What is love?

Carlos says “It is the hilarious SNL skit featuring Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan”

Love is generosity of one?s self to others. This generosity can be expressed in many ways, in gladly shared time, energy, and affection. Everyday sacrifices of one?s own space and plans demonstrate love more than gifts, chocolates, or flowers. Love itself fosters generosity and forgiveness. Most of all it connects us to bigger things than ourselves. It feeds profound connections between us as humans, as parent/child, as friends, and as family and it connects us all to God in ways we do not even understand. The old saying is true, we find our true selves by losing ourselves in love with others. Valentines? Day can come and go, roses and sexy nighties, and boxes with cupids on them do not embody love. True signs of love are both bigger and smaller than the entire combination of commercialized romance that we face tomorrow.

I think being happy and making other people happy is more important than love. Love is something that just happens. You can’t help it. Sometimes you find yourself in love with someone who isn’t even very nice to you. Crafting your life (and the lives of those you love) to be happier seems more virtuous, more important, and more worthy of our time and concern.

A neurological con job.

Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.

Some in the scientific mindset would describe love as a chemical reaction affecting multiple senses of elation and attachment in the brain. They would agree that the reason love exists is found in the innumerable collection of genetic mutations found only in evolution and its reason is to cause a need for reproduction and care for the child when born. Other forms of “love” can be related to care for family, friends and inanimate objects (i.e.) The man who builds his own house “loves” and “cares” for it. This explanation is very easy to agree with and extremely powerful when understood. Personally I agree with it although science has yet to completely prove it in its entirety. Yet, this explanation fails to convey the grandeur of being in love, it somehow fails to bring the explanation of life-long love or soul-mates to truth. Therefore, although explained scientifically, love will, in my opinion, always remain controversial and incalculable.

Valentine’s Day is a bad holiday. There is too much pressure to do something romantic and special and commercial. People resort to insanity on this day or they look like heels. And, what about people just starting off in a new relationship? That’s super tricky business. You don’t want to look like a jerk, but you don’t want to go overboard. And think about all the single people who feel like losers on this day. We should be loving every day, and ignore this ridiculous holiday! Bah-humbug!

Love is…

http://www.comicspage.com/loveis/index.html

While our English word for Love isn’t very specific,you can love your brother, your fiancee, your best friend, your favorite arm chair, whatever, but they aren’t all the same. A basic definition would be caring about the person more than yourself, well except for loving your favorite arm chair, you would rather go through hard times for them then have them go through it, you hate to see them cry, or be sad, and love to see them laugh, you’d rather get hurt than have them get hurt, so on and so forth.
As for valentines day,no i do not think it is a good holiday, as it is a hold over of the greek god Cupid, the greek mythology in general is not a very moral one, as the “father” god zeus cheats on the “mother god” Helena maybe? i don’t remember, and the god of war covers his bed with the skins of dead men. It’s a society and mythology devoted to violence, drunkenness, and lewdness. I don’t think that we should have any part in the holiday as most of us do not believe in, worship, or even acknowledge such deities.

I’m interested in what the phrase “generosity of one’s self to others.” You, Katherine, assert that loves lies in sacrifice (which I must assume is synonymous with the aforementioned phrase). Again, what is it to sacrifice? When you refer to that “sacrifice” of one’s ?own space and plans?, is that really a sacrifice? I suppose that I come from a more Randian school of thought wherein to sacrifice means to give up of one thing, for another thing of lesser or no value. To sacrifice is to lose.
The sacrifice that you refer to is, however, is an instance in which both parties gain. It is an exchange. It is a transaction; just like any you encounter involving money. In this case, one person exchanges their time, energy, and affections for a return of greater personal value from another person. For example, a husband whose bachelor hobby was drinking beer with the guys on Friday night, now chooses spend it dining with his wife. He exchanges beer drinking with the guys for dining with his wife because his wife is of more personal value to him. He gives up beer drinking, in order to make his wife happy. He wants to make his wife content, because his relationship with her is a source of personal pleasure for him. In exchange for this pleasure, he is willing to exchange things from which he derives a lesser amount of pleasure. He is not sacrificing. He is exchanging, by his own volition, one ?good? for another.
Likewise, any forgiveness that he grants will be for the same reason. In times when his wife has harmed him, it is still a price that he is willing to bear in order to maintain the relationship as a source of pleasure or happiness. When he chooses not to forgive, it is because an action has occurred that bears a price that he is not willing to pay. He is not willing to offer as payment, his forgiveness, for the continuation of this particular source of happiness. It is a fallacy to believe that forgiveness is a selfless act. Forgiveness is a price that one is willing to pay in order to maintain a relationship from which he/she derives pleasure. It is equally fallacious to believe that we can find ourselves by losing ourselves. This is a contradiction.

There is a difference, granted, in the non-romantic love of one?s family and friends. But it still comes down to a price to be exchanged for an item of greater value.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

– Robert A. Heinlein

Love is being loved by someone you know you cant live without. Love is like how a parent loves their children. They would give anything so their children will be happy. Yes it is love its not cracked up. Love will always be there for you, friendship comes and goes. But you need friendship to be in love. Yes love is more important eles. Yes i do like Valentines Day because you get chocolate and flowers. Also you get to be with the one you love/like.

Love is when you like someone a lot and you want to share something special with that person.

im sry 4 wat i said alyssia i hope u forgive me and i still want 2 be friends.

Love is a special unconditional bond between two people that cannot not be broken.

I personally take the Bible’s definition of love :)

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
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 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.

This is the kind of love that never fails…

Love is the action that expresses and proves how much you care for someone, or something.

Love is a letter in the mail.

love is something that never goes away the feeling is always there

Love is the Best and Worst thing in the world.

Love is an emotion. I don’t mean to burst anyone’s bubble but I suppose I have a pet peeve of people adding unnecessary definition to a word.

Love is simply a strong form of affection. It comes in many forms and can vary from person to person, and situation to situation. I don’t really think others can judge one another’s love as well as we each experience it only ourselves (as is true for any emotion).

The Bible (as quoted by simplesoul22 above) describes a set of emotions and actions that can be associated with love, but they are more than love. A great set of emotions and such, sure, but more than the simple word “love” implies in my opinion. =)

To me love, like any emotion, can vary continuously (it is not binary in love/not-love). One can love a friend and love a spouse in two very different ways and both be called love.

Some interesting thoughts on love.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/business/13every.html?em&ex=1216267200&en=ff5eb790af565bed&ei=5087%0A

I can’t describe what love is… but i know im in it. I know this because the thought of leaving my girlfriend for college brings me to tears…