Monday 2 February 2009

Defining love

The age old question: What is love?
  1. Caring for someone
  2. Not expecting something in exchange
  3. Willingness to give anything up (except your core values/beliefs/system)
  4. Forgiveness/Absence of hatred or indifference
I think the last one is generic and yet elegant. Hatred comes from feeling of merciless revenge. Ability or willingness to forgive someone (sometimes after a punishment/revenge) is absence of unforgiving hatred, is love.

In the vaguest of terms, I have no idea how convincing this argument is. I just scribbled out the train of thought. Don't think too much about it, you need not react to this thought immediately. Take your time.

5 comments:

Ady said...

I guess, its a little bit of each one of them.
But still in the end we are human.
So its natural expect love in exchange.

Flag the fawn said...

The last answer is elegant, but still not perfect. Isn't love more than something you share with your best friends (absence of hatred etc.) ? :-)

Smriti Khullar said...

Love has to be all of them and even more coz if it were something that could be simply defined, it would have not been so beautiful and mystic. It's something like holding a cute little birdy close to your heart and treasuring it more than anything else, but still letting it go when you thing it will be better off that way. Too senti kya???

Sam said...

i think love is something that makes you care for someone more than yourself, its the feeling that helps you accept some other human being with all his flaws. being in love motivates you to do things you would never do, like guys stop smoking coz their girls want them to. its about doing things to make someone smile (even if you hate doing those things). and being in love changes you as a whole, you are more happy from inside, hence it reflects on your behavior altogether. and when you are happy, there is no place for hatred. i think that's what love is. :-)

Unknown said...

@Tannu - Yes, we are imperfect humans but we can try to be good and not expect back.

@Pushya - I dont think I can define it perfectly. It is an age old question after all :-)

@Sim - Nice analogy, holds especially for one's children. I think the analogies will always be better illustration rather than defining in words. In that sense, it is better understood being in love than writing a blog about it :-)

@Svet - I was trying to cover love in a general sense (like being good to everyone) than just loving one's partner. Probably that's why it sounds so generic.

@All - Sorry for the late reply.. was a little busy with the schedule here