Countless books, magazine and newspaper articles, songs, poems, quotations, plays, movies, etc. have in the past and continue to this day to be produced on the fascinating topic of love.
Oxford Concise Dictionary defines love as “1 an intense feeling or deep affection or fondness for a person or thing; great liking, 2 sexual passions, 3 sexual relations” and many other descriptions follow. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines love a” 1 strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties (maternal love of a child), 2 attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers, 3 affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests (love for his old schoolmates)” and many other definitions follow.
Is there any precise description or definition of love? My lifetime experience has not revealed any such accurate and comprehensive definition of love. I also believe that love feelings are essentially tailored to each individual. While our brains are wired in a similar manner with an estimated 100 billion neurons and about 1000 synapses connected to each neuron, our reasoning/cognitive capabilities and emotions/feelings do vary from one person to another. I do believe that humans love other humans and even animals, and the common denominator is that we all share the “anticipation” of obtaining love in return. As such, I do not believe that humans are capable of loving things, such as inanimate objects, i.e. disciplines, various fields of science, technology, arts, entertainment, sports, and business are some examples. Why? Because inanimate things do not provide any emotional response, stimulus or feedback to the initiator. And this “need” factor is hard-wired in the human emotional psyche.
As example, great scientific and technological discoveries were made by prominent people throughout history, and not one individual received emotional recognition or gratification from their inanimate discoveries themselves or from the achievements they made. Any gratification they received was from humans who were involved in their lives. This is not always mentioned in biographies of famous people. I believe this is partially the reason why we humans are never completely satisfied with out our accomplishments, and are always seeking more. We do, however, obtain moral satisfaction for our accomplishments from other humans, and this is what fuels us to continue to do better and achieve more. As an analogy, our emotions/feelings are our nuclear energy/adrenalin towards remarkable achievements.
It can then be said that humans and love are a bundle of emotions, feelings and the key factor is the anticipation of obtaining love in return. But now what about another close human relationship named Friendship, and how does it differ from love?
Many books have also been written about Friendship and Friends. Wikipedia also provides a very good description of Friendship. The highly popular TV series “Friends” lasted 10 years and could have continued almost indefinitely. Recently, I read an excellent book entitled Vital Friends authored by Tom Rath wherein he describes 8 vital friendship roles. I highly recommend reading this book by corporate executives and every working employee. I do believe that everyone on this planet considers Friendship to be a worthwhile add-on that serves to fuel the progressive development of our personal lives, while benefiting humanity and our environment.
But what differentiates Friendship from love? Deep seeded friendship is usually based on compatibility and reason, while love’s major magnetic force is infatuation and sex, and the key factor is anticipation of obtaining love in return as I described above. However, where love does endure over a period of time it usually evolves into deep and interactive, supportive friendship. In summary, I do firmly believe that sound and deep rooted friendship provides a stronger and a lot more reliable, stable and sustainable relationship over time than love. Why? Because unlike love the anticipation factor is hardly present or more subdued in the relationship. Love will usually dry-out after some time if it is not fueled in return, while true compatible friendship will withstand and weather occasional turbulence without expecting anything in return. True friendship is giving and supporting friends without question.
Love is somewhat irrational and hard-wired within us and manifested with overflowing emotional feelings for other human beings and possibly to animals as well. And where the anticipation of acquiring some love in return proves pointless or unrealistic, these feelings sometimes turn to jealousy, envy and even vengeance as a way to appease or offset the emotional suffering incurred. Such retaliatory action takes place occasionally and is often demonstrated in love relationship break-ups.
Since the dawn of history our emotions have served mankind to develop great advancements in science, technology, sociology, economics, medicine at an accelerated pace. While our emotions and feelings and reasoning capabilities have created wonders, these same emotions and feelings have also mixed with our reasoning processes to produce bad cocktails like wars, widespread conflicts, personal strife and many other negative catastrophic situations.
Now what differentiates humans from other animal species? I believe that humans with approximately 100 trillion brain connections overall far exceed the development capabilities of any other animal species on earth at the present time. Nonetheless, we are bundled with lots of emotions/feelings/sentiments, instinctive and survival needs. I believe, however, that animals are primarily bundled with instinctive and survival needs and respect. I do not believe that animals have emotional feelings like we have. Instead, animals exhibit “devotion” as opposed to emotion. Note: has anyone seen an animal shed some tears due to emotional suffering and joy? Most animals, even sharks or crocodiles, when treated properly with respect and cared for will reciprocate by demonstrating devotion to its caretaker(s). Animals do not behave out of spite or meanness for the sake of jealousy or vengeance like we humans often have this inclination to do. We humans can stand to learn a lot from animal behavior, and by doing so, we may in time become more “human” in our evolutionary process and behaviour towards others.
I would like to conclude this article with a comparison or weighing the values between Love and Friendship. I do strongly believe that an interactive, compatible and caring friendship has a much greater chance of success than an intense love relationship over the long term.
I’m sure that people who took the time to read this article will have comments to put forward; so now is your turn to express your comments honestly.
Oxford Concise Dictionary defines love as “1 an intense feeling or deep affection or fondness for a person or thing; great liking, 2 sexual passions, 3 sexual relations” and many other descriptions follow. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines love a” 1 strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties (maternal love of a child), 2 attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers, 3 affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests (love for his old schoolmates)” and many other definitions follow.
Is there any precise description or definition of love? My lifetime experience has not revealed any such accurate and comprehensive definition of love. I also believe that love feelings are essentially tailored to each individual. While our brains are wired in a similar manner with an estimated 100 billion neurons and about 1000 synapses connected to each neuron, our reasoning/cognitive capabilities and emotions/feelings do vary from one person to another. I do believe that humans love other humans and even animals, and the common denominator is that we all share the “anticipation” of obtaining love in return. As such, I do not believe that humans are capable of loving things, such as inanimate objects, i.e. disciplines, various fields of science, technology, arts, entertainment, sports, and business are some examples. Why? Because inanimate things do not provide any emotional response, stimulus or feedback to the initiator. And this “need” factor is hard-wired in the human emotional psyche.
As example, great scientific and technological discoveries were made by prominent people throughout history, and not one individual received emotional recognition or gratification from their inanimate discoveries themselves or from the achievements they made. Any gratification they received was from humans who were involved in their lives. This is not always mentioned in biographies of famous people. I believe this is partially the reason why we humans are never completely satisfied with out our accomplishments, and are always seeking more. We do, however, obtain moral satisfaction for our accomplishments from other humans, and this is what fuels us to continue to do better and achieve more. As an analogy, our emotions/feelings are our nuclear energy/adrenalin towards remarkable achievements.
It can then be said that humans and love are a bundle of emotions, feelings and the key factor is the anticipation of obtaining love in return. But now what about another close human relationship named Friendship, and how does it differ from love?
Many books have also been written about Friendship and Friends. Wikipedia also provides a very good description of Friendship. The highly popular TV series “Friends” lasted 10 years and could have continued almost indefinitely. Recently, I read an excellent book entitled Vital Friends authored by Tom Rath wherein he describes 8 vital friendship roles. I highly recommend reading this book by corporate executives and every working employee. I do believe that everyone on this planet considers Friendship to be a worthwhile add-on that serves to fuel the progressive development of our personal lives, while benefiting humanity and our environment.
But what differentiates Friendship from love? Deep seeded friendship is usually based on compatibility and reason, while love’s major magnetic force is infatuation and sex, and the key factor is anticipation of obtaining love in return as I described above. However, where love does endure over a period of time it usually evolves into deep and interactive, supportive friendship. In summary, I do firmly believe that sound and deep rooted friendship provides a stronger and a lot more reliable, stable and sustainable relationship over time than love. Why? Because unlike love the anticipation factor is hardly present or more subdued in the relationship. Love will usually dry-out after some time if it is not fueled in return, while true compatible friendship will withstand and weather occasional turbulence without expecting anything in return. True friendship is giving and supporting friends without question.
Love is somewhat irrational and hard-wired within us and manifested with overflowing emotional feelings for other human beings and possibly to animals as well. And where the anticipation of acquiring some love in return proves pointless or unrealistic, these feelings sometimes turn to jealousy, envy and even vengeance as a way to appease or offset the emotional suffering incurred. Such retaliatory action takes place occasionally and is often demonstrated in love relationship break-ups.
Since the dawn of history our emotions have served mankind to develop great advancements in science, technology, sociology, economics, medicine at an accelerated pace. While our emotions and feelings and reasoning capabilities have created wonders, these same emotions and feelings have also mixed with our reasoning processes to produce bad cocktails like wars, widespread conflicts, personal strife and many other negative catastrophic situations.
Now what differentiates humans from other animal species? I believe that humans with approximately 100 trillion brain connections overall far exceed the development capabilities of any other animal species on earth at the present time. Nonetheless, we are bundled with lots of emotions/feelings/sentiments, instinctive and survival needs. I believe, however, that animals are primarily bundled with instinctive and survival needs and respect. I do not believe that animals have emotional feelings like we have. Instead, animals exhibit “devotion” as opposed to emotion. Note: has anyone seen an animal shed some tears due to emotional suffering and joy? Most animals, even sharks or crocodiles, when treated properly with respect and cared for will reciprocate by demonstrating devotion to its caretaker(s). Animals do not behave out of spite or meanness for the sake of jealousy or vengeance like we humans often have this inclination to do. We humans can stand to learn a lot from animal behavior, and by doing so, we may in time become more “human” in our evolutionary process and behaviour towards others.
I would like to conclude this article with a comparison or weighing the values between Love and Friendship. I do strongly believe that an interactive, compatible and caring friendship has a much greater chance of success than an intense love relationship over the long term.
I’m sure that people who took the time to read this article will have comments to put forward; so now is your turn to express your comments honestly.