Do You Know what Love is? Can you define Love? Most importantly, can you Live Love?

Question

How?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glVUpT1aac8

I'm leaving the door wide open for any & all of your interpretations of this question. While some might think that a song by Lionel Richie is an invitation to discuss romance, my question has been placed here quite on purpose and not in singles & dating or polls & surveys. As for the choice of a Lionel Richie song to accompany this? It's the message which is the most important, not the messenger.

To my dear friend Hempsted, :-) please! do not apologize. Nearing the end of your answer, my own silliness dominated my thoughts and I was somewhat saddened by the prospect of nearing the end of your engrossingly entertaining answer. You may take this admission of complicity in your earnest comedy as my unbridled enthusiasm to ask for more. And then some (as you so deem it and at your earliest convenience, of course).

p.s. By all means, have another coffee. Then I'll meet you back here so we may both indulge in the delightful abundance of your intoxicating words.

:-) TY for offering your 2 cents worth.
I do wonder if your Uncle knew The Secret to the physics of being a Babe Magnet i.e. securing, sustaining & maintaining the Law of Attraction...? While wondering, I've checked on a couple of things on uour behalf:
1) It appears that Austin Powers' "mojo" is not listed on e-Bay
2) I did discover steps to some moves which might be of help to you, here:
2a) How Geeks woo (& win) Girls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AePsw7GKo0A
and
2b) in this flash back "Pas de Deux"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7e-CpDQdac

Have I asked a question for which there is no answer?

Somehow I've got to pick only ONE answer. Before I do, I'm going to think "out loud" with the following:
GREY, you had me on side all the while, right up until the word "tainted". Though I was a fan of Tainted Love, I'm not that soft of a sell.
MIKE, Though you "dissed" my choice of music, essentially I find your answer quite defining & appreciate learning your thoughts.
CRA, of everyone here, you've put a lot of thought into replying to me. Though I am not sure I agree w/all of yr definitions, I love the way you are so thoughtful.
Hempy, I wasn't kidding with my "more" comments. This question was posted without any thought of rediscovering my love of laughter & thanks to you, this is precisely the lovely outcome of reading yr answer.
, your uncle had mojo magic, and I hope that genetically speaking, you inherit whatever was in his jeans. Again, I had no preconceived notions of rediscovering my love of laughter, and I sincerely thank you for this lovely gift.

Banshee, I love your art for succinctness (is that a word...?) and as a tribute to your answering a tough question so precisely, so articulately and so lovely, I'm attaching your answer to the question for all time. :-) I wish you a Great Day too.

I loooooved the answer above (from ) and more so I loooved the video :-) That's what love is I guess.
Love is LIVING it

Have a great day..

Answer 1

You know tackling an open ended polemic subject like defining love is probably one of the last things I would want to do right about now - not to mention you have already received some very good "serious" answers. That said, what really intrigued me about your question, and the reason I decided to put in my two cents worth, was your reference to the art and science of LIVING Love. Most people are capable of feeling love (needless to say, to varying degrees as their egos, spiritual sensitivities, and core vulnerabilities permit) but to LIVE (i.e. sustain, maintain, preserve) LOVE over the long haul - now that's the real trick. ... I remember, once when my buddies and I were a bunch of 19-year-old "punks" my uncle overheard us boasting about our sexual/lustful appetite in hooking up with a brand new "babe" every night. He then proceeded to make a casual remark that has never left my noodles since. He said: "You hormone-filled lil' creatures think you are really horny aren't you? Well, I have news for you punks, any two-bit rookie can bed-wrestle with a different chick every night, but try to get it up for the same woman and bat a homerun for 30 years [as I have been for/with my wife]; now that's what we old-timers call major league 'hornitude' (i.e. his very own made-up lexis for his 30-year sustained love-horny attitude/lust for his wife)." ... Let me tell you, my uncle was a tricky lil' bastard, he planted an idea in our heads, but managed to conveniently leave out the secret to his phenomenal 30-year batting average! lol And so started years and years of striking out every time I stepped up to the plate of MAINTAINING Love. Curiously enough, I never had a difficult time encountering love OR lust, but NEVER love AND lust at the same time. Like a typical dysfunctional “LoveLust”-challenged male I kept telling myself if only I could manage to keep the lust alive the love would be saved too, or if only I could commit to a more serious attitude about the relationship, or perhaps what is needed is for me to pump more spirituality into it, …………. And on and on it went, but nothing seemed to work. That is, till I saw the following [some may undoubtedly say silly] clip and realized that the true path to sustained LoveLust is paved in sharing FUN with the beloved (in the most general sense of the word, from a lover to the passion for knowledge) on a regular basis. … Is that why my uncle was such a happy go lucky jokester all the time, or was his wife a real knock out in bed? Whatever it was they were always laughing together and never seemed fazed by anything. … Hmmmm….
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfu0xAkEVOQ

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Answer 2

First off I do not think that Lionel Richie is the person to go to for this question. The word "love" in the English language is a bit confusing because it has two main definitions. Love as in erotic love, or "making" love. Love can also be defined as emotional love; there is love between a person and another person, and love between a person and an object. Additionally it is important to not assume that love is not always good, the subject of one's love is what determines whether it is good or not. For example if one person loves their children that would presumably be a good thing. However if one person loved to fight dogs it would presumably be a bad thing. The last part of your question, which you state is the most important, is difficult to answer because it relies on one's definition of live. It is possible to live a life in which a person has many loves or a lot of love for a few things. However, as I stated earlier, living love is only good if the subject of the love is deserving.

Answer 3

You wake up one morning and realize that something is profoundly wrong. Nothing is familiar. Nothing makes sense. Many people can identify with this concept, tracing its origin to a bar the night before or a long and intense pharmaceutical adventure, but this experience is new and intrinsically different!

It is like looking at a picture of the world, certain that the frame is crooked and yet finding no way to straighten it. Even worse, apprehension grows as you realize that you don't want to straighten it. You are gladly willing ( I use the term loosely because it implies much more self-control than is realistically possible- similar to saying you are gladly willing to breath); to realign, recalibrate, convert and adjust all things that you have known life to be for the single-minded, all encompassing and pervasive purpose of giving your attention full reign; which immediately finds itself riveted to someone who appears to be rather compassionately agreeing with you, on some profound but unconscious level that YES!- there is no reason for it...for this!!!, but Nothing Else Matters! And you Know, that all expressive language functions will now tend to be "run on"! This is phase one of LOVE- often called INFATUATION. It can go two ways:

1. Like a torrential downpour in a Butlerian desert, there is a momentary exhilarated expectation of thirst quenching spiritual fulfillment. Those standing in a dry gulch, with a empty (tin) cup in there hand, waiting for the river to fill, find a different outcome as they are knocked from their feet and ironically swept away before taking even the smallest sip.

2. But there are those who have a knack for benevolent irrigation and are able to occasionally, channel the deluge, in ways that promote growth. Unfortunately, there is not apt to be adequate botanical or dogmatic frame of reference and what little can be gleamed form well wishers and governmental officials erroneously suggest that the seedling is most apt to mature into a clone- more accurately, a clone that is exactly the same except in ways that are different. The difference, matching perfectly in ways to extol one's strengths and compensate for one's weaknesses.
This is called the "Bolt and Screw Undergrowth Phase of Love", for no apparent reason.

If one is lucky and doesn't stomp the seedling of love into the dirt of realization- the realization that no matter how unimpeded the fertilizing, nor weeding extraordinaire, no clone will prevail, then... true growth begins.

I have increasingly felt love to be something ethereal but substantive, with its own character and identity, increasingly existing somewhere between two people rather than in each separately. Perhaps It is only in this way that it can truly be revered, adapt and grow and take full advantage of life's vagaries.

I think it is at this point that you can truly "live love" and share expenses.

I also call this the "Bolt and Screw Undergrowth Phase of Love", for no apparent reason or because I have had too much coffee. :-)

(After reading this, I would like to apologize for getting a bit too carried away. The question merits serious consideration and my thoughts on the subject are sincere, although glazed with a bit too much playfullness. Sorry).



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Answer 4

I loooooved the answer above and more so I loooved the video :-) That's what love is I guess.
Love is LIVING it

Have a great day..

Answer 5

I feel love is or at least encompasses and focuses in total trust...

Is when we feel we know a person enough and we love that person regardless of their defects...

We know we can live with their defects and feel that their great aspects are so powerful and great that outweigh anything wrong with them... therefore we trust in them totally....

Ok that's like romance kind of love...

But love encompasses even more, from love to our family to love to our friends and humanity in general.... We can love each other and not even know each other... if we know that this kind of universal or unconditional love is based only upon acceptance... if we can be able to accept the differences between us and another person then there is a feel of love...

Love = total trust (romance kind of love)
Love = acceptance (universal and unconditional love)
Love = Thankful (family, humanity in general, and love to our world)

Romance kind of love encompasses the three of them... total trust that comes with total acceptance and liking, knowing that the greatness in a person outweighs the differences between both of us, and a thankfulness that comes from knowing that you are love in return and are save with such person.

Hope that helps!

CHRIS

Answer 6

Love is that feeling. There are as many variants of it as there are colors in the rainbow, more even. Of course you can define it? But a two thousand word essay would fail to accurately define just one of its shades. We like to think of it as the source of all feelings. Every action we take is tainted with love. Motivated by love. When you stop loving you die.

Answer 7

The first and important factor it asks us to do is to be loving closer to oneself. Don't be difficult; be smooth. Care approximately oneself. Learn methods to forgive oneself -- time and again and once more -- seven instances, seventy-seven instances, seven-hundred seventy-seven instances. Learn methods to forgive oneself. Don't be difficult; do not be opposed closer to oneself. Then you are going to flower. And in that flowering you are going to draw in any other plant life. It is common. Stones draw in stones; plant life draw in plant life. And then there's a dating which has grace, which has cosmetic, which has a benediction in it. And if you'll uncover this type of dating, your dating will develop into prayer... your love will grow to be an ecstasy... and via love you are going to understand what God is. “The person who sees that the self pervades all beings, and that every one beings pervade the self, sees the divine.” This one has transcended all obstacles and has destroyed all barriers. To him, this tree does no longer look as “thou,” this frame does no longer look as “I” – his “I” permeates the tree and the tree’s “thou” permeates him. For him, there's no boundary line of I and thou on this global. To believe a boundary among I and thou signifies that you continue to believe your self to be separate. Martin Buber has written a booklet, I and Thou. Martin Buber used to be the Jewish thinker and a first-rate philosopher. He used to be some of the few first-rate thinkers of twentieth century. He has performed a deep research of the relationships among I and thou, and he says that the maximum revel in of lifestyles occurs within the best dating among I and thou. According to Jewish pondering, no person can develop on my own. In a way, it's actual that no person can also be on my own. And despite the fact that he's, he'll be very unsatisfied. This is valued at expertise, considering Eastern concept is solely the reverse of this. The East says that the extra you pass into aloneness, the extra you grow to be on my own, certainly on my own, the extra you are going to develop. Jewish philosophy sees it from the opposite finish: it says that the extra you input into aloneness, the extra deficient and wretched you are going to grow to be considering there can also be no progress with out relationships. So the deeper the relationships, the extra you are going to develop. And the ideal intensity of dating is within the closeness among I and thou. When you'll say “thou” to any individual, then via this you will also achieve to a top. When you deal with any individual with love, you're additionally modified. So it's well, this measurement is useful. Jewish pondering says that, eventually, guy will stay “I” and the complete immensity will grow to be “thou” – the complete universe will grow to be “thou” and the person will stay “I.” In the assembly that occurs among those 2, guy’s soul will achieve the ideal and best progress. But Jewish pondering does no longer pass past this. The East is going past this. It says that so long as thou continues to be thou and I continues to be I, regardless of how deep the connection could also be, it's nonetheless no longer the ideal. The distance among the 2 continues to be there, the hole among the 2 continues to be there. So regardless of how so much I might love any individual, so long as he's thou to me and I am I, regardless of how near we might come, the space will nonetheless stay. This distance among I and thou could also be very small, however nonetheless this can be a distance. And an intriguing factor approximately distance is that the smaller it's, the extra it hurts, the extra it pinches. The higher the space the fewer it's spotted. The distance is spotted handiest while it is vitally small, after which the soreness is horrible. This is why there may be an intrinsic motive for the soreness that enthusiasts revel in: the space has grow to be so small, and but it has no longer utterly disappeared. It not ever disappears, even though the space turns into so small that it creates a wish that quickly it is going to utterly disappear. And every time enthusiasts come so near, a friction, a collision additionally starts to occur – however the distance does no longer completely dissolve. The experience of distance handiest begins fitting clearer, sharper. In a way, the smaller the space, the bigger the space turns into considering now it hurts extra. It hurts extra considering now it feels that the space would dissolve. Now the shore is so near that you'll stretch your fingers out and contact the opposite – however the contact does no longer occur and the space stays. So despite the fact that you pass very virtually the divine, the language can grow to be like that of enthusiasts, I and thou – but the space keeps. If one’s self isn't noticeable in all beings and all beings in a single’s self, if thou does no longer grow to be I and I thou, the space will stay. This is the final bounce – in which the sweetheart turns into the cherished and the cherished turns into the sweetheart. This is the final bounce, in which the devotee turns into God and God turns into the devotee. This is the final bounce, while it's now not transparent who's who. Who is who's now not identified. May you constantly shine like a Star and be aromatic like a Flower, God bless your Life with endless Love and Peace, Amen.