How to Define Love?

LOVE is the strongest and most important thing in a human life. The majority of songs are written about Love. People have died for Love. Wars have been started and cities have been built because of Love. If it is so valuable why is it so hard to define?

Eskimos, for example, have multiple words that define "snow". Each word provides a more detailed descriptor to explain what kind of snow. As stated in Wikipedia:

"The first reference to Eskimo having multiple words for snow is in the introduction to The Handbook of North American Indians (1911) by linguist and anthropologist Franz Boas. He says: ...just as English uses derived terms for a variety of forms of water (liquid, lake, river, brook, rain, dew, wave, foam) that might be formed by derivational morphology from a single root meaning 'water' in some other language, so Eskimo uses the apparently distinct roots aput 'snow on the ground', gana 'falling snow', piqsirpoq 'drifting snow', and qimuqsuq 'a snow drift."

If "Love" is one of the most important aspects of our lives why aren't there more detailed words that define it? Even philosophers and psychologists have attempted to describe what love is. No one can explain the idea of "Love" with its true meaning.

Just look at all the different definitions of the word "Love". The dictionary defines love in several ways in which we use the word. For example, love is:

1. A strong positive emotion of; affection or pleasure; e.g, "His love for his work." or "I love cooking."
2. Any object of warm affection or devotion or liking: "The theater was her first love". "I love French food".
3. Beloved: a beloved person; used as a term of endearment.
4. A deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction; e.g., "She was his first love" or "She loves her husband."
5. A score of zero in tennis or squash: "It was 40-love!"
6. Sexual love: sexual intercourse between two people. e.g. "They made love." "He hadn't had any love in months".

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Personally, I think for such an important word as "Love" I think it is used too loosely. Or maybe as the Eskimos do, we need more options to refer to the specific kind of "Love" we are speaking about so it is clearly understood.

I do know where all of this need for discovery comes from. It gets complicated when you are dating someone and want to make sure what you say is not taken the wrong way. It makes me uncomfortable to speak in terms of saying "I love... something he does"...because he may read into that meaning that "I love him"...but then again I have to remember that men are simple. If I don't say the exact words "I love you" then I think I am safe, right?

So at the moment, I seem to be on a discovery of "What does Love mean?" How do you define it? More to come on the topic. Stay tuned....

category: general
tags: love resource

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