Is “love” significant?

[Ravenshire]

I think we do tend to put love on a higher pedestal than other emotions, and some people want to think there's some big divide between love and lust. Like love is this deep spiritual thing, while lust is a dirty perverted thing.

Lust is one of the clearest, maybe the clearest, emotions people ever experience. There's no ambiguity with lust. The christers shaming people who feel lust is just sick and perverted. Not only are we hard-wired for it, without it our species would spiral into extinction right quick!

Love, on the other hand is such a mixed bag. I love my father and loved my mother. I love my kids. I love my best friend since third grade like a brother (more than either of my real brothers, in fact). I've also loved dogs, cats, songs, movies... You get the idea. Oh, and, I fucking LOVE my Triumph Spitfire! Even if she is a bit under the weather right now. Love is a good thing, but it certainly doesn't need the pedestal.

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Love is very important. Besides feeling good it's why parents care about their children enough to spend the time and resources to raise them, support their parents in old age, care for the sick, and a whole host of other things. It's the only reason our current dog is alive.

I would argue that compassion and empathy are more important than love. Without them, love can become tragic instead of beautiful. Compassion and empathy also lead to helping others, even when you don't know them, rescuing animals, rescuing humans even. Love is a good thing, but I think it's our compassion and empathy that give us a chance at surviving the next 50-100 years.