The nature of love.

[Tokzic]

Re: The nature of love.

wow i came into this thread just now thinking "did i provoke this" but then i noticed the date

funny how everyone seems to think of the same things around the same time

I would define love simply as finding extreme joy in knowing someone intimately. The negative is an interesting concept, but I don't know if I'd define it as love. Not finding happiness in love, but being unhappy when void of it isn't love, it's dependence.

[All_That_Chaz]

Re: The nature of love.

The negative interests me because something you constantly hear in today's culture is how those who are truly in love are those that experience extreme depression when the two are separated. It seems that the actualy relationship is ignored and instead the validation of the feeling occurs after the fact. However, one could argue that love is not a joy but an obsession. In that case the test of the obsession occurs after the relationship ends.

[devonin]

Re: The nature of love.

So you can't truly know what you had was love until it ends and you feel crappy?

[All_That_Chaz]

Re: The nature of love.

I'm not saying the negative and the positive have to be mutually exclusive. I did so in my example to simplify.

Here's a common dialogue between friends that might better describe the situation better:
Dan - "Goddammit I'm so depressed."
Paul - "What's wrong, dude?"
Dan - "I broke up with Cindy, I don't know what I'm going to do. I just want to die. I can't live without you."
Paul - "Aww, that sucks man. You guys were awesome together. But you can't let it get you down. Enjoy yourself! Maybe find someone new!"
Dan - "How can you even suggest finding someone new?! I don't know how I'll get over her! It's like you have no feelings at all. You don't even know what love is."
Paul - "Dude, chill."

[Zythus]

Re: The nature of love.

Are you asking for the definition of love or how love is "supposed" to be?

You basically recreated my topic:
Love, What is it?

[All_That_Chaz]

Re: The nature of love.

You're not even the first person to link to that thread in here, so you obviously haven't read my thread, which does not emulate your thread in the slightest. Here I ask the very specific question over whether love is related more with the positive feelings when it is experienced or the negative feelings when it is absent.

[Zythus]

Re: The nature of love.

Here I ask the very specific question over whether love is related more with the positive feelings when it is experienced or the negative feelings when it is absent.

Seeing that you already justify that love is a positive thing, somehow, it is my fault for not understanding.

Negative.
For self explanatory proof, just read some of the love poems in Literature.
We humans crave this endearment as an instinct, we are in love with being in love, and nothing more. Seeing how you topic "differs" greatly from mine, I would cease to go one step further to justify it.

[devonin]

Re: The nature of love.

He doesn't justify that love is positive, he simply asked a question and then provided his own view of the answer. That doesn't mean he even thinks his view is necessarily correct, just that as a starter to the discussion, here is what he thinks about the question he asked.

Looking at the two OPs, I agree with Chaz that his thread is asking a fundamentally different thing than yours. You were looking to answer the question of what love is, in the sense of what kind of thing it is, quantitatively; and Chaz is asking more psychologically which of the two states of love we most strongly identify with, the positive aspects of being in love, or the negative aspects of the aftermath of love.

You also just said "negative" which I assume means you are answering his question with "It is the negative aspects of love that we identify with" and then go on to say that "we are in love with being in love, and nothing more" which suggests instead that you feel we identify with the positive aspects of love more.

I guess the question was complex enough after all to justify being its own thread.

[Shenlon]

Re: The nature of love.

I would have to say that I think most people identify with the positive aspects of love. I mean, love can make someone do some pretty great - or pretty terrible - (or pretty stupid) things. But it is an upward momentum. It is an active drive, not a reactive or neutral emotion. Yea.

And while I guess someone could say 'well by that understanding almost all emotions are positive because they make you want to do something'. And that is true. To all of you I say go away. And after thinking about it some more, I realize that instead of telling you to go away, I really mean that the fundamental difference is love is an emotion that I believe <i> should be </i> tailored toward someone or something else. You do things for them. Not because of or in spite of. When you're super sad/depressed and want to kill yourself, well, you may also want to kill yourself for loads of other reasons, like to escape torture, or to end current suffering, or from curiosity. When you're angry, and it's one of those deep-seated angers that doesn't rely on momentary passion, I am of the opinion that people do things for themselves. Anger is a selfish emotion. But love...

What other emotion can drive someone to do all sorts of crazy things for the sake of making someone else feel better or to be happy? If your heart is broken, you have all that raw emotion and the wound isn't cauterized so it's just bleeding everywhere, with no true outlet, but instead of that being negative I think it's just a positive force that is being blocked. Hell I think if you get your heart broken, you should buy a dog or a cat or a muskrat, and try to channel your unsatisfied, lingering emotions in a way that is applicable to the pet. Or... drink a lot of Whiskey.

[Zageron]

Re: The nature of love.

In my opinion 'Love' is the greater sense of rhythmic synchronization with another being. Be it animal or human the sense will be the same. If an extended period of time near someone and healthy arguments, agreements, laughs, and perhaps romance take place, the two will find themselves deeply in sync. Their inner Rhythm will beat steadily with the other.

This Rhythm can be broken by an external force however, be it voluntary or involuntary (rape or a serious accident), when the arguments heat up beyond a certain level, or perhaps the two will spend time apart. The Rhythm will loose it's focus and become out of Sync.

Reading other responses... the Drive that could cause one to try to forcefully synchronize ones beat with another. It is caused by the instability of ones lifestyle or the longing to become synced with another. It works, theres no doubt about it, but one is more likely to create a successful relationship (a perfect synchronization) if they let the beats slowly meet the same tempo.

[All_That_Chaz]

Re: The nature of love.

What other emotion can drive someone to do all sorts of crazy things for the sake of making someone else feel better or to be happy? If your heart is broken, you have all that raw emotion and the wound isn't cauterized so it's just bleeding everywhere, with no true outlet, but instead of that being negative I think it's just a positive force that is being blocked. Hell I think if you get your heart broken, you should buy a dog or a cat or a muskrat, and try to channel your unsatisfied, lingering emotions in a way that is applicable to the pet. Or... drink a lot of Whiskey.

It is this part of your post that interests me the most. I have to say I completely disagree with you when you say that you're upset simply because you have so much love to give and no one to impart it upon. If this were the case, yes, a pet would probably solve a lot of the problems. Or quickly getting into another relationship would also do it. However, this rebounding often doesn't really assuage the depression but only reaffirms how miserable you are without the person you had before. The rebound relationship can never live up to the serious relationship you had prior. It only serves to solidify the feelings you had for the person you're no longer with, making them even more special, and making you even more depressed because you're no longer with them.

[Shenlon]

Re: The nature of love.

Chaz, I believe you misunderstood what I meant. I never once said anything about someone being upset because they have all this love to give and no one who wants it, but I see how you can take that from my paragraph. Let me try to be more clear. What I meant was that if your heart is broken, and you come out of a serious relationship or a relationship where you may/may not have been in love but it certainly felt that way to you, to suddenly be denied the opportunity for channeling all that love, can lead to heartache and misery. A pet is an aid to getting over heartache. Substitution is a common form of therapy. But it was just a simple example. The inherent problem with rebound relationships is that they aren't meant to last, but to say they are often counter-productive I think isn't true. A rebound is there to help you get over a girl or boy. And yea - they might depress you or fail to capture your interest/heart for a laundry list of reasons but the fact you've gotten another person is a step in the right direction. That is to say, trying to move on, and channeling those pent up feelings you have.

Of course the stifling feeling of heartache could simply evaporate. It's a complicated thing (no ****) and I'm no love doctor. Well I am... but unless you want advice on spicing up your sack life, I'm really just throwing out ideas. Truth be told my opinion on this has changed, and I suspect it'll change again depending on how I feel. Sigh.

[All_That_Chaz]

Re: The nature of love.

I really don't see how I misunderstood you. What I said was that I don't believe in the effectiveness of substitution in the case of getting over a serious relationship. However, I think there is room to disagree with my opinion and after all, that's kind of what I'm trying to get at with this topic.

So just so I get where you're coming from; you associate love more to the positive feelings while you're in love than to the negative feelings when it is absent, correct?

[Frozen Beat]

Re: The nature of love.

I had love once.

And I don't want it again.

In this case. Love is a negetive thing.

[Lipidman]

Re: The nature of love.

Is unrequited love classified as something else? It's been said that love can either be associated with the positive feelings while in love or the negative feelings when love is absent, but what about love that is absent (in a reciprocal sense) and yet you still feel the postive effects of being in love?