Is love so hard to give?

It IS complex. I suppose, the sense that fear is the opposite of love is in that:
In fear we close, tight as a fist.
In love we open.

Regardless of where the fear is coming from, or anger or hate for that matter, it is all a closed feeling to me, making it very difficult if not impossible to love in that specific moment.

I wonder if it is possible to be terrified or scared and feel love simultaneously. I don't think it is.

Oh come on. Have you forgotten your first date with someone you truly cared about? :wink:

Oh come on. Have you forgotten your first date with someone you truly cared about? :wink:

Not to get all biblical or anything, but I do believe that "perfect love casts out fear".

Snood, I don't want to be snotty, but that sounds like an empty platitude to me. Undoubtedly that has to with my "inability" to make real sense of it. Can you explain its meaning for me?

Before you do, Snood...I just want to go on record as being of the opinion that the opposite of love...is not hate. It is fear.

So what you had to say was not an empty platitude to me.

Let me go on record, Snood, to say there are no "opposites" except as we think them up, i.e., as we arrange traits dualistically. If there were an opposite of "love" it might be no more than "non-love."

Very interesting question. I suspect most here have encountered both situations -- in which love was deserved, but hard to give and, alternatively easy to do so. What makes the difference?

There are factors within ourselves, as others here have noted, that can produce this effect, There are objective factors as well -- sometines love really is hard, dangerous or apparently costly to give. It can depend on the situation and what the other person requires or needs. Risking your life or wealth to help another is certainly an act of love, but it is not always easy to do.

Yes, Georgeob1, committing oneself in a loving relationship does feel risky when we are not extremely self-confident. But if we love ourselves--or if we feel that we have been loved (and are, therefore, essentially lovable) growing up--there seems to be less risk or less to lose, because eventually we WILL find love. How often do we hear of the poor soul who can't give up a "toxic" and even dangerous relationship because she or he feels that it's that relationship or nothing?

Does anyone have a nice definition of "love" itself? I keep thinking about conditional vs unconditional and what they mean. I like to think of unconditional love as being kind of universal compassion I guess. Doesn't necessarily change a great deal as it still involves opening yourself up but I'm still working on the idea of "love" within the confines of individual relationships be those family or otherwise.

Who's the greater fool in games of love and hate,
The rejected hearts that feel the biting fee?
The price paid by all who stand too late,
When to take action choses what is meant to be.
Or, perhaps, the heart that climbs from thirsty desperation,
Up the legs of statues long since erected?
To conqer and to reap, not love, but admiration
Long by greed his heart's true quest neglected
Or maybe it's the selfless loving few
That must stand to face this angry ridicule?
For what they preach and hold in hearts for true
Denying themselves all carnal love's fuel
All are fools who'd rather reach for love to take it
Than yield and let themselves by love awaken

When a person loves us or our artwork, we should attribute that not so much to our personal qualities and those of our art as much as to the loving capacity and artistic creativity of that person.

Yes. Maybe you are right.
In some ways love is ressonance...

Love is an extremely important phenomenon. Too bad "scientific" psychology gives it so little attention. It seems that, at the most abstract level, everything in the universe is a product of relationships (resonnance), and love may be a general term for all of the attraction (vs. repulsion) in such relations. The topic is as murky (for me) as it is important (for me).

Love is an extremely important phenomenon. Too bad "scientific" psychology gives it so little attention. It seems that, at the most abstract level, everything in the universe is a product of relationships (resonnance), and love may be a general term for all of the attraction (vs. repulsion) in such relations. The topic is as murky (for me) as it is important (for me).

Love is an extremely important phenomenon. Too bad "scientific" psychology gives it so little attention. It seems that, at the most abstract level, everything in the universe is a product of relationships (resonnance), and love may be a general term for all of the attraction (vs. repulsion) in such relations. The topic is as murky (for me) as it is important (for me).

I just feel like posting poems for some reason. Maybe it is because the subject is love. This one is about conditioning oneself to experience through love...


Ye who gaze upon these words
Stay thine eye so they may burn
Cage your fears like frightened birds
And fears will conquer hearts in turn

Ye who stand upon this tower
Stay your feet so you may fall
Brave your fears and hearts will flower
Hearken to your conscience's call

I just feel like posting poems for some reason. Maybe it is because the subject is love. This one is about conditioning oneself to experience through love...


Ye who gaze upon these words
Stay thine eye so they may burn
Cage your fears like frightened birds
And fears will conquer hearts in turn

Ye who stand upon this tower
Stay your feet so you may fall
Brave your fears and hearts will flower
Hearken to your conscience's call

Ah!
Yeah, that sounds nice and all, but what is perfect love?

Though I do see some value in the statement, when it is freed from its biblical connections.
My experience is that love can counter-act fear.
Never experienced perfect love though.

:wink:

The opposite of love is indifference not hate nor fear.

Love is an essential elemental drive linked to evolutionary success and complex social structure with more advanced individually autonomous beings (ants need no love) and as such love is a direct function of morals.

If it was not evolutionarily advantageous for the emotions of love, and if it was not integral to advanced social structures combined with individual autonomy, I am not convinced love would be present.

There will come a time when intelligent machines will both evolve (arguably machines already are) plus have complex social structures plus be (relatively) individually autonomous and the question will arise if these machines will need/have the equivalent of love.

blah....blah....blah....

On a more humorous note Barry White's last words on his death bed were, "Leave me alone - I'm fine". Not very loving if you ask me!