Love

Love is empathy. The paradox about love is that you can feel another's sadness or joy as if it were your own, but at the same time you feel yourself as a separate person. Two hearts can beat as one, but they are still two individual hearts. The steps of embracing and letting go, of joining and separating is honored again and again.

Kathering Keating

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From wiki ---

these are not much help and I think I could do a better job.. but here they are for me to critique more later one day....

Agápe means "love" (unconditional love) in modern day Greek, such as in the term s'agapo, which means "I love you". In Ancient Greek, it often refers to a general affection or deeper sense of "true love" rather than the attraction suggested by "eros".

Agape is used in the biblical passage known as the "love chapter", 1 Corinthians 13, and is described there and throughout the New Testament as sacrificial love.

Sacrificial love?? What the heck is that????

Agape is also used in ancient texts to denote feelings for one's children and the feelings for a spouse, and it was also used to refer to a love feast. It can also be described as the feeling of being content or holding one in high regard. Agape was appropriated by Christians for use to express the unconditional love of God.Before agape love there was no other word to express such great love.

Éros is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Modern Greek word "erotas" means "intimate love;" however, eros does not have to be sexual in nature. Eros can be interpreted as a love for someone whom you love more than the philia, love of friendship. It can also apply to dating relationships as well as marriage. Plato refined his own definition: Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Plato does not talk of physical attraction as a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, "without physical attraction." In the Symposium, the most famous ancient work on the subject, Plato has the middle-aged Athenian philosopher, Socrates argue to aristocratic intellectuals and a young male acolyte in sexual pursuit of him, that eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth, the ideal "Form" of youthful beauty that leads us humans to feel erotic desire -- thus suggesting that even that sensually-based love aspires to the non-corporeal, spiritual plane of existence; that is, finding its truth, just like finding any truth, leads to transcendence. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth through the means of eros."

Philia means friendship or affectionate love in modern Greek. It is a dispassionate virtuous love, a concept developed by Aristotle. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality and familiarity. In ancient texts, philos denoted a general type of love, used for love between family, between friends, a desire or enjoyment of an activity, as well as between lovers.

Storge means "affection" in ancient and modern Greek. It is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring. Rarely used in ancient works, and then almost exclusively as a descriptor of relationships within the family. It is also known to express mere acceptance or putting up with situations, as in "loving" the tyrant.

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From some other wiki page

Affection is fondness through familiarity, especially between family members or people who have otherwise found themselves together by chance. It is described as the most natural, emotive, and widely diffused of loves: natural in that it is present without coercion; emotive because it is the result of fondness due to familiarity; and most widely diffused because it pays the least attention to those characteristics deemed "valuable" or worthy of love and, as a result, is able to transcend most discriminating factors. Ironically, its strength is also what makes it vulnerable. Affection has the appearance of being "built-in" or "ready made", says Lewis, and as a result people come to expect, even to demand, its presence—irrespective of their behavior and its natural consequences.

Philia – friendship

Philia (Greek: f??ía) is the love between friends. Friendship is the strong bond existing between people who share common interest or activity. Lewis explains that true friendships, like the friendship between David and Jonathan in the Bible is almost a lost art. Friendship is a love just like the love between two lovers.
Eros – romance

Eros (????) is love in the sense of 'being in love' or loving me. This is distinct from sexuality, which Lewis calls Venus, although he does spend time discussing sexual activity and its spiritual significance in both a pagan and a Christian sense. He identifies eros as indifferent. It is Venus that desires the sexual aspect of a relationship, while Eros longs for the emotional connection with the other person.

Agape – unconditional love

Charity is the love that brings forth caring regardless of circumstance. Lewis recognizes this as the greatest of loves, and sees it as a specifically Christian virtue. The chapter on the subject focuses on the need of subordinating the natural loves to the love of God, who is full of charitable love.

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Note from Steve - after reading all of this and thinking how the word "love" is used in English I wonder if it's not better to just stop using the word. Instead, maybe it's better to use more specific words to be more clear.

Here are some google searches I did today. I started by thinkingabout how love is made up of many other feelings.

S. Hein

Jan 18

No results found for "when you feel loved you feel valued".

No results found for "when you feel loved you feel accepted".

"love is more important than popularity" 12

"love is more important than education"25

"we need to kil the terrorists" 26

"kill your enemy" 210,000

"love your enemy" 371,000

"who said love your enemy" 36

"who said kill you enemy"" 1

Your search - "we can learn a lot from sensitive" - did not match any documents.

Today is October 9, 2005. I just realized I don't have a page on love.

I don't have a file called love.htm

Well, now I do. And I will write about love here.

I almost can't believe I have never started a page on love. It is so important. But I don't think I realized how important it was.

Love and Erich Fromm

I started reading the book "The Art of Love" again, by Erich Fromm. I read it a couple times in English. Fromm said some interesting things. He said we can't really love anyone till we love everyone. And we can't love anyone else if we don't love ourselves.

I am not sure about this. I think I can love some people and love myself without loving everyone. And I don't understand why it is necessary to love everyone, as Fromm says, but maybe he knows more than me.

Anyhow, even if we can't love all people, I think it is important to have some level of compassion for people for all people, even the ones that some would call "evil." (See file on "evil").

I think compassion is based on understanding, And understanding is based on knowledge of human emotional needs. And knowledge of how society fails to meet the human emotional needs.

I am sure, by the way, that we can do a better job of filling the emotional needs of young people so they are less "evil" by the time they are old enough to hurt someone.

Fromm also said that we know that love is important but still we don't study it and we don't try to improve our ability to love. I am not sure though, that we really do know love is important. Here are some of my thoughts on the importance of love.

Fromm is one of my favorite authors, by the way.

It seems almost no one really talks about the true importance of love. And it seems love is not very important in the most basic social institutions. It seems almost everything else is more important. For example, is love important within the educational system? Is love important in the legal system?

I will probably write more about the importance of love, but I wanted to post this much because I don't know when I will be online again.

Does it matter how much two young people love each other when they are at schhol, for example when they are 17 or 18 and still in high school? What if they want to hold hands, hug, be in the same classes? Would it matter how much they were in love? What if the person they loved was in another school in the same city? Would the school authorities and allow one of them to change schools? What if someone didn't want to go to school one day because the person they loved was sick or had some problems? Would being with someone you loved be an acceptable reason for missing school?

Also, would it matter how much a person loved kids if they wanted to be a teacher? What would matter more to the people who hire teachers...iIf the person had a teaching certificate or if they loved kids and the kids loved them?

Later I will write about what is more useful in life: love or education.

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Here is something else my partner and I were talking about this morning. We were talking about how in most schools around the world they separate students according to their age. I was thinking about this the other day because here in Peru the children are so insecure, since their parents and teaches hit them, threaten them and punish them so much, that young siblings will often literally cling to each other. It is common for two 8 year old cousins to walk hand in hand or arm in arm. But it wouldn't matter how much a brother and a sister loved each other or how much emotional support a child got from his or her brother, sister or cousin when it comes to assigning them to classrooms. This has absolutely no relevance at all in most schools. There are children all around the world who cry because they are separated from a family member, yet how important is this to those who control the schools?

Here is a story from a family in South America:

The other day I asked some girls, around 9 years old, what is more important: love or education. Very quickly, they all responded "Love!" This reminded me that children often have better answers to my questions than adults. For example, when I ask children here in South America if Jesus would ever hit a child, they quickly say "no." And when I ask them if Jesus would ever wear a tie, they also say "no" without having to stop and think about it. Try this test yourself if you want and write to me with your results.

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This morning Laura and I were talking about this again. We were talking about the idea of going to a teacher's college and giving a presentation on the topic "What is more important, love or education?" Then Laura remembered what the little girls said. She told me how surprised she was. She said, "They didn't even have to think about it." But I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised because I have been asking questions like this to children for a while now. I think I started asking these kinds of questions about a year ago when I got to Peru and saw how messed up it is. I saw how the Peruvian adults think and I could see that their values and priorities are seriously out of harmony with nature and what is healthy for humans. So I started asking children questions like "What is more important.. " and "Do you think Jesus would...."

The children here are pretty much like children everywhere in the world. They are happy, friendly, cooperative, playful, helpful, eager to learn. Or at least the young children are. The longer they live in this country the less happy, friendly etc. they are. It doesn't take a PhD in psychology to see what is happening to the children here. You just have to look at their faces.

Children know that love is more important, but the adults tell them that education is more important. It is common for a father or mother to tell their daughter that they need to get their university degree first, then think about having a boyfriend. Yet nature prepares girls to be mothers when they are around 12 years old. And nearly everyone knows that males and females are sexually attracted to each other when they are in their teens. Yet the young people are told not to follow their inner nature, not to follow their hearts.

In talking to teenage females around the world I believe they also know what is important. They know that relationships and love and having a friend you can trust and confide in are important. But their teachers and parents tell them that grades are important. Peru is one of the worst countries I have ever seen, all the way around, but I have heard parents in many countries telling their teenagers that they are too young to know what love is and that they should study first, etc. etc. The more children I meet though, and the more people I meet with university degrees, the more I am convinced this thinking is not healthy for the world.

S. Hein
Nov 8, 2005

Here is a related story about the difference between young students and university students.

Here are more thoughts on love and education...

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I don't want to say that education is not important. I believe it is. But it depends what kind of education we are talking about. For example, here in Peru a student might have to study the history of Peru for 6 years. But is learning about the history of Peru really going to help someone be a better father or mother? Is it going to help a couple resolve a conflict? Is it going to help them be better listeners or learn how to show understanding when their partner is talking?

Erich Fromm seems to be right. We take love for granted. But I am pretty sure that teachers and school directors would get defensive if they heard me say that we should be teaching about love in school and that it was more important than the history of their country.

Love and the Legal System

Here is something I wrote from Peru in 2005

Love and Religion

Religions don't seem to teach much about love. They seem to teach more about obeying rules and about teaching what not to do. Let me think about that for a minute. I was thinking of the so called Christian religions when I wrote that, but I am not sure about the other belief systems, such as Buddhism. I don't think love plays much of a part in that either though, nor in the Muslim system, even if they talk a lot about it like the Christians. I didn't see much importance place on love in Malaysia or Indonesia.

Supposedly Christ was here to send a message of love from "God" or something like that, but the Christians around the world don't seem to be doing a very good job of loving one another, let alone loving those who don't call themselves Christians.

Here in Peru there are a lot of churches. But it is normal for parents to hit their kids. I often have asked kids, "Do you think Jesus would ever hit a child?" They almost always tell me "no." Yet their parents put up pictures of Jesus all over the place here in Peru and in the other countries I have visited in South America and continue to hit their kids.

Kids don't feel loved when someone hits them. This is pretty simple to see, but a lot of religious people all around the world don't seem to understand this. Take a look at Jordan Riak's site on hitting kids and teenagers and you will see that the most violent adults in typically are ones who call themselves "Christians."

Love, Control, Fear, Freedom

I think anyone who feels a lot of love doesn't feel the need for much control or power. I think the person who feels a lot of love wants others to be free and doesn't want them to feel controlled. Most of control seems to be based on fear, and I think anyone who feels a lot of love for other humans doesn't want others to feel afraid of them or anyone else.

A difference in students

When I have gone to highschools in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Ecuador and Peru the students are almost always excited to have a foreigner come in. They smile, ask me questions, are eager to help me and show interest in me. But when I walk into a university campus, almost no one notices me. They are all too busy thinking about their tests.

One time in Madrid I visited a major university. As I was leaving the campus I was confused about the subway system and I was trying to figure out the subway map. All the university students just walked past me, even though it was obvious from the look on my face that I needed help. I finally asked someone and they helped me, but they weren't friendly, just factual. Then when I got on the subway system there were a lot of university students. Again I felt completely ignored, invisible. They were either talking to themselves or reading the university textbooks. If it would have been a group of highschool students, or primary school students, however, they would have all been much more curious about me and almost without doubt we would have started a conversation.

Around the world, the younger kids are typically the most friendly, helpful and curious. Next are the highschool students, and then the university students, who are the least friendly, helpful or interested in talking to someone new.

Love and Needs

The more my emotional needs are met, the more I am able to love people without needing them.

S.Hein

later....

Love and Decision making

If we know what is most important it is easier to make decisions.

Measuring Love

Maybe you can measure how much someone feels loved by how many cigarettes they smoke, how much alcohol they consume, how many cosmetics products they buy, how much money they spend on distractions and entertainment, how much time they spend working for someone else, or studying what someone else tells them to study.