Defining the Undefined Love
#ReaderWrites-4 --- Guest Post by Geethu Thej
Part 1- The un-Defined Love
Lily: I love you!
Pops: Define love
That's how it began. When she blurted out her feelings to her guy, he questioned her on what that thing was even. He then says love is an umbrella, holding many adjectives like care, affection, compassion, desire, attachment, warmth, and devotion each of which has its meaning. Then what's the need for the word love? It was not just this one guy, another bestie, Rick said that it's just chemical reactions ingrained into our neurons from generations on, for human life to exist on earth. Love is a trick and a lie to procreate.
Being a person full of love for every living and non-living thing on earth, I decided to find definitions of love, for my besties.
Love is indeed blind. These guys can’t just see it.
Part 2- The Defined love
What’s this warm and fuzzy feeling inside? A feeling that makes the heart pound and the brain release N number of feel-good hormones. Maybe one can say, love is collateral damage or just like how beauty cannot be caught, beauty has to be caressed, and likewise love has to be felt. So live those moments when you fall in love, you can't put love into words, it’s after all a fall, a fall that could teach you or give you an experience bitter or sweet. Love is not a commitment or relationship, it’s not a promise for a lifetime. One can feel it on anyone (person or pets) or anything (an object or an activity).
She said those three words and there was silence.
What if one's love is in doubt? He is emotionally available but it's a no to the three words. Then it’s time for background verification. It could be that it's something they don’t say in their family. Just find out his relationship with that phrase. His past trauma could be holding him back. Maybe she should revise her ideas about the three words. He could say that love means never having to say anything. An unusual feeling where a man and woman have a similar illness, overriding the baffling incompatibilities, is love. As Bertrand Russell points out “when two people are in love for a good life, there must be purposes which stretch out beyond the particular couple, into the world outside and the future, purposes that may or may not be achievable but are always growing. The seriousness and depth love is capable of, is visible only when love is linked to some infinite purpose”.
Love as defined by some of my friends:
Arty: Love is wanting someone to be around and clinging to each other. Love is what once defined is no longer the same; LOVE is the Loss Of Valuable Energy.
Bug: I remember your challenge: ‘ I love myself a lot, no one can ever love me as much as I love myself ‘. I felt that is the essence of what defines love. Most of us love that self. But when we go beyond ourselves, it makes being in love very fascinating and intoxicating because you are thinking about something or someone besides you. What we add as part of ourselves depends on what we love. That is how love manifests itself in different forms based on what we expand ourselves to.
Rudra: Love is a beautiful feeling between two souls. The more you feel, the more you love.
Nikker: Love has so many dimensions and perspectives. For me, love is something that I would give to my loved ones, without any expectations. Expectations always make us sad. But we always expect the same love in return and if we do get it back, that’s love for me.
The pursuit prevails in each of our journeys, as there are an infinite number of meanings and ways to define love. Lovers don’t stop saying “I love you”, just because they know that they love each other. The facts and feelings about love must be said out aloud each time when you feel it, rather than taking the love and its feelings for granted. I would say it's your choice of definition, but the feeling of love is universal.
About the contributor:
Geethu Thej is a PhD student at VIT university trying to write her first non-technical article besides her technical articles. Cat mom and a plant lover in a trilingual family.
good one :)
Great One!