true love essays

True love: more made than found. Rome, 1994. Photo by Steve McCurry/Magnum

What is love?

Forget the modern romantic notion of ‘the one’. true love means looking beyond the couple and out towards life.

by Mark Vernon   + BIO

It is a telling statistic that the ­most frequently ‘what is…?’ question typed into Google last year was: what is love? This fact probably reveals more about the society that asks an internet search engine such a thing, than any answer reveals about the nature of love. But if not Google, then where else can we look to understand love? The fantasy-making machines of Hollywood and Bollywood insist that there is only one answer worth indulging: the romantic kind. Most people, it would seem, agree, if only by default. They are dragged into seeking the person who will make them ‘whole’ via a dating website, or by a less tangible, though no less keenly felt urge cultivated by the same, dominant culture that insists we must find ‘the one’. Not that its origins are modern. Ever since the poet Sappho wrote, in the seventh century BCE, of love rippling under her skin like wind through trees, romantic love has been imagined as irresistible, a crucial experience that marks the peak of human existence.

Yet, the Google stats suggest that there is also a silent global search underway — many of us are clearly not satisfied with romance as an answer. The real problem, then, might be that contemporary culture leaves us unprepared for thinking about love in anything other than a one-dimensional mode. Just as marriage has seized the monopoly on public affirmations of love, so a notion of romance has restricted what we can imagine as a loving relationship.

The ancient Greeks, unlike us, did not have a single word for love but many. As is often noted, they had philia (friendship) and eros (desire), storge (affection) and agape (unconditional love). Perhaps that is another part of our problem. Our language invites us to think of love as a single, unified thing, when it is nothing of the sort. I suspect that words are not enough to address this modern deficiency. What we need is a new sense of the variety of love’s experiences. Fortunately there is another storehouse we can draw on from our ancient forebears: and it is not their words, but their myths that can enlighten us.

I n a sense, we are lumbered with the dominance of romantic love; it can’t simply be sidestepped in favour of friendship, for example. That would never work: the erotic is simply too powerful. But the ancient myths can help us realise why romance is such a successful sell, if short-lived. Perhaps the myth that best captures the allure of romance is Aristophanes’ idea about soulmates, from Plato’s Symposium The story goes that human beings originally had two heads, four arms and four legs. We were shaped like round balls and tumbled across the face of the Earth at great speed. The gods grew alarmed at this display of power. So Zeus hatched a plan. He would cut human beings in half, leaving each with just one head, two arms and two legs.

These mutilated halflings were a pathetic sight. In particular, they developed the habit of devoting considerable amounts of their now limited energy searching for their lost halves. The desire to find the missing other was irresistible. Individuals sustained the search in spite of repeated break-ups and romantic disasters in the indefatigable belief that the right person — ‘the one’ — was out there. The promise of love, they felt, was nothing less than wholeness.

The myth has had a long life, accurately describing to this day the inner experience of those who feel life is incomplete without such love. In fact, it wasn’t until the 18th century that Aristophanes’ way of thinking about love reached its logical conclusion, when Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote of how he fell in love as a young man. Only after that experience, he mused, could he be sure that he had genuinely lived. The upshot was that romantic love had become the goal in its own right. It matters not who you fall in love with, so long as you have fallen in love. The experiential ideal usurps the complex personal reality. That is why romance has us so much in its grip and empties us out in the process. It is the same with the dogmatic pursuit of happiness.

Crucially, however, Plato’s original myth about soulmates ends not with an elusive, illusory happiness, but with a twist. And here it might have something to teach us, suggesting an escape hatch out of the romantic stronghold. Zeus takes pity on the halved humans. He moves their genitals round so that when they meet they can embrace and find a little release for their passion. Sex is a temporary taste of unity, and it helps, though only to a degree. So when Hephaestus, the god of craftsmen, passes by and promises the couples a wish, these tragic figures speak with one voice. Weld us together, they cry: melt us one into the other!

For love to have a future, couples need to be able to move from falling in love to standing in love

Hephaestus obliges. The two become one. And the new situation reveals another way in which love gets stuck. Glued together, gazing only into each other’s eyes, the lovers lose touch with the rest of life. Not caring for anything else, death takes on an attractive hue, and they dream of sharing a last single breath together — a fantasy that lives on in the French euphemism, la petite mort , and in the romantic climax to Romeo and Juliet . But as the psychologist Erich Fromm put it in The Art of Loving (1956), for love to have a future, couples need to be able to move from falling in love to standing in love. Lovers must learn to embrace what lies outside their cosy twosome in order to survive. As Freud made explicit, dyadic love can be nurturing, but can equally be claustrophobic and alienating, and Aristophanes’ tale suggest it must be transcended.

The question is, how? How can the energy that romantic desire releases be directed outwards so that it feeds a passion not just for life together, but for life itself, led together. An answer is given by another ancient myth, one that is almost forgotten today. It concerns the infant god of love, familiar to us as Eros, but it also introduces us to another, less familiar figure, his brother.

Eros was born to Aphrodite and at first all seemed well. But then, Aphrodite noticed something that disturbed her. The child was not growing. His wings stayed as buds. His chubby flesh failed to develop muscles. It was as if he was possessed by a spirit that clung to infancy, refusing to step into maturity. Aphrodite became anxious and consulted her sister, the wise Themis. The goddess of good counsel (whose name translates literally as ‘what works’ ) advised her to have another child, this time by Ares, the brave god of war. Themis instructed that the second infant be called Anteros — he would be the equal of Eros. Aphrodite did as her sister said, and it worked. The two sons were rivals. They joshed and scrapped and fought, yet loved one another, too, and, as long as they played side by side, Eros developed normally. Yet, when they were apart, Aphrodite noticed that Eros would regress.

What Anteros brings is difficulty, a romantic equivalent to the sibling rivalry that young children hate so much in their jostling for a parent’s attention even though, like the tensions in an adult relationship, it can be the making of them, when sensitively handled. Anteros brings the courage required to resist the oceanic fantasy of disappearing into another’s arms, and instead embarks on the difficult process of making a life out of love. What he stands for, we might say, is the healthy spiritedness that lies behind lovers’ tiffs and rows which, if they can be reflected on and learnt from, make for maturity. The 16th-century proverb conveys this Anterotic dynamic: ‘The quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love’. If Eros is the god of love who shoots people with his arrows and turns them mad with desire, Anteros is the god of love who opposes the madness with a mix of his aunt’s pragmatism and his father’s strength.

To onlookers, it is unclear whether the two are making love or locked in some form of mutual violation

But the myth tells us more. Anteros’ aunt Themis was also known for her skill in bringing conflicting energies into a healing alignment. Today, her successors are couples’ therapists: they tend to be more interested in how troubled couples handle the emotions unleashed by their rows, rather than how to avoid rows in the first place. The anger and hate, fear and vulnerability of difficult relationships can be an opportunity. This is not your lost half, the therapist implies, but it is someone with whom you might find more integration and wholeness for yourself. Life is not perfected through love, as the romantic fantasy implies, but through love you can find more of life. Conversely, an inability to handle conflict is a good predictor of divorce.

It’s worth reflecting on the detail that Anteros helped his brother only while they played together. When they were apart, Eros regressed. Perhaps this conveys the value of commitment in relationships, a commitment that provides a container for the ups and downs, allowing them to be worked through. There is no static ‘happily ever after’, but a continuing need to play together. It suggests that a good relationship comes from the future, not the past, as Aristophanes’ myth implies. Love is more made than found.

I n his book Anteros: A Forgotten Myth (2011), Craig Stephenson gathers evidence that Eros’ brother might not have vanished after all. He discusses Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem, ‘Hero’s Lamp’ (1875), which speaks of a lamp that is dedicated to Anteros and can only be lit when a love lasts a lifetime — unlike the mad love Leander had for Hero, which led him to attempt to cross the sea to reach her too many times and drown.

Meanwhile, the famous wrestling scene in DH Lawrence’s novel, Women in Love , can be read, Stephenson argues, as a depiction of the rivalry between Eros and Anteros. Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich wrestle ‘swiftly, rapturously, intent and mindless at last’. Birkin learns from the aggression, safely but fully expressed in the fight: his marriage to Ursula Brangwen will have to combine elements of unity and adversity to work. Separateness in union can be achieved only by holding opposites in tension, as the critic Frank Kermode has read into Lawrence. Lovers must reach ‘an equilibrium beyond the ordinary notion of sexual love’.

Fundamentally, the myth of Eros and Anteros is about a triangular form of love. The brothers fight as siblings, vying for the attention of Aphrodite. It is this kind of love that is life-giving, because Eros and Anteros can desire something outside their immediate dyadic concerns. Their love is triangular: it is fired by someone or something beyond their love for each other. Their rivalry draws them towards external elements in life — which is to say, life itself. Hence, Eros matures.

Plato built the myth of Anteros into one of his dialogues. The triangular element it seems, particularly interested him. In the Phaedrus dialogue, he describes what happens when individuals fall in love (this much is familiar): romantic urges compel them to rush together, propelled by desire. To onlookers, it is unclear whether the two are making love or locked in some form of mutual violation. But some lovers are blessed by what Plato calls an Anterotic dynamic. It is as if they are able to prise themselves apart from one another, stand back a little, and observe what is going on. A third space opens up between them. It brings an essential capacity for self-awareness.

A couple can work out not only how to live together but how to live well together

This gap has a dramatic effect on the relationship. No longer are they just driven by their lust for one another. Instead, in time, a more expansive intimacy develops, which has a quality akin to friendship. The words of the French writer and poet Antoine de Saint-Exupéry come to mind: ‘Experience shows us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.’ As lovers, two people look only into each other’s eyes; as friends, they can look ahead together. They begin to see a life that lies beyond them and, supported by one another — now standing in love — they have the resources to step into the future together.

What is interesting about Plato’s account is that he believes this life-enhancing friendship is the result of erotic love. His philosophy is not a denial of eros , but its skilful channelling, tricky as that is to pull off. This explains the original meaning of the phrase ‘Platonic friendship’ — not that the erotic was never to be felt between such friends (an idea that would have been regarded by Plato as a form of denial), but rather that the sexual expression of the romantic element is incorporated and transcended. In Freudian terms, the erotic instinct is sublimated. Its energy becomes available for the passionate pursuit of philosophy — an attractive possibility given that, for Plato, philosophy meant the cultivation of a life that makes for flourishing. To capture the same sentiment in a less highfalutin way, such a couple can work out not only how to live together but how to live well together.

Triangular love, where space is made in a relationship for life (and love) beyond the confines of the couple, is the highest form of human love because it makes a good life possible. As the philosopher Anthony Price puts it in Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle (1989), ‘in a promising soul well prompted, it is receptive of, and responsive to, the opening of new vistas’. It is a less fearful and self-obsessed love than that of Narcissus, and has space for others unlike Aristophanes’ glued-together lovers. To use Iris Murdoch’s phrase in her reading of Plato, this love has ‘an increased awareness of, sensibility to, the world beyond the self’.

But this raises an important question. If we want a way out of romantic confines, where can we pay homage to Anteros today? Craig Stephenson points out that what we popularly call the statue of Eros on the Shaftesbury memorial fountain in Piccadilly is actually Anteros. It was made in 1893 by the sculptor Alfred Gilbert who felt his own life mirrored the struggles of the rival brothers of love. Gilbert saw a reflection of his impulsive character in Eros and longed to know for himself more of the realism associated with Anteros. He must have felt that Anteros was the more suitable god to invoke in the heart of that romantic part of London. Personally, I offer Anteros a surreptitious, reverent bow each time I pass. It is in cautious thanks for the tricky side of love.

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Can One Really Define Love? Essay

What is love? It seems to be as baffling as the question “What is the meaning of life?” Liking and attraction seem to be of lesser degree when compared to love yet attraction is also closely associated with friendship. These are three concepts that mean lot of things to different people.

When it comes to love, one will encounter countless lines that attempt to define it. We all have heard that love is blind. Love is what makes the world go round. Love is all there is. Novels, poems, short stories and songs, all kinds of literature have immortalized love. Why? Plato said it right: At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. Since the beginning of time, love has been there to propel people who fall in it to do crazy – or at least extraordinary things. Those who stumble into it go into a trance, seeing everything or everyone who stands against it as a threat to their happiness.

The dictionary says that love is the passionate devotion to another being but its essence must not be entirely confined to its lexical meaning. The New Testament alone exemplifies three types of love. The romantic, sexual love or eros , the love of friendship or phileo , and the unconditional love of the Divine or agape . While the first two may come easily for most people, agape does not because it is the unconditional love that is usually ascribed to the Divine. (Boyer, 1999).

Some hold that love is nothing but a physical response to another whom the agent feels physically attracted to. Physical determinists for example, consider love to be an extension of the chemical-biological constituents of the human creature and is explicable according to such processes. Others who consider love to be an aesthetic response hold that love is knowable through the emotional and conscious feeling that it provokes and it cannot be captured in rational or descriptive language but by metaphor or by music. The spiritualist vision of love incorporates mystical as well as traditional romantic notions of love, but rejects the behaviorist or physical determinist’s explanations. (Moseley, 2001).

Love may be defined in any way imaginable to man and may differ from one person to another. Hence, although each of us has his own way of looking at love, it can’t nevertheless be denied that love is universal and everyone, anywhere can feel it.

Levels of physical attractiveness can influence people in so many powerful ways. A person’s characteristics based on an individual’s perception of physical attractiveness can either add to one’s status or stigmatize them. Males and females have different cognitive schemas about the attractiveness of the opposite sex. This is because one’s gender determines the how the person will view their own attractiveness and how that person will view another one’s physical attractiveness.

There are several theories that apply to physical attraction and one of this is the reinforcement theory. This means that when a person is paired with a stimulus that elicits a positive effect or reward, the result is increased liking of that person. One can begin to like a physically attractive person because he is pleasing to look at which is your own personal reward. Meanwhile, the attractive person also gets the benefits of being attractive because once a positive reward is associated with an individual; your liking of them will increase.

There are actually three factors that influence attraction. One of this is proximity. It seems that people tend to like those that are closer to them By this we mean, of greater proximity rather than those far from them. This is because if people are close to each other, they often see each other. Perhaps because they are able to nurture relationships with each other. It is difficult for people to cultivate relationships when they are far apart. (Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations).

One other factor is physical attractiveness. According to Robert B Cialdini, an influential psychologist, physical attractiveness is an important component in degree of influence. He stipulates that physically attractive people have a huge social advantage in our culture. They are better liked, more persuasive, more frequently helped, and seen as possessing better personality traits and intellectual capabilities (Cialdini 1984). This is what some experts call the halo effect. This happens when positive characteristics of a person, spell the way a person is viewed by others (Henricks, Chris, et. al, 1998). There is the notion that people who are above average in physical attractiveness is also above average in other aspects as well.

Sometimes this can be a disadvantage too. The physically attractive people may think that things are being done for them just because they look good rather than their innate attributes. (Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations).The third factor in attraction is similarity. People who are similar in tastes and likes tend to attract each other. When they find that they have a lot of commonalities, they tend to go together. It is like the saying that says, “birds of the same feather, flock together.”

People are interested in establishing relationships with others who are similar to themselves. In this connection, if the goal of attraction is partnership, and apart of this partnership is sharing life with someone else, then it is wise to choose a partner with similar background and interests. The person who is similar with another one in terms of interests, then, there would be less problems since there is a meeting of minds. They will want to do the same activities and share the same hobbies as you do. (Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations).

One way to get someone to like you is to like them. This action is called a reciprocity norm. This means that whatever is done to you should be done in return. The value of indebtedness comes into play here. When someone does something for us, often we feel indebted to that person, so the action is often reciprocated. Many great thinkers today find that whatever good feelings you give to others will return back to you. In the context of the reciprocity norm, it means that the way to get someone to like us is to like them first. What you give will come back to you a hundredfold.

Sternberg has a theory of love, which involves 3 dimensions: passion, intimacy, and commitment. He suggests that the combination of these dimensions can be used to classify different types of love or mutually good feelings. So, Sternberg is suggesting that not all loving relationships are created equal. I might suggest that true love – the love that creates a special and precious relationship between two people – is one that would have all 3 of Sternberg’s dimensions (Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations).

Love in its many forms is a way of bringing joy into our lives, and we all treasure the moments of love that we know and have known. Loving is a way of giving, both to the person receiving and the one giving. Through loving, a person becomes closer to himself as he shares himself to another one and opens the way for sharing. The meaning of love is limitless because love is relative from person to person. How one would see it would be different from how another would. Love teaches us in different ways. It remains a mystery, a puzzle that must be left to work out on its own – or better yet, just left to retain its mystique.

Works Cited

Boyer, Janet. “What Is Love?” 1999. Web.

Moseley, Alex. “Philosophy of Love”. From The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2001. Web.

“Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations,” 2008. Web.

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• Relationships

Is There Really True Love?

To find true love, focus on giving, not receiving..

Posted December 23, 2017 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

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Is there an emotional bond that deserves to be called true love? Is true love possible? In their 1986 hit song, the Judds sang: “Grandpa, take me back to yesterday ... Did lovers really fall in love to stay and stand beside each other come what may?”

The lyrics reflect the declining stability of marital relationships over four decades. Although the U.S. divorce rate declined slightly three years in a row from 2013 to 2016, typical marriages still have only about a 50% chance of lasting. For years, marriage rates declined, in part because young adults have waited longer to get married. Many say that they don’t intend to ever get married.

The belief that love is true when it lasts is not an outdated concept. In her 2015 song, True Love , Ariana Grande describes how her relationship grew into true love from kisses to a commitment to last forever. But how can a person know that a relationship will last forever? Lovers don’t expect that even a genuine relationship will consist only of passionate positive emotions. In 1960, Buddy Holly’s song, True Love Ways , was released posthumously. Written as a wedding gift for his wife, Holly’s song predicted: “Sometimes we’ll sigh; sometimes we’ll cry ... Throughout the days our true love ways will bring us joys to share with those who really care.”

Looking back on his marriage in his song, Remember When , Alan Jackson recounts the ups and downs over the years: “There was joy, there was hurt ... We came together, fell apart and broke each other’s hearts.” Despite it all, Jackson anticipated: “We won’t be sad, we’ll be glad for all the life we’ve had.”

Do conflicting emotions characterize or define true love? In her 2012 song, True Love , pop artist Pink expresses the mixed emotions of her relationship: “Sometimes I hate every single stupid word you say ... At the same time, I wanna hug you.” In fact, Pink explains: “I really hate you so much, I think it must be true love,” because “nothing else can break my heart like true love ... And no one else can break my heart like you.” Despite hurt and heartbreak, Pink identifies her feelings as true love because “without you I’m incomplete.”

In his song, All of Me , dedicated to his fiancée, John Legend also admits to complex emotions: “You’re my downfall, you’re my muse. My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues.” But ultimately completeness is the core of his relationship: “You’re my end and my beginning. Even when I lose I’m winning, ‘cause I give you all of me and you give me all of you.” Do we know a love is true when we don’t feel complete without our lover?

Research suggests that people share a common image of what it means to be loved. Key characteristics of knowing someone loves you include: support without expectation of anything in return, compassion in difficult times, quality time together, being told you are loved, feeling special and appreciated, and being forgiven for something you did wrong. By contrast, people agree that we don’t feel loved when someone is possessive or tries to control us.

But what does it mean to love with a pure or true love? Research has documented a number of different types of love: eros or romantic, ludus or game-playing, storge or friendship , pragma or logical, mania or possessive, and agape or altruistic . Physical attraction and intimacy are central to eros, permissiveness and variety of partners characterize ludus, companionship and stability are the foundation of storge, and compatibility in social and personal characteristics is the core of pragma. Mania is obsessive, dependent, jealous and intensely emotional, whereas agape is altruistic, all-giving, and selfless with no expectation of love in return.

How we love others can vary for different relationships and in various situations. But does one style of loving represent what we envision as true love? While each style illustrates our yearning to find the right person who will satisfy our need to be loved, one—agape—reveals our capacity for what might come closest to pure love. Rather than being concerned with how a relationship benefits us, agape is focused on the best interests of the one we love. It is the love that puts the other first. Researchers identify this style as one in which a person tries to always help their lover through difficult times, sacrifice their own wishes to let their lover achieve theirs, endure all for the sake of their lover, and suffer in place of their lover.

This love is expressed in Freddy Fender’s hit recording of Before the Next Teardrop Falls : “If he brings you happiness , then I wish you all the best. It’s your happiness that matters most of all.” Beyond the emotional, the essence of this selfless love is behavioral commitment: “But if he ever breaks your heart, if the teardrops ever start, I’ll be there before the next teardrop falls.”

The benefits of agape have been highlighted by research. Selfless caring is associated with deep love, intimate communication, relationship satisfaction, loyalty and commitment. Couples in agape relationships are likely to deal more effectively with stress by supporting each other and by dealing with problems jointly, promoting their sense of “ we-ness .” Employing healthy coping strategies can deepen commitment and strengthen satisfaction with the relationship.

But are there costs to loving in such a selfless way? What are the psychological consequences of altruistic love? One would anticipate that the strong commitment and deep bond would mean great emotional pain if the relationship fails. As expected, research suggests that the end of such a rich committed relationship can result in feelings of profound loss and sadness. The more rewarding the love, the greater loss. Taking the risk of one day having to pay such a price is inherent in the essential nature of agape as all-giving and selfless.

Is it realistic to think that we can love in such an all-giving, non-demanding way? Research suggests that this style is rarely, if ever, fully actualized. It might well be the ideal we can hope for and strive toward. In searching for true love, we need to redirect our focus and energy from receiving to giving. Research shows that those who practice other-directed love are less likely to ever have to pay the hefty price. Perhaps there is such a thing as true love, and perhaps it can last.

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Holly, B., & Petty, N. (1960). True love ways [Recorded by B. Holly]. On The Buddy Holly Story , Volume 2 [Vinyl]. New York, NY: Coral Records.

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Keith, V., & Peters, B. (1974). Before the next teardrop falls [Recorded by F. Fender]. On Before the Next Teardrop Falls [Vinyl]. Nashville, TN: Dot Records.

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Oravecz, Z., Muth, C., & Vandekerckhove, J. (2016). Do people agree on what makes one feel loved? A cognitive psychometric approach to the consensus on felt love. PLOS ONE . DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0152803

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Krystine Batcho, Ph.D. , is a professor at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

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18 Of The Most Illuminating Literary Passages On Love, Life, And Romance By Beau Taplin

• https://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=484337

I can’t remember exactly when I first stumbled upon Beau Taplin’s writing. I suppose it was when I found myself in a used bookstore a few weeks ago with a copy of  Hunting Season in my hands. Then I remembered, later, a friend from Australia had told me some time ago when we were in Nicaragua that he was one of her favorites. Beau’s work largely exists online, on posts that get reblogged thousands of times and on his website – the only place you can buy copies of his books. Here are a select few of some of the most beautiful and illuminating passages from his work.

“ Listen to me, your body is not a temple. Temples can be destroyed and desecrated. Your body is a forest—thick canopies of maple trees and sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the under wood. You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated. ”

“ often, when we have a crush, when we lust for a person, we see only a small percentage of who they really are. the rest we make up for ourselves. rather than listen, or learn, we smother them in who we imagine them to be, what we desire for ourselves, we create little fantasies of people and let them grow in our hearts. and this is where the relationship fails. in time, the fiction we scribble onto a person falls away, the lies we tell ourselves unravel and soon the person standing in front of you is almost unrecognizable, you are now complete strangers in your own love. and what a terrible shame it is. my advice: pay attention to the small details of people, you will learn that the universe is far more spectacular an author than we could ever hope to be. ”, human beings are made of water–-, we were not designed to hold ourselves together, rather run freely like oceans like rivers, “ one day, whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die. however, the saddest, most awful truth you will ever come to find – is they are not always with whom we spend our lives. ”, “ home is not where you are from, it is where you belong. some of us travel the whole world to find it. others, find it in a person.”, “ it’s 4am and i can’t remember how your voice sounds anymore. ”, “ it’s strange how your childhood sort of feels like forever. then suddenly you’re sixteen and the world becomes an hourglass and you’re watching the sand pile up at the wrong end. and you’re thinking of how when you were just a kid, your heartbeat was like a kick drum at a rock show, and now it’s just a time bomb ticking out. and it’s sad. and you want to forget about dying. but mostly you just want to forget about saying goodbye. ”, “ there was never going to be an “us” because you wanted to be missed more than you wanted to be loved. ”, “ it is a frightening thought, that in one fraction of a moment you can fall in the kind of love that takes a lifetime to get over. ”, “ the one thing i know for sure is that feelings are rarely mutual, so when they are, drop everything, forget belongings and expectations, forget the games, the two days between texts, the hard to gets because this is it, this is what the entire world is after and you’ve stumbled upon it by chance, by accident – so take a deep breath, take a step forward, now run, collide like planets in the system of a dying sun, embrace each other with both arms and let all the rules, the opinions and common sense crash down around you. because this is love kid, and it’s all yours. believe me, you’re in for one hell of a ride, after all – this is the one thing i know for sure. ”, “ the single greatest thing about love, in my experience, is the way it is doomed to pain and loss from its onset. whether it is the spouse that outlives their lover, or loses them to another, there is no escaping that most solemn of inevitabilities. that two people can commit themselves to all this sadness and heartache in the name of such brief happiness, the warm touch of familiar skin, the unrivalled pleasantness in waking up beside the same person you spent the entire night with in your dreams, is all the proof i need that insanity exists, and it is fucking beautiful. ”, “ it’s you. it’s been you for as long as i can remember. everyone else has just been another failed attempt at perfecting the art of pretending you’re not. i miss you. ”, “ i want somebody with a sharp intellect and a heart from hell. somebody with eyes like starfire and a mouth with a kiss like a bottomless well. but mostly i just want someone who will love me. when i do not know how to love myself. ”, “ do not call me perfect, a lie is never a compliment. call me an erratic damaged and insecure mess. then tell me that you love me for it. ”, “ the hours between 12am and 6am have a funny habit of making you feel like you’re either on top of the world, or under it. ”, “ my heart beats in almosts. it’s constantly in pursuit of those whom it desires but the moment it comes too close, it stops, turns, and bolts in the other direction. i hold onto what makes me miserable and i let the good things go. i’m self destructive.” i said. “it’s the way i’ve always been.”

“and why do you think that is” 

“because it’s simpler to destroy something you love,” i said. 
“than it is to watch it leave. ”, “ i just want to be the person you miss at 3am. ”, “ she was unstoppable. not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them. ”, for more from koty follow her on facebook ..

About the author

Koty Neelis

Former senior staff writer and producer at Thought Catalog.

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The Meaning of True Love

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• Harlow, John, and Brendan Montague. “Scientists discover true love.” Sunday Times January 4, 2009 : Web. 8 Dec 2009. <http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article5439805.ece>.
• Szymborska, Wislawa. “True Love.” Making Literature Matter. ‘Ed’. John Schilb, John Clifford. Boston: Bedford / ST. Martin’s, 2009. Print.
• Young, Cori. “Child Development is Almost Entirely About Love, Research Clearly Shows.” Natural Humor Medicine. Natural Humor Medicine, Web. 8 Dec 2009. <http://www.natural-humor-medicine.com/child-development.html>.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Love — The Many Faces of Love

The Many Faces of Love

• Categories: Love Types of Love

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Published: Feb 7, 2024

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The beginning of love, early stages of love, obstacles and challenges, the power of love, the dark side of love, different forms of love.

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• True Love Essays

True Love Essays (Examples)

Filter by keywords:(add comma between each), example essays.

True Love the Existence of True Love

True Love The existence of true love has been a debate among writers, authors, and philanthropists for years. There are many things in this world that we as people share together, but nothing else can bare, mend, or even heal like love. Every place we go and everything we see has in some point in time been touched by some form of love. It is through stories and poems that we indeed do find the existence of true love. I believe that stories and poems provide us with the necessary evidence to prove that true love does exist and we will analyze these poems and stories in the following work to indeed provide evidence of its existence. We find that true love does exist and it is real, when we analyze the writings of those who are most known for acknowledging it. In our world today, society explains love as being…...

Absence of True Love in Our Society

Love Modern America lacks a true love ethic. riters like M. Scott Peck and Bell Hooks argue that our confusion about love stems from an inability to see love as an action rather than a noun, and the confusion of romance and sex with love. Instead, they argue that true love is based on choice and the desire to nurture the self or another spiritually. Hooks specifically argues that much of our confusion about love stems from our paternalistic culture that teaches men that to love is to be weak and inferior. As such, love has become associated with what is feminine and weak in our culture. In their works, June Jordan and Sonia Sanchez describe the gamut of what is considered love in our culture, from the sensual and romantic, to the understanding that love of humanity can help create a more meaningful and functional relationship with ourselves, others, and the…...

mla Works Cited Jordan, June. 2003. Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays. BasicCivitas Books Hooks, Bell. 2001. All About Love: New Visions. Perennial. Peck, M. Scott. 2003. The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. Touchstone Books. Sanchez, Sonia. 1999. Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums. Beacno Press.

True Love Is Analyzed

Love Actually is a course that teaches students to understand and appreciate the various facets of love from a variety of different perspectives. The course is stratified according to the different weeks it runs, with each week presenting a different theme related to the notion of love. In this way, students can get a more comprehensive understanding of love from a variety of approaches that can collectively influence their regard for this force in the world today. The focus of the first week of this class is an overview of the very notion of love itself. It is critically to denote that love actually implies a degree of intimacy with others, which is demonstrable via the "bond" of romantic mating 1. Of course, there are numerous degrees of intimacy with which one can have with others -- which means that there are numerous varieties or shades of love. Perhaps a better…...

mla Bibliography Lehmiller, Justin. The Psychology of Human Sexuality. New York: Wiley Blackwell, 2014. Ryan, Christopher, and Jetha, Cacilda. Sex at Dawn. New York: Harper Collins Publishing, 2010. Slater, Lauren. "Love." National Geographic Magazine, February, 2006. 1. Daniel Mendelsohn, "But Enough about Me," New Yorker, January 25, 2010, 68.

Wuthering Read Greatest Depiction Perfect True Love

uthering read greatest depiction perfect, true love. It read a critique sort love. Explain sides debate. Include direct quotations. Paraphrase everuthing, quotations unparaphraseable . Impossible love in "uthering Heights" Emily Bronte's 1847 novel "uthering Heights" speaks about love as seen from the perspectives of several individuals. hile some might be inclined to consider that the book is meant to emphasize the importance of true love, others are probable to consider that the story is actually intended to have people acknowledge that love can be particularly devastating and that it is dangerous for people to try and search for perfect love. Compromise is everything when regarding this book and if its characters would have attempted to try and settle with what they had it is very probable that they would have experienced fewer hardships. The novel concentrates between the impossible love affair between Heathcliff, the central character, and his lover Catherine. Throughout the…...

mla Works cited: Bronte, Emily, "Wuthering heights: a novel," (Harper & Brothers, publishers, Franklin square, 1858)

Nature of True Love in Plato's Symposium

nature of true love in Plato's "Symposium" Rather famously, the ancient Greeks had multiple words for different aspects of the emotion we English-speaking moderns now term "love." In Plato's dialogue "The Symposium," defining the exact nature of love during a drinking party grips the philosophical imagination of Socrates and numerous other revelers at the house of a man named Agathon. The drinking party includes many individuals exposing their different ideas about the true nature of love. However, only Socrates offers a view of love that encompasses not simply the relationship between earthly individuals. Instead, Socrates suggests an individualistic pursuit of love by the soul, where it cleaves to the good in a non-sexual, and what came to be known as a 'Platonic' form of affection, is the ultimate goal of exercising in physical and spiritual love in the world. For Socrates, all aspects of earthly love are merely simulacra, or…...

mla Works Cited Plato. "The Symposium." From Complete Works. Edited by John Copper. Indianapolis: Hackett 1997, 488-505.

Love and Mythology

Mythology Tales of love begin with the creation of humans, and continue to the graphic media driven "reality TV" shows that televise the private lives of the bachelor and bachelorette and all the people competing for their love. Love is a feeling everyone can relate to, but it is unlikely most people would claim to understand love. ithin almost every literary genre there are myths about love that fuel ideals that are rarely if ever realized. There is no place where this is truer than in the stories of mythology. The perpetual love myths that exist in classical mythology demonstrate ideals that are confronted even today by individuals searching for love today. The ideals of love that will be explored in this work are: love at first sight, the myth of one true love and the human phenomenon of over idealizing unobtainable love. The stories of classical mythology charter the lives…...

mla Works Cited  

Love Triangle Story Lines of Lancelot Arthur

Love Triangle Story Lines of Lancelot, Arthur and Guenivere to Tristram, King Mark and Isolde from Malory's Morte Darthur hen Melanie McGarrahan Gibson says of the "Tale of Sir Gareth" in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur that "in the happiest ending of all of Morlay's tales, love and marriage triumph" (Gibson 220), she is touching on more than just the wholesome and happy nature of the tale. Though unique in its existence as the "happiest of all of Malory's tales," it is reprehensive of a larger problem within Malory's narrative scheme. The tale itself is one of the steady progresses. After overcoming all obstacles, love and marriage win in the end. This is a romantic sentiment and perhaps it is true to some extent. The purpose of current research paper is to analysis the two dominant love triangle storylines in Morte Darthur i.e. between Lancelot-Queen Guinevere- Arthur and love triangle tale…...

mla Works Cited Archibald, E. "Lancelot of the Laik: Sources, Genre, Reception, the Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend Ed. R. Purdie and N. Royan." Cambridge: Brewer, 2005. 71-82. Dobbin M.W. "The Women of Malory's -- Morte Darthur -- ," Ph. D. Diss., Athens, University of Georgia. 1987 Duby, G. The Courtly Model, in C. Klapisch-Zuber, ed., "A History of Women. Silence of the Middle Ages," Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University, 1992 pp. 250 -- 266. Greenwood, M.K., "Women in Love, or Three Courtly Heroines in Chaucer and Malory: Elaine, Criseyde and Guinevere," in A Wyf There Was. Essays in Honour of Paule Mertens-Fonck, ed. J. Dor, Liege, Liege Language and Literature, 1992 pp. 167-177.

Love and Falling in Love From the

love" and "falling in love." From the time that we are infants, we are fed with stories about falling in love, lovers triumphing against all odds, and then living happily ever after. In fact, the same theme is repeated right through the growing up years of childhood and adolescence in all forms of media, be it film, television, music, or books of fiction. As a result, both young men and women alike are almost brainwashed into visualizing an idealized image of the ultimate "falling in love" experience and the woman or man of her or his dreams. True, there is the usual curiosity, which leads to experimentation and the process of sexual discovery but these sexual skirmishes do not really interfere with the typical hopes cherished about living the ultimate romantic dream. Indeed, adolescence is characterized by most teenagers in love with the idea of falling in love. Unfortunately, this dream…...

Love Poem John Frederick Nims Info Authors

Love Poem" John Frederick Nims info authors life included literary criticism poem. essay a strong consistent thesis statement, written 3rd person John Frederick Nims' poem "Love Poem" makes it possible for readers to understand that a love poem does not necessarily need to incorporate traditional concepts in order for it to be successful in sending the right messages. Nims' understanding of love appears to be much more complex in comparison to typical love-related feelings present in most poems. The poet wishes to surprise by putting across his strongest feelings and it is very likely that he wants readers to understand that loving words are not always enough to put across one's love. The lover that this poem is dedicated to is human and in spite of the fact that some might consider this to be a flaw, the poet intends to raise people's awareness regarding the perfection related to being…...

mla Bibliography: Nims, John Frederick, "Love Poem"

Love Despite Being the Frequent

For instance, in Descartes' The Passions of the Soul, his "moral concerns lead him to describe the passion of love as altruistic and involving self-sacrifice [but] his general account of passions, however, suggests that all passions (including love) spring from and promote self-interest," leading to a seeming contradiction and debate that ultimately only serves to reinforce outdated notions of love (Frierson 314). This kind of debate around love has allowed different groups, with religions foremost among them, to use love as a means of controlling the populace and their interpersonal lives. By suggesting that love requires self-sacrifice, one may use another's love in order to get them to do things that they would normally reject outright, and by simultaneously claiming that love stems from some sort of nearly-uncontrollable passion, one may use love as a means of shaming individuals. By describing love solely as the emotions felt and the chemical…...

mla Works Cited Frierson, Patrick. "Learning to Love: From Egoism to Generosity in Descartes." Journal of the History of Philosophy. 40.3 (2002): 313-338. Print. Gottschall, Jonathan, and Marcus NordlandLast. "Romantic Love: A Literary Universal? ." Philosophy and Literature. 30.2 (2006): 450-470. Print. Schaefer, Naomi. "I Do…for Now." Nation Review. 2002: 1-4.

Love in Symposium

Plato's Symposium In order to answer the question of what 'love' means to Plato/Socrates in the Symposium, the most important aspect is to explain how the other participants define it before Socrates weighs in with his more philosophical and spiritual explanation. All of these participants are wealthy, privileged young men from the aristocratic class, except of course for Socrates who comes from the artisan class. They are arrogant, shallow, and narcissistic, and mainly in love with themselves, and also define love as Eros or erotic, physical and sexual experiences, and of course love of money, fame and physical beauty. Sometimes they also realize that philos or friendship can also be a form of love, with which Socrates certainly agrees, although he then carries it to the higher level of agape or universal and God-like benevolence, understanding and virtue. Instead of democracy, they would prefer Athens to be governed by an…...

mla WORKS CITED Gil, Christopher. Plato: The Symposium. Penguin Classics, 1999.

Love and Logics Question Essay

controversy with regard to love, as its complexity can make individuals have completely different perspectives on the concept. Love versus intimacy addresses the idea of feelings being owed primarily to two people liking the thought of being together as a result of the physical attraction between them. To a certain degree this type of love can be considered in a context involving instinct -- the two individuals are fueled by their sexual thinking and believe that it would be in their best interest to be together. Behavioral and physical elements of attraction play an important role at this point, as the connection between two individuals occurs instantaneously.[footnoteRef:1] [1: Rilke, R. M. "Letters to a Young Poet." p. 64.] hen considering love versus attachment, this type of association can be stronger, as the two individuals experience an emotional connection at this moment. One can regard this as a classical form of…...

mla Works cited: Fischer, H. "Anatomy of Love." " Fromm. E. "The Art of Loving." (Open Road Media, 26 Feb 2013) MacLean. P. "The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions." (Springer Science & Business Media, 31 Jan 1990) Mitchell, S. A. "Can Love Last?: The Fate of Romance over Time." (W. W. Norton, 17 Feb 2003)

Love and Duty in Lear and Screwtape

Screwtape and Lear: hat Both Say About Duty and Christian Love The underlying perspective that both King Lear and The Screwtape Letters share may be called a Christian perspective, in which duty, humility and sacrifice are indirectly valued as the best ideals, though, of course, Screwtape also notes that "duty comes before pleasure" (Lewis 21). hile Cordelia represents Christ in Lear, the ordeals of ormwood's patient resemble the crisis of identity that Lear suffers. The relationship between sanity and goodness is established in both works, and that relationship serves to underscore the main theme which is the greatness of Christian living and the tragedy and violence that results from unchristian living. The texts thus serve to complement one another and both agree on man's place in society (which is that he should subordinate himself to God rather than to Self or appetite or Satanic pride, etc.). So while the material is…...

mla Works Cited White, David Allen. "Shakespeare." MN: St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, 1996. Print. Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. Bartleby. Web. 29 Apr 2015. Lincoln, Abraham. "First Inaugural Address." Bartleby. Web. 29 Apr 2015. New Testament. BibleHub. Web. 29 Apr 2015.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Love is a word that is often overused and sometimes underappreciated. And despite the confusion some people have in separating romantic love from sensual pleasure, or real love from friendship -- love is among the most powerful ideas in the world. Given all the tension and hatefulness in the world, it is the opinion of this paper that any love is good love, no matter how bizarre or byzantine it may appear to society. The widely diverse and dissimilar kinds of love that writer Raymond Carver alludes to in his short story simply reflect the vast chasm between one personality and the next. It may seem blatantly obvious to say this, but individual approaches to love -- and reflections on love -- are of course based on each person's life experiences. Bob Dylan wrote a song -- "Love is Just a Four-Letter ord" -- that has an ironic twist to it,…...

mla Works Cited Carver, Raymond. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. New York: Random House, 2009.

Common Themes of Humanities Love

Love is a universal theme, and can be found in multiple art forms including painting, poetry, and music. One of the most common romantic expressions and symbols of love is the kiss. In 1907, Gustav Klimt painted "The Kiss," perhaps his most famous painting characterized not only by its subject of a man kissing a woman but also its use of gold paint and Art Nouveau style. In 1939, poet Stephen Dunn published "The Kiss," which conveys a similar type of eroticism as Klimt's painting. Finally, in 1986, Prince produced one of his most famous songs and videos, "Kiss." All three of these kiss themed works of art convey the theme of erotic and sensual love, which is a common theme in the humanities. The earliest of these three works of art is Gustav Klimt's painting "The Kiss." This painting is unique because it almost appears like a collage, the way…...

Share your best advice on writing a compelling My Daughter, My Wife, Our Robot and The Quest for Immortality thesis statement!?

Writing a Compelling Thesis Statement for "My Daughter, My Wife, Our Robot, and The Quest for Immortality" Introduction: "My Daughter, My Wife, Our Robot, and The Quest for Immortality" by Peter Høeg is a complex and thought-provoking novel that delves into the intricate relationships between family, love, loss, and the human obsession with immortality. To write a compelling thesis statement for this work, it is crucial to carefully consider the novel's central themes and arguments. Thesis Statement: Through exploring the complex interactions between family, love, and the pursuit of immortality, "My Daughter, My Wife, Our Robot, and The Quest for Immortality" argues that the....

What is the best weekend film to watch for a cozy night in?

The Comforting Embrace of Cinematic Escapism: A Curated Guide to the Perfect Weekend Film As the sun dips below the horizon, casting long shadows across the cityscape, the allure of a cozy night in beckons. What better way to unwind and recharge than to immerse oneself in the captivating world of film? Whether you're seeking heartwarming tales, thrilling adventures, or thought-provoking dramas, there's a cinematic haven waiting to transport you to distant realms and evoke profound emotions. In this guide, we embark on a curated journey to uncover the best weekend films that will provide the perfect cinematic backdrop for a night....

How does the love story in \'The Notebook\' reflect its central thesis on enduring love?

In "The Notebook," Nicholas Sparks paints a vivid and detailed portrait of enduring love through the story of Allie and Noah, showcasing the power of memories and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. One of the ways in which the love story in "The Notebook" reflects its central thesis on enduring love is through the characters of Allie and Noah themselves. Both Allie and Noah demonstrate a deep commitment to each other, despite the obstacles that they face throughout the novel. Their love endures through years of separation, misunderstandings, and external pressures, showcasing the resilience and....

How does the concept of love endure in our hearts, always and forever?

In conclusion, the song "You're Still The One" by Shania Twain and Robert John Lange beautifully captures the idea of unwavering commitment and resilience in the face of doubt and negativity. It emphasizes the power of love at first sight, the importance of physical touch in strengthening relationships, and the confidence and endurance needed to overcome challenges together. The song serves as a reminder that true love is everlasting and can withstand any obstacle. It gives hope for a future where love reigns supreme, and inspires us to strive to be loving, caring, and supportive partners in our own relationships.....

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