Yes, I do believe in love. However I see it as a subconscious response to a given stimuli that we try to maintain. If you ask the average person, love is something you feel, but it isn't. Love is something you do. You don't see someone and automatically love them. You love your family almost obligatorily, because they are family. It is a very strong instinctual bond that we manifest into words.
Love between a couple isn't found in the first year, or the second year. It's a lifetime. This topic has been romanticized by novels and hollywood almost to the point of absurdity over the last couple centuries. But the phrases we use to describe it really exaggerate don't you think? Have you ever felt like anyone was really the wind beneath your wings? Have you ever really needed someone like you need oxygen? Because if you are no longer with them then the answer is an emphatic no. It's a period of sensations that we try to extend. We make love love by constantly trying to fan the flame so to speak. Crushes and lust are very often confused with love, but those tend to fizzle away at some point and after you recover, you may be a little more jaded but you feel the same way before it happened.
Enough analyzing though. I'm married, i've been married for almost four years. And I love my wife, it's not the way she looks, not the way she thinks, not the way she smiles, but it's the deep seeded feeling of contentment that I feel. I feel as if I died right now, I could die knowing that I didn't miss anything, that my life although short had it's moments where I felt some connection to another human being that wasn't simply friendship or obligation. But a willingness to endure more than I would for almost anyone just to feel satisfied with my life. That is love to me.
Love between a couple isn't found in the first year, or the second year. It's a lifetime. This topic has been romanticized by novels and hollywood almost to the point of absurdity over the last couple centuries. But the phrases we use to describe it really exaggerate don't you think? Have you ever felt like anyone was really the wind beneath your wings? Have you ever really needed someone like you need oxygen? Because if you are no longer with them then the answer is an emphatic no. It's a period of sensations that we try to extend. We make love love by constantly trying to fan the flame so to speak. Crushes and lust are very often confused with love, but those tend to fizzle away at some point and after you recover, you may be a little more jaded but you feel the same way before it happened.
Enough analyzing though. I'm married, i've been married for almost four years. And I love my wife, it's not the way she looks, not the way she thinks, not the way she smiles, but it's the deep seeded feeling of contentment that I feel. I feel as if I died right now, I could die knowing that I didn't miss anything, that my life although short had it's moments where I felt some connection to another human being that wasn't simply friendship or obligation. But a willingness to endure more than I would for almost anyone just to feel satisfied with my life. That is love to me.
"In our youth, we lacked the maturity, the decency to create gods better than ourselves so that we might have something to aspire to. Instead we are left with a host of deities who were violent, narcissistic, vengeful bullies who reflected our own values. Our gods could have been anything we could imagine, and all we were capable of manifesting were gods who shared the worst of our natures."-Me
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." – Francis Bacon
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." – Francis Bacon
