The word love, as the cambridge dictionary puts it, is as following;
Love is defined as liking another adult very much and being romantically and sexually attracted to them or having strong feelings of liking a friend or person in your family.
But this definition of 'love' is more literal, and doesn't cover how children or teens love, or how you can love a hamburger. Most people aren't sexually attracted to hamburgers or food or houses or video games, and you don't only love your friends or family, you can love your enemy or someone you don't like. But as learned in TOK, language is limiting, and here the word love, as it presently stands in the english language, limits how we can express ourselves.
By curiosity, I searched online how other languages define 'love' and what they mean by it, a comparison of sorts. And during my quick research that wasn't all too in depth, i discovered that in ancient greek, there were 7 words for 'love', each meaning a different thing, which led me down the figurative rabbit hole of the philosophical view of love as defined by the Greeks, Romans and other more modern philosophers who ventured into this topic. So, what is love?
According to the great greek philosopher and figure, Plato, in Plato's dialogue, The Symposium, Aristophanes the playwright explains love through a myth. That can explain why we are all chasing love and how we think of it .
In the beginning, humans were all androgynous with double he parts we have now, including two faces turned in opposite directions. This physical form, apparently made humans so powerful that they became a threat to the gods, so Zeus cut them in two,creating both male and female like that. And ever since then, every human has longed to be rejoined with their other half like two pieces of a puzzle, two halves of a whole. But this legend is but a legend, it has no basis on reality. Yet it helps us find out why we long for love, and why the idea of 'soulmates' exists, joined by the idea of 'star-struck lovers' which could reference Zeus cutting them in two, splitting them.
The first word I'll examine is agápē, which means, as you guessed, love. But not the general feeling of love, particularly brotherly love, charity and the love for God (Robert and H.G. 4). This word implies that love is altruistic, selflessly caring for humans, animals, and even Mother Earth itself. It meant that love doesn't really expect anything in return for its actions, and that love itself is a reward. Love also serves as the foundation for societies and communities which form the basis of human civilization and without which we cannot thrive.
The second word is eros, which means passionate love, ans is the most common type of love we see in our world today. It's fueled by a desire for pleasure. It's love at first sight, seeing someone's physical appearance and immediately getting attracted to them, even without knowing their first name. Most romantic relationships start like this. It's passionate and it can even be a bit obsessive. But love like this is confusing. It's the age-old question of "love vs. lust." Both lust and eros come with intense physical attraction and a strong desire to be close to the person, even if you just met them. Some people like to differentiate them by the length of time they stay around. If it was a fleeting emotion, it was lust. But then if it lingered around like the best man at a wedding, then it was definitely love. But is that really true? And if it is, then is love simply lust that has stayed around for long enough? If lust simply becomes love,how long does it take for the switch to happen? At what point does lust become love? It's a complex question, and you don't normally give it much thought, so I'll do it for you. According to science and human biology, there are three stages to falling in love, and it all starts with stage one - lust. It's driven by testosterone for men and oestrogen in women. So when does lust become love? Well, that's stage two. When we start feeling a sense of a "high" when we see them or speak to them or even just think about them. A high similar to the feeling you'd get from drugs or alcohol. When we start to feel a sense of euphoria when we're around them. When testosterone and oestrogen are replaced by dopamine, making us
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Collection of Random Writing
RandomA collection of things I've written for fun over the years. Started as a CAS project, but now it's become a hobby.
