What is love?

This question came up in class today and of course we all had a hard time answering it. Granted it was a theology course so the idea was to connect love with God but this is besides the point. Do we all actually know what love is? I mean until that moment I can say that I never really thought about what it was. Well at the end of the class our Prof. had gotten it all down to two words: Free choice. I was wondering if this two word definition was broad enough to encompass what most people feel is love. So do you agree or disagree?

I guess in a way it does encompass my version...which is my status:

Love isn't just a feeling, it is a verb. Love is sacrifice, commitment, compromise, affirmation, appreciation...

This isn't a theology version, though I'm sure some could make it that way. I am applying these actions to other people, not gods.

Anyway, tying it to the original definition, everyone has free choice of whether or not to act upon these actions (i.e. sacrifice, commitment, etc)...it sort of works. More than that though, I think Love is making the choice to sacrifice, commit, compromise, affirm, appreciate, and much more.

Love, to me, is the willingness and desire to give up that which is most precious to us for a cause or person.

I suppose that definition is a bit like a hopeless romantic.

The fact is, love manifests itself in so many different ways it is hard to pinpoint it exactly.

*ponders*

Love is a lost rose, and each hand picks at a garden to try to find that one perfect flower, but there is no true perfection in love. It is an impossible ideal for humanity, but we try our best anyway. When love is found, instead of picking flowers, we turn around and cultivate that garden, trying to restore damage we never knew we did, and trying to spread wisdom of wounds to others to add safety to this wild frenzy.

... *smacks herself*

Anyway. I don't know. It's like a catch 22. If you love god or man or your soulmate enough to treat it like true love, you are pretty damn nuts in the average person's opinion. If you don't, it isn't true love to your god, or to anyone. The best anyone can hope for to God is commitment and respect. To each other, open-mindedness and friendship. And to the one we decide to love for the rest of our lives, loyalty above life itself and the willingness to confide our deepest fears as well as the same "love"s we show to God and our friends.

That is the ideal situation in my opinion anyway.

Here is what I think:

Most of the current day philosophies of love came from Courtly love principles set up in the late 1000s. Then the poets got a hold of the ideals and hence the duplicity of contradicting statements. Then they tried to apply these philosophies to the crusaders to calm them down while at home. So, to me, the history of the idea gives us some inability to actually define love because before this point in time, in terms of history, it was a rarity. I like the definition given in class. Free choice, to me, means that one person chooses to show themselves as fully as possible and include all the flaws. Then the other person in the relationship has the choice to accept the love and in return show themselves with their flaws.

The same can be said about siblings or children. It’s the choice of the parent to continually seek the best interest for their children. I know I continually try to help out my younger sister. Then the ones being ‘helped’ have the choice to listen to the advice or to chose a different way of helping themselves. There is always a choice to be made on both parts of the relationship.

This also excludes any type of obsession because obsessions remove choice from the equation.

Anyway that’s what I thought of the whole situation.