LOVE MEANS WHAT?

No.

The theme of this thread is LOVE MEANS WHAT? What follows is a tentative response to this question. It assumes that the original poster is asking: What does "love" mean?

. “Love” may be defined as: “the seeing of infinite possibilities in someone or something for fulfilling and enhancing me and everyone concerned.” When I see this, I love.

To say it another way, whatever the question is, love is the answer. What is ”Love”? Love is
1. Getting involved, giving your full attention to someone (or even to something), and seeing possibilities in the one you are giving love to: lots and lots and lots and lots of creative possibilities. Love is being fascinated by all those creative possibilities that you see there.

2. And love is service, serving the one you love, giving to your loved one. Giving is good for you. You’ll like the way you feel afterwards. Love is for giving. And that includes forgiving your loved one. Forgiving is also good for you. If you think someone needs to be forgiven for something, forgive them before they even ask for it.

If you want to express love, then give! Give of yourself. Think of new ways to be of service. Remember, whatever question you may have in life as to what to do next, Love is the answer.

Love is in every situation. Find it! It is “hiding” there, right before your eyes. Learn to see it! Find the love. You’ll be glad you did.

3. It’s important to love yourself too. In other words, have self-respect! Act respectful at all times. If you have an enemy, see if you can turn that person into a friend ---- then you’ll have one less enemy.......keep this up until you have none, not a single enemy. Everyone is attracted by Goodness. So, be good! You’ll find it very rewarding.

4. And blaming is stupid. Finding fault with other people is really dumb! That is a destructive way to act. Be constructive!! Build up people, boost them, praise them, approve of them, compliment them, give them a helping hand. You will definitely enjoy life if you do that. When something goes wrong, instead of looking to pin some blame, look for ways to fix it. Make it right; work out a new program designed to improve the situation.......blaming is for little babies, and you are too grown-up for that. People who love each other don't find fault nor attempt to score points over their loved one. Instead they make constructive suggestions or casual observations that do not have a judgmental tone to them.

In the paper by Marvin c. Katz, entitled ETHICAL ADVENTURES, which you can Google, the third section is named "Degrees of Caring." This goes into the topic in some greater detail. I am confident that you will find this to be enlightening. It is a logical presentation.

I hope this has been helpful and that it speaks to your concern.

Love means caring just as hate means fear.... If anyone says they love but do not care they lie... If anyone says they care, but do not love, they lie... Where you have love, you have health and life... The sick cannot love... Those who cannot care for themselves cannot care for others... Those who cannot love themselves cannot love others... Love is the affirmation of life, and a rejection of death, and the death wish... To say it is a waste of time is true, because love often fails just as every form of relationship will often fail... But, a time so full of hope and caring as one driven by love can never be considered wasted... Love, when the loss of it does not kill us really does make us stronger and more able to love... The sad fact is that too many accept loneliness, and prefer it to the pain and effort love demands because they have learned their own weaknesses and refuse to advertize them... Worse are those who pervert the meaning of love, and use the need for love to exploit the loving, for in the end they waste their lives and the lives of others in futility... Love like every other form of relationship demands a sacrifice, but more than any other relationship, love demands a sacrifice of self... To love one must give up self and be selfless, but in the end, one gets a new sense of self, and one that encompasses a part of humanity and through one, to a few, and from a few to a many... The only limit on love is life... How much one can love and give and care is an open ended question differing in answer for each... In the end, we all do the best we can with the sense and the others we are given, and know that love is the quality that makes us human...

love is letting go of your own needs to fill a void for someone else.

Really??? Because it seems as though, if that were the case, that the filler would soon become unfilled... You have love confused with employment which is a process of draining people of life so well it would have made Count Dracula envious...

Note that the definition of love which I shared with all readers here at the Philosophy Forum includes love of chewing gum, of orderliness, of the divine, of the meaning of the universe, of another person, of love itself, of music , of baseball, etc., etc. It was not just limited to loving another human being. nor even another animal. It covers all kinds of love.

"It covers all kinds of love." I would think so coming from a person with a name so similar to deepthroat.

Then your definition is truly nonsense... Love is an emotion we feel for others, perhaps even, ourselves... It is a form of a relationship... It is a moral form.... To say that the desire we have for objects, the value or meaning we give to objects amounts to love is wrong... We value what we value... We find meaning where we find it, but the whole range of sympathy and empathy when applied to the non human is misplaced and is a measure of psychopathology... We love as a dynamic investment of self in relationship... We care, some times to the point of dying with those we love so we will not have to live alone, or so they will not have to die alone, and this is absolutely correct since love is also a redefinition of self...

People do define themselves according to the objects they value... The rich man defining himself as a rich man might die in defense of his wealth rather than redefining himself as a poor man...What you would call a love of money may well be accompanied by a deep antipathy toward humanity, the common herd... Yet, this defining ourselves according to material objects has nothing to do with the moral form of love which defines us by our spiritual connectedness with others -which connection is dynamic as are all relationships where the relationship one has with objects is always static... We cannot truely love anything that cannot love us back... What we give our lives to the pursuit of we will always value highly, but as impossible as a definition of love is, it does not become easier with the misdefinition of other values and meanings as love...