Defining Love

[wicked woman]

There was an article here (local newspaper) where the writer, who is married for 18yrs wrote that "love is not a feeling, it is a decision". I'm not sure if I can agree with her. Staying commited is a decision. Staying faithful is also a decision. However staying in love? Can you call it a decision and if you do, decision of what? Continue to love? Can you dictate how your heart should feel and act?

If you agree that love is actions (I'm assuming here), then could she mean that you decide what your actions will be? You decide to invest time and yourself into your relationship. You decide to act in ways that will please your beloved. You decide to not act in ways that you know makes your beloved unhappy.

 

[wicked woman]

HMmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... interesting idea... well, it goes back to what your definition of 'love' is, really. If it's a matter of actions, emotional attachment, being fond of someone, being able to tolerate someone, or the range of possibilities in between.

In many ways it's both. We CHOOSE to stick it out, we CHOOSE to look-past someone's qurks and stay with them. On the other hand the reason we stay is because of the FEELING we have when we're with them and that over-rides everything else.

So the feelings motivate our actions that demonstrate our love?

 

[Darkknight2010]

So the feelings motivate our actions that demonstrate our love?

Yes. Action, reactoin. You feel 'a', you do 'b'. It's rather calculating but accurate.

You love your partner, you give them a back-rub.

 

[wicked woman]

Yes. Action, reactoin. You feel 'a', you do 'b'. It's rather calculating but accurate.

You love your partner, you give them a back-rub.

That's what I thought...thanks.

*turns around....my back facing Darkknight...wiggles my ass a bit...'feeling any love?' *

 

[GiveawayGirl]

...'feeling any love?' *

I do! I do!

 

[wicked woman]

I do! I do!

Smothering GG with kisses. (Are my actions clear enough babe? )

 

[Darkknight2010]

That's what I thought...thanks.

*turns around....my back facing Darkknight...wiggles my ass a bit...'feeling any love?' *

Oh yes! Soft kiss on the base of your neck.

 

[GiveawayGirl]

Smothering GG with kisses. (Are my actions clear enough babe? )

Crystal...

 

[wicked woman]

Oh yes! Soft kiss on the base of your neck.

mmmm thank you just perfect

 

[wicked woman]

Crystal...

Good...then you know how difficult it is for me to leave you now...


(((GG))))

 

[Darkknight2010]

mmmm thank you just perfect

You're very welcome.

 

[bobsgirl]

Bumping....seeing if there are any more thoughts about love.



Although love can be defined by our actions (I'll definitely believe your actions over your words if the two conflict), I think sometimes it can also be shown by what we don't do. You have to love someone an awful lot to let them go when you don't want to.

You're right.

 

[Cathleen]

Dang you people! One thing is certain for me - love is a fluid emotion.

I am a believer that actions speak louder than words (most of the time). A friend has a quote in her sig line here "Don't say you love him if you're not prepared to let him go." I get it, but there is a part letting go of a love that's choice. KrazzeKat mentioned the choice. We do have a choice on how we'll feed our feelings and emotions. Sometimes we have to withhold nourishment and sometimes it's withheld from us.

I think we do have choices in the matter. Not always but not never either. We are thinking beings and decision makers. Sometimes our feelings are very rational, other times not so much. But before there even is rational or irrational there is a choice we've made to be aware of the other person. I know sometimes it's like a lightning bolt (or seems that way) but still there's a willingness inside us to notice and acknowledge it.

Does love have a mind or does our mind have love? What does the mind of love reveal? What does love reveal of our mind?

Then again I can be totally wrong, as I've been many times.

 

[bobsgirl]

Dang you people! One thing is certain for me - love is a fluid emotion.

I am a believer that actions speak louder than words (most of the time). A friend has a quote in her sig line here "Don't say you love him if you're not prepared to let him go." I get it, but there is a part letting go of a love that's choice. KrazzeKat mentioned the choice. We do have a choice on how we'll feed our feelings and emotions. Sometimes we have to withhold nourishment and sometimes it's withheld from us.

I think we do have choices in the matter. Not always but not never either. We are thinking beings and decision makers. Sometimes our feelings are very rational, other times not so much. But before there even is rational or irrational there is a choice we've made to be aware of the other person. I know sometimes it's like a lightning bolt (or seems that way) but still there's a willingness inside us to notice and acknowledge it.

Does love have a mind or does our mind have love? What does the mind of love reveal? What does love reveal of our mind?

Then again I can be totally wrong, as I've been many times.

There have been times in my life when I've fallen in love, and it's been at the wrong time with the wrong person. This leads me to believe that my rational thinking mind didn't have too much to do with the decision. Why would I make a decision that would cause me pain? I really don't think we make a conscious decision to love someone. I don't anyway.

The heart wants what it wants and often, the realization that we're in love comes after the fact. Maybe that indicates a lack of willpower or self-control, but it's always been my experience that trying NOT to fall in love is never successful.

 

[Cathleen]

There have been times in my life when I've fallen in love, and it's been at the wrong time with the wrong person. This leads me to believe that my rational thinking mind didn't have too much to do with the decision. Why would I make a decision that would cause me pain? I really don't think we make a conscious decision to love someone. I don't anyway.

The heart wants what it wants and often, the realization that we're in love comes after the fact. Maybe that indicates a lack of willpower or self-control, but it's always been my experience that trying NOT to fall in love is never successful.

Perhaps, but I can lock my heart -- and emotions for that matter -- away and throw away the key.

I see that the rational mind wouldn't see love as pain... or maybe it is the irrational mind that doesn't see love and pain can be two sides of the same coin?

I look at the mind as three parts. There is the reasonable side, the emotional side -- two circles -- and then there is an overlap of those circles where ''wise mind'' resides. It is there, in wise mind, that I figure can handle things like ''Should I love this person?" kind of issues.

Maybe falling in love is part of the emotion part of the mind and the reasonable part goes along for the ride. If we were to be in our ''wise mind'' we might see the action isn't in our best interest.

 

[midwestyankee]

This discussion has caught me at an inopportune time: I have thoughts on the issue at hand as well as a few minutes in whiich to try to articulate them. I say that this is an inopportune time because I may be about to step onto holy ground with muddy shoes.

To begin, let's return to WW's statement that you have to love someone an awful lot to let them go. This is the ultimate duty of a parent: to prepare our children so well for life that we can let them go with confidence. Even though we know we will remain in contact and that we'll see each other again periodically, the letting go can be painful and difficult. For a lover, letting go of a beloved is also painful and difficult. Of course the pain is made intolerable because we know that when we say goodbye to a beloved the separation is likely to be permanent.

So how can an act that causes so much pain be an act of love? How can it require love to let someone go? If we have our beloved's best interests at heart and we see that being in a relationship with us hurts them, then we have no choice but to let go. This is one of the reasons why I believe that love is mostly about choices and actions, and not about emotions. For if we followed only our emotions in a case like this, we would not be capable of doing the loving thing, the letting go.

From the other angle, sometimes we have to let a beloved go because being with them will cause us more damage than we can sustain. Letting go in this sort of situation is also an act of love, love of yourself. My experience tells me that when two beloveds split, it's rarely just one or the other that will be hurt by or will benefit from the split. Usually both will hurt and both will, eventually, benefit if the split is a choice made from the heart.

Darkknight made the point that love has its origin in feelings but then actions and choices take over, fed by continuing feelings. This seems to make sense to me, though I can't equate love with the feelings or emotions. They exist in a separate plane. For me, love is a verb not a state of being.

Cate and then bobsgirl extended the idea that love descends upon us, often out of the blue or when we don't expect it or want it to visit us. We then, they say, choose to accept it, to recognize it. I see things a little differently. Attraction is what descends upon us, that thing that some people call "chemistry." This attraction is not love. It may be a precursor to love, it may be a sort of messenger of love, and it is certainly both powerful and real, but love it is not.

What does the mind of love reveal, asks Cate, and what does love reveal of our mind? Love takes work, care, courage, strength, resilience, humor, and a little bit of luck. To love well does not happen immediately. Two beloveds may spend a year or more together before they truly know each other well enough to love well. And then they'd better be committed to continual learning because loving well is a journey, not a goal. Loving tells a great deal about our mind, about our character, and about ourselves. Love may be the highest task we have in this life. To do it well takes all that we have.

Thank you for this opportunity to throw a few more wordy logs onto the fire.

It is one of the great blessings in my life that I learned how little I know about how to love and then made the choice to learn more.

 

[Cathleen]

<snip>
Loving tells a great deal about our mind, about our character, and about ourselves. Love may be the highest task we have in this life. To do it well takes all that we have.

Thank you for this opportunity to throw a few more wordy logs onto the fire.

It is one of the great blessings in my life that I learned how little I know about how to love and then made the choice to learn more.

Yank, you are a blessing to me, for sharing your mind. Thank you, I appreciate it so much.

I agree love is the highest task, I think it is the foundation as well as the highest peak. Inside those two places is a lifetime of good things, like courage, strength, caring, learning, teaching and on and on. I'm thinking all those things are connected, in one way or another, to love.

Learn on is my mantra.

 

[Darkknight2010]

Dang you people! One thing is certain for me - love is a fluid emotion.

I am a believer that actions speak louder than words (most of the time). A friend has a quote in her sig line here "Don't say you love him if you're not prepared to let him go." I get it, but there is a part letting go of a love that's choice. KrazzeKat mentioned the choice. We do have a choice on how we'll feed our feelings and emotions. Sometimes we have to withhold nourishment and sometimes it's withheld from us.

I think we do have choices in the matter. Not always but not never either. We are thinking beings and decision makers. Sometimes our feelings are very rational, other times not so much. But before there even is rational or irrational there is a choice we've made to be aware of the other person. I know sometimes it's like a lightning bolt (or seems that way) but still there's a willingness inside us to notice and acknowledge it.

Does love have a mind or does our mind have love? What does the mind of love reveal? What does love reveal of our mind?

Then again I can be totally wrong, as I've been many times.

You hit the nail on the head that love is fluid. It changes form, changes how it manifest itself, blah, blah, blah. It's tempting to think of absolutes, and frankly our culture reinforces that belief. Hell, we've just gone through Valentine's Day, a perfect example of how love is 'supposed' to be. It's easy to impose strict paramaters to it but the fact of the matter is it comes down to people making an 'agreement' on what their relationship is.

If there is agreement, woohoo! If not... well... things get complicated.

 

[wicked woman]

This discussion has caught me at an inopportune time: I have thoughts on the issue at hand as well as a few minutes in whiich to try to articulate them. I say that this is an inopportune time because I may be about to step onto holy ground with muddy shoes.

To begin, let's return to WW's statement that you have to love someone an awful lot to let them go. This is the ultimate duty of a parent: to prepare our children so well for life that we can let them go with confidence. Even though we know we will remain in contact and that we'll see each other again periodically, the letting go can be painful and difficult. For a lover, letting go of a beloved is also painful and difficult. Of course the pain is made intolerable because we know that when we say goodbye to a beloved the separation is likely to be permanent.

So how can an act that causes so much pain be an act of love? How can it require love to let someone go? If we have our beloved's best interests at heart and we see that being in a relationship with us hurts them, then we have no choice but to let go. This is one of the reasons why I believe that love is mostly about choices and actions, and not about emotions. For if we followed only our emotions in a case like this, we would not be capable of doing the loving thing, the letting go.

From the other angle, sometimes we have to let a beloved go because being with them will cause us more damage than we can sustain. Letting go in this sort of situation is also an act of love, love of yourself. My experience tells me that when two beloveds split, it's rarely just one or the other that will be hurt by or will benefit from the split. Usually both will hurt and both will, eventually, benefit if the split is a choice made from the heart.

Darkknight made the point that love has its origin in feelings but then actions and choices take over, fed by continuing feelings. This seems to make sense to me, though I can't equate love with the feelings or emotions. They exist in a separate plane. For me, love is a verb not a state of being.

Cate and then bobsgirl extended the idea that love descends upon us, often out of the blue or when we don't expect it or want it to visit us. We then, they say, choose to accept it, to recognize it. I see things a little differently. Attraction is what descends upon us, that thing that some people call "chemistry." This attraction is not love. It may be a precursor to love, it may be a sort of messenger of love, and it is certainly both powerful and real, but love it is not.

What does the mind of love reveal, asks Cate, and what does love reveal of our mind? Love takes work, care, courage, strength, resilience, humor, and a little bit of luck. To love well does not happen immediately. Two beloveds may spend a year or more together before they truly know each other well enough to love well. And then they'd better be committed to continual learning because loving well is a journey, not a goal. Loving tells a great deal about our mind, about our character, and about ourselves. Love may be the highest task we have in this life. To do it well takes all that we have.

Thank you for this opportunity to throw a few more wordy logs onto the fire.

It is one of the great blessings in my life that I learned how little I know about how to love and then made the choice to learn more.

Thank you Yank


*...letting go....*

 

[Darkknight2010]

Thank you Yank


*...letting go....*

Evening milady.

 

[wicked woman]

Evening milady.

Evening DKnight...hope your day was full of love.

 

[pleasteasme]

Cate, I love the way you think!

Dang you people! One thing is certain for me - love is a fluid emotion.

I am a believer that actions speak louder than words (most of the time). A friend has a quote in her sig line here "Don't say you love him if you're not prepared to let him go." I get it, but there is a part letting go of a love that's choice. KrazzeKat mentioned the choice. We do have a choice on how we'll feed our feelings and emotions. Sometimes we have to withhold nourishment and sometimes it's withheld from us.

I think we do have choices in the matter. Not always but not never either. We are thinking beings and decision makers. Sometimes our feelings are very rational, other times not so much. But before there even is rational or irrational there is a choice we've made to be aware of the other person. I know sometimes it's like a lightning bolt (or seems that way) but still there's a willingness inside us to notice and acknowledge it.

Does love have a mind or does our mind have love? What does the mind of love reveal? What does love reveal of our mind?

Then again I can be totally wrong, as I've been many times.

 

[midwestyankee]

Cate, I love the way you think!

I do too. The best part about Cate's posts is that they are never ponderous.

 

[shell seeker2]

Thank you Yank


*...letting go....*

I don't think it could have been said better! Excellent!

 

[Cathleen]

I do too. The best part about Cate's posts is that they are never ponderous.

I know... even only I'd spend a little time thinking.