Hey all
Im new to this forum, I stumbled across it on my search to define the word love. I obviously am not looking to define the word in any generic sense of symbolism. The word as commonly used implies a connection that is worthy sacrifice. The definition is a symbol pointing to a lable known as a feeling ( I guess). Is love subjective? or is it universal? Does love have to create in its wake an opposite and “negative” reaction? Is “love” just as ignorant as “Hate”(loves opposite?).
My goal is to express love in such a manner that the choice to spread love is done so intelligently/systemically.
As something beautiful…and rare, love is kinda hard to define. To try to define it is to ask for being misjudged by other people. I can assure you that most people here would laugh at your definition of love no matter what it would be…that is no irony, I am sure.
Love is something we do, based on very physical and pragmatic reasons.
An evolutionary trait of the brain benificial to replication of the speicies.
History has shown this to be a large factor in human behavior, but only one of many. History has also shown movements founded on the principle of ‘love’ always move in the direction of corruption and ambition.
So…yes…a ‘peaceful revolution’ is possible…with a little genetic bioengineering of our species…
“When did you fall in love with Spinoza’s ideas? Was it love at first sight?”
Maybe second sight. I first fell into Spinoza about 10 years ago when exploring Deleuze, after reading Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, a book which pretty much blew my mind. I read just about everything Deleuze wrote after that, and I cannot recall but certainly Deleuze’s take on Spinoza, bodies and freedom must have sunk into me. I tried him though, and he was opaque. Then in the last few years I started studying Campanella, and working my way back into the roots of his thinking, finding myself in Plotinus. This along with a concurrent interest in Gnostic philosophy, ancient Greek pre-socratic philosophy, somehow married itself one day this year, when I re-entered into Spinoza’s Ethics. I recalled how Deleuze had commented that between the austere lines of the defintions, a wind of freedom blew somehow. And this time I felt it. Spinoza is strange. You can look and look and see hardly anything more than a few stilted axioms and defintions. Then all of a sudden the vista snaps into view. His was a very interesting project.
Love isn’t that complicated… The English language just sucks. Most other languages have multiple words for the multiple feelings that we jam into the word love.
I’m afraid I have to disagree a bit there. When I was learning English (still learning in fact), I find the most troublesome thing is that it’s difficult to express a particular subject by using the appropriate word. This problem doesn’t even exist in some other languages in the first place, it is so in English because the English have such delicate introspective mentality, so delicate so that their language is flooded with adjectives, may of which possess the same meaning but the subtle difference is almost always neglected by a foreigner like me. maybe this partially explains the fact that the English can’t help themselves but to frown a bit on the foreigners from now and then, to them, the foreigners who are utterly unaware of this speciality of the language are jerks without cultivated civility, which of course is a very false assumption. The best way for a non-English-expert to deal with the English is to be laconic… oh this is about love, sorry.
Affection, warmth, intimacy, crash, feeling, admiration… I’m sure some Englishman around town would give you more.
I’m English, and I’m still learning the language. If you want lots of fancy words for love then read Shakespeare’s Romances, or his love sonnets.
The thing is that the English are, as you say, very introspective, but we all know that and don’t really talk about it. The French (for example) are similarly introspective, but publicly acknowledge this through books and films and so on. When one is in the presence of foreigners one has to exhibit one’s nationality. Since much of the national character of England (inasmuch as there is one) is tacit, dealing with foreigners isn’t easy.
True, especially those who aren’t able to appreciate other cultures. I find those dickholes mianly among the elder generations, fortunately young people today around the world are generally open and positive to foreign stuff - vive globalisation! Fuck tradition.
This may disappoint some people (Tom) and I don’t necessarily hold this opinion but I have a book on pscyhoanalysis and perversion by Claire Pajaczkowska and in the final analysis she suggest’s that love is akin to a perversion!!
In short - the life forces of destruction and creation - form love!!
Oscar Wilde "Man destorys the things he loves!
Two basic instincts operate against each other or combine!
Parjaczkowska writes “In biological function the two basic instincts operate against each other or combine each other. Thus the act of eating is a destruction of the object with the final aim of incorporating it, and the sexual act is an act of aggression with the purpose of the most intimate union”
At this level - love can be interpreted as a kind of carnal obssession: fusing intimacy and possession! What do you think?
I say (maybe) RUBBISH!
“Loves function is to fabricate unknownness” - e.e. cummings
It sounds a bit like the “Magic Eye” autostereogram. Or it perhaps a bit more like the ancient mystic study of the Kabbalah.
So this is a recent love affair for you, eh Dunamis? Ah, young love. You see that girl a few tims and she does nothing for you. Then one day you see her in a new light and suddenly you see just how special she is. She is radient. For in the beloved we see a window to Eternity. Only in togetherness can we rediscover the totality of being.
I think love is an mind set that is born, blooms, lives and dies within the mind of the individual. It only desires to be attached to an external object. Some people are more predisposed to it than others. I think it seeks an outlet- the function of “loving” another person- self expression.
love isn’t as ignorant as hate
to love someone is to know that you love them.
to not love someone is to not know that you love them.
and hate isn’t the opposite of love.
hate is a pathological distortion of anger.
anger is healthy when expressed non-destructively. it releases disharmony.
i doubt pure love leaves a negative.
i believe in peaceful revolution. obviously you can’t force it, though.
but you can help spread it.
Love is simply to allow people to be exactly who they are without trying to change them. We are all in different states of evolution and understanding, so who am I to alter your needed experience to what I feel is best for you?
The problem with a term like love, not unlike anything else, is the fact that everything we do and think is influenced not only by our understanding of the nature of things, but also our emotional attachments to said word. To view something as the true observer without being bogged down by all the external influences we adopt into our emotional and spiritual beings, is indeed a rare find.
What is love?
Love is how your body tells you that you really, really like that person, and would like to be intimate with said person.
What is the effect of love?
Love can vaporize common sense and responsibility. It can make you do strange things that you wouldn’t have done otherwise.
