When We Talk About Love Free Essay Example

Three little words, might possibly be the most powerful statement one can make to another person. In life, most crave for the intimate affection that a certain someone can provide them. It brings hope, beauty, unity, and joy into one’s life. If neglected, it can bring pain and heartache. Love is a universal feeling or emotion. Every human on this earth loves someone. Love is a word with many definitions. Webster defines love as a strong “feeling of attraction resulting from sexual desire, enthusiasm or fondness.

” Love is not just a feeling, but it is the way that you treat the ones you care for. One should treat the ones they love so considerately through their actions they’ll know you care and love them. Love is making that sacrifice for someone, knowing that you might regret it sooner or later. It’s how you make another person feel when you are in their presence. Many people show or express their love for someone in many and different ways.

The word itself is a relational word. People can love things that do not love them back such as the sky or a flower or even a song. But, love of one another is directional. There is a lover and a beloved. One does not physically just love, they love at someone. Real love is not only about the feelings of the lover.

It’s when one person believes in another person and shows it. It has not changed at all over the course of history and this makes it the most important emotion anyone could have.

Most people take love for granted and worry about it always being there when they need it the most. Love is the only language every human being comprehends, and yet, the most misunderstood language resulting in all the conflicting definitions of it. According to “Word Origins” by John Ayto, The word love was recorded from the earliest English writings in the 8th century. It dates back to an “Indo-European *leubh” meaning to care, desire, and love. This created a huge “lexical progeny” from Germans, Dutch and English. They connected words of “praise” and “belief.” The sensation to “find pleasing” is ultimately evolved to “praise, be satisfied with, trust, and believe.” All being factors of what love is and defines. Hugh Rawson, author of “ Rawson’s Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk,” defines love as “sex.” He further explains how from “1378 OED, the high-minded term has been used as a euphemism for low-minded thoughts and actions for hundreds of years.” The lyrics of Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale,” from The New Yorkers in 1930, were “banned from the nation’s airwaves for many years by the Federal Communications Commission.” The altercation even caused the show’s producers to modify the song’s performance for “blasé Broadway audiences.” When the show opened, “Love for Sale” was sung by a streetwalker, while “peddling her wares,” but the producers altered the performance to a “Cotton Club scene where it was sung by three performers as part of their act.” As Stephen Citron pointed out, “such was the prevailing morality dictated by the white majority in the early ’30s. It permitted a `coloured girl’ to sing about sex, while a Caucasian was forbidden to do so. And a white girl could certainly not sell it (Noel & Cole, The Sophisticates, 1992).” These conflictions reveal how love can be interpreted differently and how it can be inappropriate for public widespread acts and music. Love is difficult to define, difficult to measure, and difficult to understand. Love is what great writers write about, great singers sing about, and great philosophers ponder. Love is a powerful emotion, for which there is no wrong definition, for it suits each and every person differently. Whether love is between family, friends, or lovers, it is an overwhelming emotion that can be experienced in many different ways.

The Oxford Dictionary defines love in their first definition as, “that disposition or state of feeling with regard to a person which (arising from recognition of attractive qualities, from instincts of natural relationship or for of sympathy) manifests itself in solicitude for the welfare of the object, and usually also in delight in her or her presence and desire for his or her approval; warm affection, attachment (IX,52). Everyone at some point in their lives has experienced love, whether they were loved or have loved. Love seems to be the main underlying goal that we all strive for in our lifetime. It is the one thing that we all, as humans, have in common. There are many different types of love including family love, friendship love, conceptual love, and intimate love. Many people have a hard time finding words to express this intense feeling because everyone’s experience and meaning of it is different. The thing is that with love, it is not positive or negative. It seems to have its ups and downs. However, we still go throughout life searching for it, without ever giving up. Terence Won published his journal on the question “What is Love?” Through The Queens Journal. He states how “love is not supposed to objectified, it’s supposed to be felt in rather harsh terms — human terms of giving and taking.” Haddaway’s lyrics, “Oh baby, don’t hurt me/Don’t hurt me no more” sums up the sort of love people should have. He explains how love in a relationship should be harmless yet full of happiness and care. He adds how “it’s a whole flurry of emotions that involve an element of sacrifice, because when you truly love someone, you don’t express your attraction to them long enough just to get in their pants. You don’t do it because it’s a short-term consensual thing, you do it because there is something more that brings you back — you relinquish a bit of control to the other.”

This means that when you love an individual, it’s not for the sex or because you’re bored. It’s because you enjoy the feeling of having someone you know who won’t let you fall apart, who will have your back through it all. The urge to revisit a loved one is because they give you a reason why you cannot stay away. You love the attention, and the happiness they bring that the thought of life without them becomes unbearable. Most individuals experience love for the first time by being part of a family. Family love is demonstrated through lessons of sacrifice, concern and compassion. It is unconditional, meaning it is timeless, and everlasting. It’s a feeling shared between a young girl listening to her grandfather stories of the olden days. It may even be the strict rules that a parent enforces, that a child feels are unfair. The great part of this love is that you can be yourself, make mistakes, and you will always be forgiven. Of course we all know about the good times, hard times, and times we have as a family, but no matter what the situations are within the family. Love is usually an important part. The love shared between friends is similar, but there are boundaries not to be crossed.

These boundaries are different with each friendship, but are usually somewhere along the lines of, not messing with each other’s boyfriends or bad mouthing behind each other’s back. Friendship love ensures that you have someone there to talk to, especially about things that you could never tell your parents. This type of love is sharing your experience of your first crush in elementary school. Even taking blame for a childish act that your best friend committed. A close bond between two people can begin with a friendship. Whether it is a friendship between two guys, two girls, or one male and one female, these friendships will develop into love. It is not romantic love, but this type of love still connects people. Friends may fight or move to other areas, but friends will always have that connection they once shared. Although love is supposed to be an intense feeling of deep affection that is unconditional, there are also misuses of the word “love.” It seems as if most individuals are in search for their “soulmate” drowning out who their significant other really is. In Annabel Gutterman’s article, Why You Should Stop Trying to Find Your Soulmate—And What to Do Instead, provides a 2017 Monmouth University poll. Gary W. Lewandowski, a psychology professor, gave his own opinion on love and how it can affect relationships.

He explains how finding a “soulmate can be dangerous.” Lewandowski states how “it can connote perfectionism — and perfection in relationships is essentially unattainable.” In other words, he feels as if problems will be avoided since couples are deeply fascinated in one another. Adrian Catron, a natural philosopher, wrote her own article on the question, What Is Love? She feels as if the word love is being used at the wrong time and in the wrong context. For example, Catron states how “we tend to say that we love food, clothing, television shows and even colors.” But in reality, all of those things don’t mean much to most of us. We may be very fond of these things, but to say we love them would be an overstatement. She adds how “we sometimes confuse the emotions we are feeling for love.” But, in most cases, what we feel is a variety of emotions. There is a chance where we can feel happy, excited and lustful all at the same time. There may also be other feelings that go into giving us the impression we are in love when in fact we are not. People may degrade love due to the possessiveness involved in a relationship that has to be acquired and preserved. But, expecting an individual to provide it to us so that our life is filled with love is the biggest misconception that can cause unhappiness. It is not like any other material thing to be demanded from others.

Even if our significant other offers us plenty of love, we may not be able to feel it. It is normal to blame others for not loving us, but much depends on our inner self whether it has capability to feel it from others. Love is a feeling of well being and of good emotions. It’s an activity that keeps us in good spirit and is linked to our emotions. The physical intimacy of good feelings is not love but lust. The benefit of giving love to others is that it appeals to our heart and makes us connected to others, provides stability and security, removes fear and gives a feeling of being good towards other people. Life is not always about a happy or a sad situation. It has its own moments of ups and down. How to adjust in each situation and take it in stride will greatly affect the quality of life and relationships with those around us. In conclusion, love is a variety of different feelings, attitudes, and states that range from interpersonal affection, to pleasure. It can refer to an emotion of a strong attraction and personal attachment. It can also be a virtue representing human kindness, compassion, and affection. These same feelings may also describe actions towards other humans, one’s self or animals. Love is something that means very different things to different people.

For some, love can be purely romantic, or even purely sexual. For others, real love is unconditional and only truly exists between family members. Even people view love as ever changing, and everywhere, and is felt for family, friends, partners, pets, and even inanimate objects. None of these people would be right or wrong, but one thing is certain, love is the most powerful force in the entire universe. It is the strength of this feeling that makes love the most powerful emotion that most of us will ever experience. People can do some dreadful things out of hate and fear, but love can push us to do much, much worse. Love ultimately is a sacrifice no matter what kind of relationship. Its undeniable and exists among every single person.