Love. Why is it that the first thing that comes to your mind is romantic love? How have we become so conditioned to the word that we are able to envision only a small aspect of this intricately complex subject? Is it because it is so intricately complex that we decided to diminish it to an area that we think we know better?
My understanding of love has evolved over the years. One thing I can say for certain is the fact that not a single person alive today knows truly what the idea is. They can only offer certain viewpoints and perspectives, like I’m trying to do right now. And if there ever comes a time when we have figured out what it means, we will have evolved as a species.
If the Queen song is anything to go by, this little thing is indeed quite crazy. There is no one true meaning for the word and there perhaps are many different forms of love, at least that is what I consider it to be, but inherently all of the different forms contain the same thing. Unconditional, unwavering, unfaltering Care. That, to me, sounds a bit paradoxical and crazy. That different types of one thing inherently would contain the same thing.
That lead me to the question then, are there really different forms of love? And if so, what are they?
Naturally, one side that all of us know would be the romantic part of it. The terms falling in and out of love, making love, stem from this aspect of love. Infatuation & attraction can maybe be considered as the first steps of falling in love, but they do not constitute love themselves. Without bordering on the cliché, you’d know when you’ve fallen in love with someone. You can’t stop thinking about them, you feel like being with them all the time, there’s a level of comfort and openness that the both of you would share with each other, you would wish nothing but wellness for them. As a corollary, you could say that when you stop feeling that level of comfort and openness with the other person, when you don’t care for that person anymore, perhaps you may have fallen out of love with that person. Of course, a sexual aspect can most definitely be brought in here as well, or if you’re one of those people who view that to be a separate thing altogether, by all means go for it. Love and Lust may or may not be two sides of the same coin, you never know. Personally, I’ve always felt that that sexual aspect is necessary to fully understand an individual as to who they are as a person. A Glossary to Romantic Love, if you will?
From basic observation you can see these other kinds of love all around you. Love among Close Friends, Love that a Parent shows to their child, Love that an Animal shows towards you and that which you reciprocate, Love that the Earth showers on you, Love that you have towards certain inanimate objects or memories. Every single one is slightly different in the way they operate; wouldn’t you say? Wouldn’t it be incorrect to say that the love you have for your close friends is the same as the love you would have for a partner?
But I come back to my original point. Inherently, all of the examples I’ve mentioned above contain the exact same thing. Unconditional, unwavering, unfaltering Care. A mother cares wholeheartedly for her child, Close Friends care unconditionally for each other, An Animal shows the purest form of care for you if you care for them, unbiased. Every single form of love has the notion of Caring as its root.
It pains me when I hear people say nobody loves them, purely because they have diminished their understanding of the idea to a fragment of what it actually is. Most of all, you will always, and I mean always, have yourself to love. Even if all else fails, you can and should always love yourself. Your mind stays with you wherever you go, give it the care it deserves for that.
Love is crazy, it can bring both pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, elation and despair.
You may have heard the saying, “All is fair in Love and War.” Does it have to be fair though? Food for thought…