The sacred "L word" seems to play a somewhat large role in the world we live in. You may have seen love (there, I said it) depicted in movies like "The Notebook." You could have noticed love in the kind gestures of others. You may have experienced love through a special friendship or seen it in the eyes of your dog. Regardless of what role the L word plays in your life, it is a healthy energy that humans were made to experience. But how do we define love?
My homeboy, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, defines love in three ways:
1. A feeling of strong or constant affection for a person
2. Attraction that includes sexual desire : the strong affection felt by people who have a romantic relationship
3. A person you love in a romantic way.
I was not satisfied with this answer. So instead, I asked a few friends the classic question, "What does love mean to you?" Here were a few of the responses.Not to diss on the Webster's dictionary or anything, but I was not a fan of that definition. I believe that this definition lays a vague, shaky foundation on the topic of love. There is so much more that love encompasses.
"Love is like a mystery, you never know where it'll come from and you never know how it got there. Love is a cure, it's a reliever, and it's guidance. Loving someone and being loved allows your doubts, fears, and worries to disappear. Love is patient." –Gerald Mason
"Love is powerful, like let's take a look at Romeo and Juliet. To be real, they were cray, but they were in love" –Quinlan Kubacek
"Love is little things like sacrificing, making people laugh or smile, hugging them, it's putting their feelings before yours, and being their shoulder to cry on. So I guess to answer your question, love is not one thing but many many little things. They may not all be happy during the moment but looking back it's all worth it. And honestly if love is real, anything is worth it for the one(s) you love." –Carli Dominguez
"I think true love is rare. It's loving one's imperfections, being happy by someone else's happiness, and having complete trust and comfort in a person/place/thing. Love is unconditional respect for them even if it means you get the short end of the stick. It's doing dumb stuff together, like falling in love with someone's hobbies that you would have never enjoyed before just because they like it. That kind of gushy shit is what love means to me." –Lizzie Alderete
"Love is putting others needs before your own, it's going out of the way to make someone happy without thinking about it twice, and it's sees these things as a normal thing." –Kristen Rinderknecht
I believe everyone's concept of love is different. Many seem to share similar themes of comfort and passion, but love is hard to define because everyone has a different idea of what love is and how they experience.
It is almost like standing in front of a huge painting in a museum, and someone asks you, "how do you interpret this piece of art?" You answer them, and they may agree and elaborate on your answer, or they may totally disagree. Neither of the interpretations are wrong, they are just personal. The way you see that painting may be different than the way the artist or other viewers perceive it.
So what I am trying to say is that the definition of love lies in the eyes of the beholder. However, I think we can all agree that love is something that humankind needs. So share the love!
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." –1 Corinthians 13:4-8
