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Love
is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of
strong affection or profound oneness. Depending on context, love can
have a wide variety of intended meanings. Romantic love is seen as a
deep, ineffable feeling of intense and tender attraction shared in
passionate or intimate attraction and intimate interpersonal and sexual
relationships.Love can also be conceived of as Platonic love,religious
love,familial love, and, more casually, great affection for anything
considered strongly pleasurable, desirable, or preferred, including
activities and foods. This diverse range of meanings in the singular
word love is often contrasted with the plurality of Greek words for
love, reflecting the concept's depth, versatility, and complexity.
Definition
The
definition of love is the subject of considerable debate, enduring
speculation, and thoughtful introspection. In ordinary use, love
usually refers to interpersonal love, an experience felt by a person
for another person. Love often involves caring for or identifying with
a person or thing, including oneself (cf. narcissism). Dictionaries
tend to define love as deep affection or fondness. In colloquial use,
according to polled opinion, the most favoured definitions of love
involve altruism, selflessness, friendship, union, family, and bonding
or connecting with another.
The different aspects of
love can
be roughly illustrated by comparing their corollaries and opposites. As
a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like),
love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less
sexual and more mutual and "pure" form of romantic attachment, love is
commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship
with romantic overtones, love is commonly contrasted with friendship,
although other connotations of love may be applied to close friendships
as well.
The very existence of love
is sometimes subject to debate. Some categorically reject the notion as
false or meaningless. Others call it a recently-invented abstraction,
sometimes dating the "invention" to courtly Europe during or after the
Middle Ages.[citation needed] Others maintain that love really exists,
and is not an abstraction, but is undefinable, being essentually
spiritual or metaphysical in nature.[citation needed] Some
psychologists maintain that love is the action of lending one's
"boundary" or "self-esteem" to another.[citation needed] Others attempt
to define love by applying the definition to everyday life.
Cultural
differences make any universal definition of love difficult to
establish. Expressions of love may include the love for a soul or mind,
the love of laws and organizations, love for a body, love for nature,
love of food, love of money, love for learning, love of power, love of
fame, love for the respect of others, etc. Different people place
varying degrees of importance on the kinds of love they receive. Love
is essentially an abstract concept,[citation needed] easier to
experience than to explain. Because of the complex and abstract nature
of love, discourse on love is commonly reduced to a thought-terminating
cliché, and there are a number of common proverbs regarding love, from
Virgil's "Love conquers all" to The Beatles' "All you need is love".
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