The Nature of Love

Love is unique in its striking ability to be a driving force in dictating interpersonal relationships. It patterns behavior and orients individuals towards their distinct, unique attractions. According to Velleman, love penetrates deeper than one’s qualities; it extends to one’s rational will, or the essence of a person. To him, though love appears to have particularity, it is also a moral emotion. Kolodny subscribes to the relationship theory, asserting that an ongoing, interpersonal, and historical relationship with a relative is a part of the reason for love. In Kolodny’s view, the existence of the true self is irrelevant, as is the morality of love. Both Velleman and Kolodny disprove the quality theory; however, their perceptions of love and its morality differ. I believe that Kolodny is correct in his view that morality is irrelevant to love and that there must be factual reasons for love. Although it is enticing to believe that one is attracted to the essence of another, the essence is not motivation enough for love. The relationship theory takes into account the motivation needed to love a particular person from a historical, interpersonal, and ongoing perspective.

When one looks at romantic love, one would conclude that it is a social dyad that brings about certain responsibilities between two people in a relationship such as honesty, protection, openness and expressions of love. (William, 2008: 76). Contrasting with

Have you ever felt the feeling of butterflies in your stomach or heard the phrase “my heart skipped a beat for you”? As children, we grew up learning from our elders and experiencing new beginnings in life. Much of our knowledge has been brought upon by what we see and hear, rather of what we know. Many important decisions we make in our life has to do with what our feelings show us. Love is an important matter in our life because it motivates us in different ways. Love can be shown through emotions or even through actions. What is a valuable definition of love? A brief definition of love can be said to be a variety of different feelings or attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection to pleasure. In other words, to me love is when

One of the most complicated experiences in life, love cannot be precisely defined, but some basic indications help to characterize the feeling. Love is a very deep, passionate affection one person has for another or a relationship of the same nature that implies a unique intensity of emotion. It requires an especially strong connection and compatibility between two people, usually identified by a total understanding and respect for each other and a fundamental similarity in ideology. Love can also be seen in the way it alters people’s normal behavior; when someone is in love, the object of their affection seems like the most important thing in the world, and they do extreme things for that feeling to be requited. Love cannot easily be

Love is a variety of different emotional and mental states, typically strongly and positively experienced, that ranges from deepest interpersonal affection to simple pleasure. This value is precious amongst all humans, it is what makes or breaks us. Not only does love remind us of a time that was relevant or memorable,

The human idea of love is quite possibly the most misunderstood in today’s society. Love can be between a man and woman, mother/father and their kids, or even really good friends. However, these relationships of love go through many interactions and stages to start and progress. Many psychological events must occur and be worked through in order to be successful. All relationships must endure the five perspectives of human behavior. These perspectives are biological, learning, social and cultural, cognitive, and psychodynamic influences.

Love exists in the short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro and in the short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver. in Munro’s short story the plot is that of a mentally ill wife, Fiona, who falls in love with another patient while her husband still tries to hang on to their old love. Her husband eventually wants to have an affair with the wife of the man his wife is having an affair with. Their love changed because of their circumstances due to ill health. Carver’s story discusses the different definitions of love due to the type and quality of relationships; everyone has a different definition. Love also exists all over the world within different environments and cultures. The concept of love depends upon the environment in which it inhabits. Love is dependent on the life of the people in love and it also depends on their current environment. Nature and nurture are also huge factors into the development and process of love. What nature and nurture mean is whether it is due to how the person lives and acts along with their personality compared to whether it’s all in their genetics beforehand. Love is more on the nurture side instead of the nature side of human experience.

Love is a commonly misinterpreted concept that is many times taken for granted and unsurprisingly difficult to thoroughly comprehend. Love is an intangible conception and a condition of the mind that allows one to transcend emotional barriers between one another. In Raymond Carver’s short-story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, love is illustrated in several different ways to provide insight on the various forms of love and how they transcend these emotional barriers.

Laura Kipnis’s “Against Love”, and Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” ,brings up the issue of what is the definition of love and is love what we think it is. Love has changed in comparison to what it once was, and we now loosely use the term, but what does it truly mean, and why do we buy in to it. Kipnis’s essay develops the idea that this “mature love” is when someone can love and be loved, and she takes the position that this does not happen. Although Kipnis believes mature love is neither a realistic expectation nor a good thing to have, I claim that the idea of mature love is not bogus, because even though it is rare to find, and may even take a few tries, I believe it is possible for people to have this mature love. Unlike Kipnis too, I believe mature love can take on different forms, and doesn’t have to just be so black and white like Kipnis explains it as.

The love story is one of the oldest and most cherished traditions in any world culture. The prevalence of romantic works throughout history, whether Greek myths, Jane Austen’s dramatic narratives, or today’s dime-a-dozen romantic novels, ultimately encourages us to believe in the power of true love. We identify with the archetypal star-crossed lovers, who combat established convention in order to assert their romance, because we too yearn for our own “happily-ever-afters.” When used in conjunction with reason, love is the highest form of compassion – without it, we could not possibly interact productively with one another or develop as individuals. But when we take a new perspective and examine love as an independent,

What is Love? Does anyone really know the meaning of the word? Does it have a different meaning to different people? In Kipnis’s essay “Love Labors”, Laura Kipnis touches on many different aspects of love. This is a touchy subject simply because love brings out many different opinions and beliefs. Kipnis argues over the fact that in order to have a good relationship and love someone people have to be able to meet certain requirements, which are mutuality, communication, and advanced intimacy.

Love is said to be the greatest human experience in which mankind are privilege to partake in. To love can be a wondrous experience filling life with bliss and other strong emotions. Some people believe to love is to be alive and be able to see the good in the world and others. The purpose of this paper is to examine and find a better understanding of what is love, to explore what people believe love to be, and what lies surround the perception of love and to explore and expose what the meaning true love is or at the very least the authors understanding of the perception of love. In addition to exploring the concept, deception and the truth of love,

Love, as we know, is a mystifying emotion. Even Sophocles, one of the three Greek tragedians whose plays have survived, stated: “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love”. As these four simple letters come together, everything else in the world is forgotten. This complicated emotion is held responsible for starting as many battles as it has ended and overall creating the world’s strongest bonds. Yet, what is love? The Oxford dictionary defines love as a strong feeling of affection but in the end, there are millions of ways that each individual defines love according to their experiences. One individual in particular is Shakespeare, who is widely known for expressing the significance of love in various plays of his, as he portrays several branches of love such as friendship, parental love, and romantic love. In Much Ado about Nothing, Shakespeare demonstrates the ways in which Claudio and Hero’s love shows the triumph of imagination over intelligence compared to Benedick and Beatrice’s love which also shows the triumph of imagination over intelligence throughout the beginning but slowly progresses into intelligence over imagination towards the end. Claudio and Hero’s love revolves around imagination over intelligence as a result of their sudden romance while Benedick and Beatrice’s love revolves around intelligence over imagination because of the true love that they express towards each other.

Love cannot be defined in one sentence or even a paragraph. Every human has his or her own definition of love because people usually define love based on their cultures, backgrounds, social classes, educations, and their societies. In this essay, the main point will be the different kinds of love that Carver illustrates in his story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.” In Carver’s story, there are some points that I can relate to my personal experience. There are a few characteristics and symbols in the story that are really important to understand in order to define what a real love is and find the intention thrown out the story. These characteristics includes, Mel, Terri and Ed and Terri’s relationship. Furthermore, symbols

When asked the question “What is Love?” what are some of the first things that come to mind? Some people might say it is an emotion that we experience when we interact with the world around us. People can have love for many things such as money and other material possessions, family and friends, even the world around them. These are just a few examples of how we often use love in our lives. However, love is not only confined to our lives, it is also a very important emotion in religions as well.