What is Love?

I recently was asked the question: what is love?

I honestly could not answer. I have never been in a dating relationship nor am I married, so I couldn't try to describe it from personal experience in those areas. Most of the love I have experienced is either via family or what I discern from other sources.

Historically the Greeks actually have four words for love. Storge is natural affection, typically between family members. Philia is for friendship and "brotherly love." Eros is passionate love, reserved for a desire. It covers dating and marriage, and is not necessarily sexual. Then there is Agape. This is true love. Not just mere attraction, but a deep unconditional commitment love. Modern Biblical scholars point out that Agape is used heavily in the Bible to describe the love of God has for us. For this discussion, let us focus on having Agape love.

Here are a few fall-back cliches about love from different realms:

• As a gamer: Love is a status flag you can be in with another character. You gain it probably by saying the right things and doing the right actions. You will have to show interest in the other person, but if you perform enough positive actions, they automatically fall for you.
• As a scientist: Love is the biochemical cocktail of emotions that are triggered via memory, circumstance, and self-designed conceptions of your environment. There may be ways to influence the reaction to another person via hormones, pheromones, and perhaps there are latent DNA encodings about what we feel are a good mate to fall in love with.
• As a philosopher: Love is a state of being. A connection perhaps. Or maybe it's a kind of disciplined reaction you train yourself to have in reaction to another particular person. It may be a kind of mystical force unknown yet by science. Perhaps the universe conspires to match certain individuals (soul mates). Or perhaps it's just jumbled hormones and we "settle" for someone we can obtain.
• As a romantic: Love is getting struck by lightning and falling back in love every day and every second.
• As a cynic: Love is random firings of your brain that get you in trouble.
• As a Christian: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, 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." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Also, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" - John 3:16.
• From the Cartoons:

• A friend's answer: "Love is an unconditional commitment to the good of another person."
• From the movies: "When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part." - Captain Corelli's Mandolin
• From a Romantic Comedy: Love is something that just kinda happens but then the universe conspires against them.

It's a tricky question to say the least. Really we would like to think it's more than just emotions or that you can buy love by spending enough time and doing the right things. As a society we seem to enshrine love as one of those pure, good emotions that everyone should experience but so few get. It is also one of those emotions that we are allowed to get caught up and get lost within. It is definitely a good thing.

Yet for some reason it is really hard to nail down, at least in my mind, what love is. One problem is it is not just an emotion. You do not just feel love and get warm and fuzzy. Love has an action component. You are supposed to act out in love. You are supposed to engage with the person you love, and let the bond of love grow and prosper. It has investment and tangible results. Getting married and spending your life together is supposed to be the end result of love. You have to declare love. You don't have to declare, say, being happy. It is perfectly fine to keep being happy locked up inside. Yet love is supposed to have an outer appearance.

Even if we strip it down to just an emotion, it isn't a simple emotion. There is an underlying assumption that it can last. Real love weathers the good and the bad. It acts as a secure anchor. The solidity of love is what distinguishes it from just a passing fancy. However, it also has a very wild side to it. It can completely change your perspective on things, and sometimes make you do things that normally are neither healthy nor in your own best interest. Yet you do them anyways because you are in love. It is a common trope to give your life away in the name of love.

Then again, perhaps there isn't a perfect answer. Perhaps love really is what you make of it. It has so many facets it's really quite unique and plays out differently amongst different individuals.

I think for now I'll settle somewhere between my friend's definition and a deep emotional response. Then again, I'm sure actually falling in love one day will change my life's perspective.