This Thing Called Love

Heather Little-White, PhD, Contributor

As Valentine's Day approaches, one could say there is a feeling of love in the air. "What is this thing called love? What ... is this thing called love? What is this thing called ... Love?" (Bloch and Donnelly, TIME Magazine) According to the writers, "Love's symptoms are familiar like a drifting mooniness in thought and behaviour, the mad conceit that the entire universe has rolled itself up into the person of the beloved, a conviction that no one on earth has ever felt so torrentially about a fellow creature before. Love is ecstasy and torment, freedom and slavery. Poets and songwriters would be in a fine mess without it. Plus, it makes the world go round".

Outlook asked some of its readers, "What is this thing called love?" The responses are interesting and indicate that love is perceived differently by each person.

    Love is a feeling, but you have to really know your partner and put feelings aside.
    Contrary to the popular saying, love is not blind - it sees more than partners even talk about.
    Love allows you to see your partner for who he or she really is and still love him or her.
    Love calls for sacrifice, pain and understanding, to help you grow.
    Love means deepening the union to become one.
    Love means trusting your lover.
    Love is commitment to your partner, doing all you can to help through thick and thin.
    Love is a strong feeling that represents affection towards someone dear to your heart.

As the responses indicate, love is perceived differently by each person.

From your own experience, you may say there is no true meaning for love. For others, the possible real meaning/purpose of love is to reproduce, staying together to protect each other long enough to continue your bloodline/genetics.

Love is experienced when couples see life as a process of change which can produce happiness if an objective approach is taken. During the period of change, one should learn to see the beauty in everything. (wiki.answers.com)

Love is not sex

Sex is a recreational activity that provides fodder for the entertainment industry and sex trade. If you believe that sex was created for marriage as a long-lasting agreement between the couple, you will not accept that sex is love. A relationship built on lust cannot be sustained and will only last as long as both persons have the desire for sex.

The Bible

The Bible teaches that God is love and we were created in His image to practise unconditional love to all. This premise should influence romantic love. Honouring your connection to another person is a way of honouring God.

When I Look Back

When I look back

On the dreams I left behind;

Buried there in all my thoughts

It is you I always find.

I saw you then as I see you now

Through love's impassioned blindness,

A heart so fashioned there within

Filled with love and kindness.

How often has my heart declared

With anguish, for my words are few,

That the wind shall blow a little longer,

To keep me here with you.

Sweeter still are the pains of love.

The bonds of love grow stronger,

Even after the moonlight has gone to sleep,

I shall always love you longer.

No other can stir my heart so deep,

Or thrill me through and through,

And in my dreams there will never be

No other love but you.

When I look back to times gone by

There is one sure thing I know

It is you my love, who stole my heart

Fifty years ago.

- Richard Netherland Cook