Callywood After Dark - What is Love?
Posted by Cosandra Calloway on Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In
philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human
kindness, compassion, and affection. In religious context, love is not
just a virtue, but the basis for all being ("God is love"), and the
foundation for all divine law (Golden Rule).
The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and
attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to
intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my wife"). "Love" can also
refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic
love, to the sexual love of eros (cf. Greek words for love), to the
emotional closeness of familial love, or to the platonic love that
defines friendship,to the profound oneness or devotion of religious
love. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity
of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to
consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.
Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal
relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one
of the most common themes in the creative arts.