction they are headed in life might be completely polar and yet they can still love each other. You don't often understand the people you love, in fact it is rare and difficult to really understand and empathize with those you love.

4 - Love is not Selflessness. Being charitable and giving of yourself doesn't mean you are in love--it means you are a giving person. Being selfless and sacrificing yourself for other people does not mean you love them--how many soldiers throughout history have died sacrificing themselves for a country they were disillusioned by? How many soldiers loved every person in their country--even the ones they hated? No, Love and selflessness are two different things.

5 - Love is not friendship. You can love people who you are not on speaking terms with. You can love people who do not care for you back. You may not consider yourself an equal to those who you love. What parent sees their young children as completely equal to them--and yet parents love their children.

Instead, Love produces Friendship, Love motivates Selflessness, Love establishes Connection, Love triggers all sorts of Feelings, and Lust is heightened by Love. Yet, you can be any of these things without love because they are different; that is all, and Love is no guarantee that you will have these five things.

When you love someone, you want them to succeed at life, you want them to be happy, you want them to make it, and even when you go your separate ways, you still care about their success and happiness and you still want them to make it.

Don't make Love complicated when it is such a simple thing--A permanent, helpful interest in another living organism.

PART2: Other Benefits that come from Love


The problem I see is that there are plenty of people "Searching for Love" when really they should be searching for something else (friendship, good feelings, selfless people, passion, or a connection); and there are people who are searching for something else when they should be searching for Love. THAT is why I wrote this article.