Love

Is love an adjective or a verb?

from JoeUser Forums
Love.

It's a word that floats around so easily in our society. Also, is loving someone the same thing as being in love?
I don't know much about love, this kind of love, this romantic love. In fact I truly know nothing about this kind of love. I've been comtiplating it much lately, and have been trying to conclude what true love is.

But, what, truly is love, in the romantic sense? Is it this amazing feeling you get, and you just know. You just know that you're in love. You feel it, you know it. Someone said that you can love someone that you're not even in a relationship with; and that you can be in a relationship with someone and not really love them. Well, what does this mean? Your heart stops when you're around this person, your breathing becomes minimal. Just holding hands with him or her makes you want to die in happiness. I don't know what it's like to be in love, I can tell you that, at least I think I can. If love is defined as a great feeling you get when you're around a certian person, if love is defined as loving your lips touching theirs, if love is not being able to be away from him or her at certian moments, and if love is defined as caring intensely about one person, the way you never have before, then I suppose I have loved and maybe am in love; but I don't think that's how love is defined. Flowers, cards and candy. Think of a lot of the popular love songs today, is that how love is defined? Or is that just a warped view of our culture's "love"? Do you love because of what that other person does for you and how he/she makes you feel? Do you love because you can't help it, because it just is?

Or is love something more? Is love a true and real commitment of spending the rest of your life with that one special person. Is true love knowing that when times get tough and you really want to kill the other person, that in actuality you would die for that person? Is love a sacrafice, giving up of yourself for your boy/girlfriend fiance or spouse? Is love something everyone needs, does everyone need one person to spend the rest of their life loving? When you think about love do you think about your sacrafice for that person, do you think about his or her sacrafice for you? Do you remember all those times you fought and how you wouldn't change it for anything because you're so much closer now? Is this how love is defined. Is love something that's chosen, a verb someone must decide to do?

Maybe love doesn't need a definition. Maybe love is something each one of us feels differently. Maybe I'm just odd in the way that things need to be orderly, things need to have definitions. Maybe I'm too immature or inexperienced to not realize what love really is.

Is love an adjective, a descriptive word of the way one feels, or is love a verb, something that's put into action?
philosophy
4,661 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
"love is a state of mind where the happiness of one person is essential to your own", it's a bastardized quote and I have no idea who the original author is, but that in my opinion pretty much sums up what love is. I don't think love demands sacrifices, nor does it need any to thrive. Everyone does perceive love differently. There is no singular universal definition for it. Love changes and evolves all the time. It's a combination of euphoria, sadness, happiness and despair. Love is full of contradictions. Maybe that's precisely why it's so beautiful and so unique. I don't think I made any sense. It's my feeble masculine brain, that must be it.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
I believe love to be a verb--and I think the clearest demonstrations of pure love are always sacrificial
j-o-a
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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Love is complicated by co-dependence. A co-dependent is only "happy" is someone needs him. Sometimes this need is manipulated by the codependent other times by an alcoholic, drug addict, or other unhealthy person. What differentiates genuine love from co-dependence is that the lover desires to enhance the spiritual growth of the beloved. In romantic love, there is the added sexual attraction. A lover may sacrifice his life, well-being or self-interest for his beloved, but his motive isn't to feel good about himself but to enhance their spiritual growth.

If the love is unrequited, then you don't have a relationship. If one person loves selfishly and the other loves unselfishly, the relationship is lop-sided. None of us loves perfectly. Another issue is that love does not seek to control the other person, but allows him to choose freely, how they are going to love. Some people control by withdrawing their love when they don't get what they want. Others control by trying to manipulate or force the other person to do what they want. Genuine love requires freedom.

Love is not passive, it is active. If your beloved needs something, then you move heaven and earth to get that for them. On the other hand, the lover allows the beloved to love them in return. One isn't always the giver and the other a receiver.

Since love encourages spiritual growth, it grows through the years. The self-centeredness in youth diminishes and understanding comes. Genuine love brings out he best in both people.

Genuine love is faithful and inclusive. The lovers limit their intimacy to each other, but they include others in their love. Their love for each other creates a loving environment for their friends and children.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
1 Co 13, American Standard Version:

4 Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil;
6 rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth;
7 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;
10 but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things.
12 For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.
13 But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

I think that pretty much says it all.

~Dan
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
For those of you not biblically versed (note the double entendre everybody...), let me provide a translation of the above:

Love is patient, love is kind; love does not envy or boast, nor is it prideful. Love does not behave inappropriately, and it is not selfish; it is not oversensensetive, and keeps no record of wrongs. It does not rejoice in wrong, but in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails: but where there is prophecy, speech or knowledge, it shall fall away. For we know and prophesy incompletely, and in love all incompleteness falls away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, felt as a child, and thought as a child; but now that I am a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see as in a mirror, darkly; but then I shall see face to face. Now I know only in part, but then I shall know fully as I shall be fully known. And now, these three things remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.

~Dan
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think this should be posted in the Joke section.

Not to belittle anyone here, but i am struggling to fathom that you are trying to define Love.

BAM!!!
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Muggaz: for more humor, read my article re: love. Link

~Dan
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I agree completely with Mugz...

Trinitie