Dear Masses,
I asked three wise fools what love is.
The first was a cynic.
He simply replied it is just a lapse in the true nature of human relations.
I then asked the second, he was a married man.
He extensively elaborated on love. He said it is a special bond between two people. It is not easily defined because it manifests itself differently in all individuals and no two people really can show and love each other in exactly the same way. He went on to say he believes it is rare and states that in this day and age most people do not have the ability to make love work do to our dying morals and stubbornness. Before he ended he asked if I saw his divorce papers anywhere.
I finally went to ask the third, he was a hopeless romantic.
But I cannot tell you what he said. Only what I can conclude from his actions. See, before I reached him, the love of his life died. So he decided he wouldn’t go on without her. I guess that means he believed love is the ultimate point to life and without it there is no point.
After asking the three wise fools what love was I realize I am no closer to an answer, maybe even further from one. In the end, love is something that needs to be experienced to even remotely try and understand it. Even then with so many people and different ways of thinking understanding a complex idea such as love would be like trying to understand infinite knowledge. It would be impossible. To conclude my response to what love is would be this: Do not try and understand love, but rather find the one you love and try to fully understand them.
Yours Truly,
Another Wise Fool
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When looking up a word in the dictionary, it's almost impossible to find a word with only one definition. Words have many meanings and many shades of meanings. Even words that are very specific can be used in multiple ways. But words like "love" are so vague that there are almost countless ways it can be used. The word love can refer to familial love, romantic love, love of an object or idea, sex (making love), hell it can even mean having zero points in tennis. The problem with asking someone to define love is that we have so many different ideas represented by the same word. People try and wrap all of these ideas (except the tennis one) into one coherent definition when these ideas are not necessarily connected. You can make love without romantic love, or love your parents without wanting to have sex with them, or you can love playing chess but not want to go on a date with your chess set. The problem isn't understanding love, it's our poor definition of love. If there was a different word for each definition of love there would be much less confusion about the idea.
ReplyDeleteDid you know other languages do have multiple words for love, breaking them into those categories you speak of. And I do believe you understand my post was speaking of romantic love while using some cynicism for humor. It is intended as a poetic rant rather than hardcore logical argumwent
ReplyDeleteI am going to speak on this briefly... read the last four lines of 'Bocardo' for some clarification... you may also know that term 'bocardo' from dialectic study, if not HERE: a syllogism in which the first and third propositions are negative while the middle is affirmative (universal)
ReplyDeleteYou have been trying to understand love so much, here is something Hegel showed Kant in the form of a formula (I think it applies here):
thesis-->antithesis-->synthesis
and here's my own:
infallible<-->fallible/intanglible<-->reality
If you looked at that and it made sense to you, you are in love.
If in your quest to find the underscores of love you find yourself at a loss for words.. well.. please leave the earth-shattering findings of love's metaphysical truths for the pop musicians, at least I would.
haha point taken...i will become a pop musician
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