Philosophers, poets, artists and musicians have been trying to capture the essence of love in words, paintings and music since man first learned to communicate. But the task of defining the meaning of love is like trying , to hug an apparition. it vanishes just as you think you have it.
Part of the difficulty comes from the nature of love itself. It has no shape or margins and in fact, being immaterial is also infinite. Love, because it is infinite, cannot possess limits of any kind. When you love, it must be an all or nothing proposition. It's kind of like being pregnant.
Love, unfortunately, is too often linked to sex. While it may be incidental in some cases, it is separate from love since the act is often performed without love. You know, "She doesn't mean anything to me, honey. It's YOU that I LOVE".Love, however, does exist without sex ("I have a headache"). There can be no different kinds of love, love is love. Love is a complete surrender of ourselves to another which leads to loving that person as you love yourself. There is a mystical fusion in which if you do harm to the one loved, you harm yourself and if you do things to please the one loved, you please yourself. Our actions in respect to someone we love, which appear to be selfless and viewed by others as sacrifices, are, somewhere in the deepest recesses of our psyche, pleasures. Acts of heroism are also expressions of love.
While love is a human emotion and truly can only be bestowed upon another human by a human, we see a relationship between animals and even between animals and man which mimic love and beg explanation. In the hierarchy of "who would you save?", most people would chose a person over an animal. Is this love or common sense? If it is love and, if love can also be bestowed upon an animal by a human, it demonstrates, at least, that human love has a priority. But, many tales are told about animals which save humans, often at great risk to themselves. Is it love? Even without the heroics, some animals do show a great affection for man. Can this be defined as love? I'm not certain what it is but it's a good thing.
We have been guilty of personifying animals in cartoons and other forms of expression and therefore sometimes begin to equate them to humans. From my view, even though we share many physical and emotional qualities, it does not seem proper to equate an emotion we share with God, in whose image we have been created, with our feelings for any other life forms. To say that you "love" a dog, for example, seems to allow saying you can "love" a mosquito, a frog or a tomato plant.
You can "love" anything, anything you want to but I'm going to stick to my wife and children and their children and even you, but, I'm compelled to point out that you are all human, more or less.
Part of the difficulty comes from the nature of love itself. It has no shape or margins and in fact, being immaterial is also infinite. Love, because it is infinite, cannot possess limits of any kind. When you love, it must be an all or nothing proposition. It's kind of like being pregnant.
Love, unfortunately, is too often linked to sex. While it may be incidental in some cases, it is separate from love since the act is often performed without love. You know, "She doesn't mean anything to me, honey. It's YOU that I LOVE".Love, however, does exist without sex ("I have a headache"). There can be no different kinds of love, love is love. Love is a complete surrender of ourselves to another which leads to loving that person as you love yourself. There is a mystical fusion in which if you do harm to the one loved, you harm yourself and if you do things to please the one loved, you please yourself. Our actions in respect to someone we love, which appear to be selfless and viewed by others as sacrifices, are, somewhere in the deepest recesses of our psyche, pleasures. Acts of heroism are also expressions of love.
While love is a human emotion and truly can only be bestowed upon another human by a human, we see a relationship between animals and even between animals and man which mimic love and beg explanation. In the hierarchy of "who would you save?", most people would chose a person over an animal. Is this love or common sense? If it is love and, if love can also be bestowed upon an animal by a human, it demonstrates, at least, that human love has a priority. But, many tales are told about animals which save humans, often at great risk to themselves. Is it love? Even without the heroics, some animals do show a great affection for man. Can this be defined as love? I'm not certain what it is but it's a good thing.
We have been guilty of personifying animals in cartoons and other forms of expression and therefore sometimes begin to equate them to humans. From my view, even though we share many physical and emotional qualities, it does not seem proper to equate an emotion we share with God, in whose image we have been created, with our feelings for any other life forms. To say that you "love" a dog, for example, seems to allow saying you can "love" a mosquito, a frog or a tomato plant.
You can "love" anything, anything you want to but I'm going to stick to my wife and children and their children and even you, but, I'm compelled to point out that you are all human, more or less.
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