Being older, mine has evolved. Which implies that different people at different ages in different cultures may have different understandings. It seems to me that we're all (radically) alone, not one big collective island of humanity (pace Donne*),but each separate, individual. Love is the effort to bridge and connect one person to another. Why? Ultimately because it feels good and is good, for well-being and health of all kinds. We're all creatures that function in part with and through internal feedback. Love is a way of adding feedback, from self and others. As such, it seems to me, the essential ingredient is trust. We must trust, and the object of our trust must be trustworthy. And from trust, be (able to be) open and share.

Which in turn implies that love is not always going to happen for/between particular people. Then the accounting has to recognize cost, that what has been already spent is a sunk cost, and the person is probably best advised to move on. Lots of people make accommodation for lacking love - and maybe have to - and call that "love." And maybe there's good in that. But it's not love, and in respect of love, it is instead slow death. But to return, the without-which-not is trust.

*John Donne, Meditation 17.

What is love — Athena

The closest feeling I have to love unalloyed with other factors such as desire, expectation, and obligation is my love for my three children. It came to me as a force of nature - immediate and uncaused - automatic, like a switch being switched. It's a feeling of affection, respect, interest, protectiveness, and commitment. Most importantly, it's unconditional - it doesn't expect or require any response or acknowledgement.

how do we know when we are loved? — Athena

There are a few people in my life who have shown me they feel for me something similar to what I feel for my children. I don't feel like they owe it to me, but it feels wonderful. A gift.

It came to me as a force of nature — T Clark

Yeah. Before my first child was born, I knew that I would love her, but I didn't come close to anticipating how intense the emotional reaction would be when I first saw her.

My family is going through a rough patch and the core of the problem is a poor understanding of love. — Athena

If you know that to be a fact, you should have no problem helping them understand. Meaning, if you truly understand something others purportedly don't, what's the problem?

It seems to me, though this may be a bit dismaying (or simply wrong) to sentimental types, what most people call love is a simple sense of being able to relate to something or someone, seeing one's own self and potential in things to the point it instills a sense of purpose and self-worth that did not exist prior resulting in a fundamental change of identity and priorities. A quote I feel quite relevant: "We love a rose because we know it will soon be gone; whoever loved a stone?"

Why do we love our kids and not any of the 2 billion other children who are just as special for no logical reason? Because by nature, love is not logical. No sense of "understanding", great or poor, is going to remedy what is intuitive and largely subconscious.

We see our own frailties and strengths, a bit of our own essence in things we love. We love our pets, living beings that seem to show conscious awareness and affection, emotions, positive and negative, eyes we can look into, heartbeats we can feel, breath we can observe, things that we ourselves value and fear losing. I loved my dog, because I can relate to it as a sensory, vulnerable being. I can't say I'd feel the same about a pet roach or even a lizard, despite both beings being miraculous nearly unfathomable examples of the miracle of life. It's as if they don't feel emotion, or rather, they "ignore" my own and pay me no mind, going about their business as if I didn't even exist. You really can't love something you either don't understand or cannot relate to or that otherwise pays you no mind. You can be fascinated, even in awe, but you won't feel love toward it.

Hope this didn't come off as crass, just a few well-intended personal musings is all.

Before my first child was born, I knew that I would love her, but I didn't come close to anticipating how intense the emotional reaction would be when I first saw her. — wonderer1

Before my first child was born, I wasn't sure how the whole love thing worked. I've never grown emotionally attached to pets, so I wasn't sure how I would feel about my children. Then, like I said, it was like a switch. Makes me think maybe Darwin was right.

I like Erich Fromm's theory of love in The Art of Loving because he casts it as an art that one can learn.

A paragraph on Wikipedia summarizing:

Fromm contrasts symbiotic union with mature love, the final way people may seek union, as union in which both partners respect the integrity of the other.[24] Fromm states that "Love is an active power in a man",[26] and that in the general sense, the active character of love is primarily that of "giving".[27] He further delineates what he views as the four core tenets of love: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.[28] He defines love as care by stating that "Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love", and gives an example of a mother and a baby, saying that nobody would believe the mother loved the baby, no matter what she said, if she neglected to feed it, bathe it, or comfort it.[28] He further says that "One loves that for which one labours, and one labours for that which one loves."[29]

Also, I got many good references the last time I broached this topic, and even though I followed up on those readings the question of love is still one that is philosophically interesting to me.

I like the way Kierkegaard talks about it. Love builds up. Beyond forms of affection (or the seeming absence of such), love assumes the presence of love. Looking for proof of it is to step away from it a certain distance.

Fidelity in marriage is more than not committing infidelity. Love builds up. If one or the other completely stops doing that, a light does go out. In my mind, that is different than the struggles that cause much of the friction of relationships. Honesty suffers a lot of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

I like Erich Fromm's theory of love in The Art of Loving because he casts it as an art that one can learn. — Moliere

:up:

Makes me think maybe Darwin was right. — T Clark

Yeah, that clearly came from something about me that was built in deep! It makes a lot of sense, when you think about the time it takes human children to be able to fend for themselves.

Five feet of heaven in a pony tail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtmRTeOZyxI

My family is going through a rough patch and the core of the problem is a poor understanding of love. — Athena

I'm sorry to hear that. I will venture some small insights that haven't been mentioned. It is a grave sin to test love. Because the test can only be to destruction. "Will you still love me if ... ?" The answer never satisfies until it becomes 'no'. We are all finite, and we all have a breaking point.

And do not measure or compare; do not count or keep an account.

And half remembered from Ursula LeGuin, I think — "Love is like bread, you cannot preserve it; it has to be made fresh every day."

You two nailed it. Before they're born, you know you'll love your kids. It's a given. Then it happens, and you realize you had no idea. To steal a line from comedian Larry Miller, it's like the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it. It's not a decision. It's like breathing.

And half remembered from Ursula LeGuin, I think — "Love is like bread, you cannot preserve it; it has to be made fresh every day." — unenlightened

She's as good as it gets!

To steal a line from comedian Larry Miller, it's like the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it. It's not a decision. — Patterner

According to the Apostle Paul, "Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." (I Corinthians, 13)

According to John the Disciple, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

Some nice looking gay guy said: "Love is a combination of lust and trust." Word Is Out, 1976

The Greeks said that there are at four kinds of love: Eros, Agape, Filos, and Storge. Storge [pronounced 'stor - gay'] is the natural love and affection of a parent for their child. It is described as the most natural, emotive, and widely diffused of loves.

Love III by George Herbert, 1593-1633

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

It came to me as a force of nature - immediate and uncaused - automatic, like a switch being switched. It's a feeling of affection, respect, interest, protectiveness, and commitment. Most importantly, it's unconditional - it doesn't expect or require any response or acknowledgement. — T Clark

Sounds like storge, described as the natural love and affection of a parent for their child; the most natural, emotive, and widely diffused of loves.

An ugly name for a powerful thing.

The OP implies that there is one entity called "love". However most agree there are different types of love. Some are described as a burning fire, others as glowing embers.

When someone really has your back, that's being loved. It's easy to be romantic when things are going well.

But the bigger issue is what it says about someone's life experience (and make up) who needs to ask the question. Nothing dramatic, I hope in your family's case. Good luck.

I disagree with @LuckyR that inquiring into the nature of love reflects something significant about the inquirer. I hope your rough patch is smoothed out soon. Families are often the site of failed love, unhappily. It isn't that the structure of "the family" is flawed; it isn't that "love" isn't enough; it is just US, flawed, inconstant, fickle beings that we are. What was it that Tolstoy said? All happy families are alike? Or was it all unhappy families are all alike. Happy or unhappy, WE are kind of all alike, and bring about the same kinds of problems in infinite variety.

One thing I've seen in my own family: long term stress erodes good behavior.

Humans are the worst. It's hard to articulate how stupid we are. We know love is the best thing about life. We know you can't use it up, because giving love only generates more love. And yet, we so very, very ... very often blow it.

Pride is one of love's biggest enemies. I can hold my pride tight, or I can give and receive love. I can't do both. They're mutually exclusive.

As Ed learned on Northern Exposure, low self-esteem is also a big problem. It's difficult to accept love when you don't think you're worthy of it. And it's difficult to give love when you think your love isn't worthy.

Fear. "What if it's too late?" "What if s/he doesn't feel the same any longer?" But, if you don't try, you definitely lose.

Compassion is the embodiment of love. Through mutual understanding, we cultivate the willingness to connect and love unconditionally. When we show compassion to others, we also nurture ourselves. Ultimately, isn't the union of consciousness – where boundaries dissolve and we recognize our shared humanity – the true essence of love?

Thank you everyone. I read all the posts and will contemplate them and my experiences with love as I drift off to sleep.

What is love and how do we know when we are loved? — Athena

There are different types and flavours and degrees of love.
They all begin with regard: some particular person is more significant to us than other people are, for some particular reason. That person is somehow special.
Parental love begins in ego: This is my offspring, my DNA, my legacy. But then the baby becomes a separate individual, who is special because... of its vague unfocused eyes, its ultra-fine hair, its smell, its velvet skin, its tiny hands curling around our finger (that makes most fathers gaga from day 1) its total helplessness and need of care and protection: it makes us heroes. And then love grows and expands in milestones, in challenges, frustrations, accomplishments, hardship and sorrows as the baby grows. Love changes over time, over the development of a new, increasingly autonomous individual. It's never the same from day to day and yet is constant from year to year.

Filial love, fraternal love, friendship, all go though changes over time. But they are all grounded in regard for that other person who is special to you for some particular reason.
Romantic love goes through changes, too. Sometimes it dies young, because its roots were shallow. Sometimes it lasts a lifetime and beyond, because its roots are deep: because the other person is special for reasons fundamental to your own well-being and happiness.

How do you know if you are loved? How does the other person treat you? Do they make you feel small and stupid, or interesting and accomplished? Do they support your ambitions or applaud your failures? Do you trust them with an embarrassing secret? If you called them at 3am because you're stranded at a closed mall due to your own foolishness, would they come to get you?

Filial love, fraternal love, friendship, all go though changes over time. But they are all grounded in regard for that other person who is special to you for some particular reason.
Romantic love goes through changes, too. Sometimes it dies young, because its roots were shallow. Sometimes it lasts a lifetime and beyond, because its roots are deep: because the other person is special for reasons fundamental to your own well-being and happiness. — Vera Mont

I very much like what you said here because you covered many types of love. Hopefully, a mother and father feel love for a child, especially if the mother breastfeeds the baby, there are hormonal factors in that love. However, mothers and fathers do not always experience love for a child. In the past I don't think love had much to do with family. It was expected for a man and woman to marry and have children. From there was family duty. That could result in very unloving families. There was some charity but no government assistance. Which brings me to religion and God as love and how do we understand love?

I am most concerned with sisters and brothers loving each other and love of grandparents and grandchildren because these relationships have presented challenges. I get we love someone who is special to us but what if that person does not feel loved? No amount of effort can change the minds of people who do not receive love. At least I have not found the magic key that makes a hurt, scared, and angry person feel loved. And my gosh siblings who think they have to compete with a brother or sister for love can be miserable people.

A friend of mine feels strongly about everyone believing God is love. I think that is a wonderful fantasy but have to agree that that fantasy has had a good cultural benefit and for the people who believe, it is a very beneficial fantasy.

In the past I don't think love had much to do with family. — Athena

Well, if you look at the few remote peoples who still live as their ancestors did, close to the earth and river, fathers carry their small children on their shoulders; mothers croon their babies to sleep; older children teach younger the skills they have learned; they laugh and play together . If anything, they're nicer to their children than we are - or anyway, closer.
If you don't want to go that far back in the past, look at the history of toys and burials.

It was expected for a man and woman to marry and have children. From there was family duty. That could result in very unloving families. — Athena

It could, especially if a nasty strain of Christianity ruled all their lives and limited what they were allowed to do. Even then, some families managed warmth and kindness, even if the parents could not love each other.
There is a lot of "past" to dip into, and a lot of different cultures
People have always loved their children, just as gorillas and bears do, but they don't all show it the same way.

Seems I have to go. TBC, rainstorm permitting.

Compassion is the embodiment of love. Through mutual understanding, we cultivate the willingness to connect and love unconditionally. When we show compassion to others, we also nurture ourselves. Ultimately, isn't the union of consciousness – where boundaries dissolve and we recognize our shared humanity – the true essence of love? — Alonsoaceves

I was wondering where Buddhist compassion played into love. I do not always see conservative Christians as loving people and I have gained some familiarity with Eastern religion and philosophy. I also pay much attention to awareness, consciousness, and intentional living.

Research tells us doing for others is a good way to make ourselves happy.

The movie What the Bleep Do We Know blends quantum physics with spirituality. That opens more questions than I have answers. Is pure consciousness loving?

It could, especially if a nasty strain of Christianity ruled all their lives and limited what they were allowed to do. Even then, some families managed warmth and kindness, even if the parents could not love each other. — Vera Mont

I strongly favor studying animals to know ourselves. I also strongly favor cross-cultural studies.

I think our creation stories are very important and I do not like the Christian one. My first introduction to Eastern thought was a Hindu book putting the responsibility of making good choices on us without blaming an evil power and a God's curse for our struggles. I don't think Christians saw God as a loving God until our bellies were full. The Christian god was jealous, revengeful, and punishing, and I don't think that was good for loving families.

I also think our time and place in history makes a difference. Each cohort is affected by different historical events and movements. I am nostalgic for the Hippie period of love, a return to nature and equality. I remember troubles but our spirits were better and full of hope. We were going to make the world a better place and I think we made a lot of progress but it is not well balanced. I have a sense that between my generation and sister's, there was a shift a backlash maybe. Cooperate power and the drive for money over powered our drive for love.

Pride is one of love's biggest enemies. I can hold my pride tight, or I can give and receive love. I can't do both. They're mutually exclusive.

As Ed learned on Northern Exposure, low self-esteem is also a big problem. It's difficult to accept love when you don't think you're worthy of it. And it's difficult to give love when you think your love isn't worthy.

Fear. "What if it's too late?" "What if s/he doesn't feel the same any longer?" But, if you don't try, you definitely lose. — Patterner

It has been pretty easy for me to be egoless and giving rather than taking. I associate what you said with the Hippie movement. As I saw communes struggling, I realized we were not cultivated to live communally. Today not even families can not live together. We all have to have our own homes and live apart to avoid all the conflicts of interest.

I want to focus on "I can hold my pride tight, or I can give and receive love." I don't have anything to say about that now, but want to write that thought on a piece of paper that I can read often and ponder. I have some pretty uneasy feelings when I read that thought and think of my behavior. I need to look deeper into why that thought makes me feel uncomfortable as though I have done something wrong.

Pride is important. It is why we do our laundry and take a shower and give social service but it could have a negative side if it isn't balanced. Hum,:chin: I have to think about that.

Continued

There was some charity but no government assistance. Which brings me to religion and God as love and how do we understand love? — Athena

In some communities, there was - and is - a good deal of charity. Government assistance is good and much needed, as are social workers to monitor potentially dangerous situations and vulnerable persons, as are public health nurses, teachers and professional caregivers. But there is much more a charitable community can do to make the lives of marginal people less precarious, less lonely and frightening. And sometimes neighbours do. You do, right?

God's love or God as love doesn't work for me. It sits quite awkwardly on the Biblical God. He wasn't Christian; he was Hebrew and he was primarily a god of territorial conflict. I guess he still is. The Christians - starting with the Jesus cult - made adjustments, as one would to the programming of a holodeck character. They made him big enough to represent the Roman Empire and then even bigger to encompass subsequent European empires, to subsume any number of local deities. They made him just, rather than capricious; merciful rather than vengeful - they made him more palatable for export. They stuck the 'love' banner on him, but it never really fit - which is why women pray to Mary or one of the saints, and men are more likely to address Jesus or one of the saints.
That cute saying: "Sure God answers prayers, but sometimes the answer is No." is cruelly unsatisfactory for a believer in distress. That's exactly nobody's idea of divine love.

There can be compassion and caring and helpful effort in the name of one's deity of choice (often a Catholic saint) or under the auspices of a religious organization of any kind. But it's insulting to the recipient to call that love, when the volunteer doesn't particularly like them. (I have to admit here, I have encountered two examples where nursing sisters genuinely loved their charges - damaged children and veterans, respectively.)

Love is spontaneous, personal and uncoercable. It happens or it doesn't and sometimes the reasons are hard to understand. And too often, it is fragile. We can arrange our social structures to be more conducive to loving relations - lessen the physical discomforts, the stress, the anxiety, competition for scarce resources, the need for deceit; give people enough leisure time and decent housing. I imagine UBI would be a huge boost to family harmony.

I also think our time and place in history makes a difference. Each cohort is affected by different historical events and movements. — Athena

Yes, in many ways. But some basic human needs and responses are constant. You have romantic love stories from two thousand years ago. I've already mentioned parental love, and neither filial nor fraternal love is rare in ballads, plays and legends of many cultures and ages. If they sang about it in a form that survived hundreds of years, it must have been important to them and those who followed. The oldest love song is in Ashurbanipal; the oldest lullaby is Babylonian c. 2000 BCE, according to wiki - but these are just from the period since writing. People had been singing for a long time before that. And having the same feelings.

I am nostalgic for the Hippie period of love, a return to nature and equality. — Athena

In my experience, it sounded better than it was in practice. It had lively moments and some good sentiments. There was indeed much tolerance and liberty, but also much fecklessness self-indulgence. I wasn't at all impressed with the drug scene, or the neglect of education and refusal to work. I was irked by those who begged money from the very people they professed to despise. Many young people rejected their parents' affection and were callously ungrateful. Extolling nature, writing poems, making paper flowers and dancing in filmy fabrics is all very well, but most of the urban hippies had no idea what to do with nature.... and they were not mindful to 'leave nothing but footprints'. I also knew several young women who came out of the period supporting a child, on their own, in poverty.
Of course, many of those youngsters emerged strong and committed and grew up to be competent, responsible people. I suppose it helped that some had found lasting love and were determined to take care of their offspring. And eventually their parents, too.

Eros leads the way upwards, as Plato says in the Symposium:

And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.

Agape sends mercy downwards. Eros and agape move up and down the Great Chain of Being, uniting being in love.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux's De Diligendo Deo and sermons on the Song of Songs come to mind. Or St. Francis' classic Canticle of the Sun, which finds agape coming down and eros going up in all things, the sun, the clouds, even death.

Or St. Augustine's conversation with his mother in the Confessions:


The conversation led us towards the conclusion that the pleasure of the bodily sense, however delightful in the radiant light of this physical world, is seen by comparison with the life of eternity to not even be worth consideration. Our minds were lifted up by an ardent affection towards eternal being itself. Step by step we climbed beyond all corporeal objects and the heaven itself, where sun, moon, and stars shed light on the earth. We ascended even further by internal reflection and dialogue and wonder at your works, and we entered into our own minds. We moved up beyond them so as to attain to the region of inexhaustible abundance where you feed Israel eternally with truth for food. There life is the wisdom by which all creatures come into being, both things which were and which will be. But wisdom itself is not brought into being but is as it was and always will be. Furthermore, in this wisdom there is no past and future, but only being, since it is eternal… And while we talked and panted after it, we touched it in some small degree by a moment of concentration of the heart. And we sighed and left behind us the ‘firstfruits of the Spirit bound to that higher world, as we returned to the noise of our human speech where a sentence has both a beginning and an ending (ix.10.24).