Love and Loyalty

[abcdavid01]

The concept of love has always eluded me. It's an abstraction, so how do you define it? Well I define it literally as falling in love. This means the biochemical process that occurs with a potential mate. In that sense it is also easy to see why homosexuality is a perversion.

Yet this narrow definition is not how most people use the word love. What of love between parent and child for example, or love between friends? Well I think I've cracked it. When people use love this way, what they really mean is loyalty. When a parent says they love their children, it means they will protect them. With friends it means they are part of the same team or tribe/clan. Brotherly love. Even a long married couple, long since past the biochemical attraction phase, use love to mean loyalty. That is why trust is considered one of the most important aspects of a relationship.

Unfortunately, an extremely individualistic society like ours breeds distrust. For example, my parents both follow different religions. My sister is a hardcore feminist. I am not loyal to them. Their beliefs make them my enemies, my oppressors or at least part of a competing clan.

Thoughts?

[Teal Lantern]

The concept of love has always eluded me. It's an abstraction, so how do you define it? Well I define it literally as falling in love. This means the biochemical process that occurs with a potential mate. In that sense it is also easy to see why homosexuality is a perversion.

Yet this narrow definition is not how most people use the word love. What of love between parent and child for example, or love between friends? Well I think I've cracked it. When people use love this way, what they really mean is loyalty. When a parent says they love their children, it means they will protect them. With friends it means they are part of the same team or tribe/clan. Brotherly love. Even a long married couple, long since past the biochemical attraction phase, use love to mean loyalty. That is why trust is considered one of the most important aspects of a relationship.

Unfortunately, an extremely individualistic society like ours breeds distrust. For example, my parents both follow different religions. My sister is a hardcore feminist. I am not loyal to them. Their beliefs make them my enemies, my oppressors or at least part of a competing clan.

Thoughts?

I think languages like English and German, etc. are better suited to describe physical or technical things.
For emotions, have a look at the Slavic languages or romance (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.) languages or some others.
They have separate words for each of those types of "love".

[Ghost]

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[Contrarian Expatriate]

The concept of love has always eluded me. It's an abstraction, so how do you define it? Well I define it literally as falling in love. This means the biochemical process that occurs with a potential mate. In that sense it is also easy to see why homosexuality is a perversion.

Yet this narrow definition is not how most people use the word love. What of love between parent and child for example, or love between friends? Well I think I've cracked it. When people use love this way, what they really mean is loyalty. When a parent says they love their children, it means they will protect them. With friends it means they are part of the same team or tribe/clan. Brotherly love. Even a long married couple, long since past the biochemical attraction phase, use love to mean loyalty. That is why trust is considered one of the most important aspects of a relationship.

Unfortunately, an extremely individualistic society like ours breeds distrust. For example, my parents both follow different religions. My sister is a hardcore feminist. I am not loyal to them. Their beliefs make them my enemies, my oppressors or at least part of a competing clan.

Thoughts?

Our society lets women too often define romantic love, and that's why men are so confused by it. It is just as you pointed out, a set of biochemical releases that signal attraction.

However, loyalty is to narrow a description for familial love. I would say familial love is more like willing devotion and obligation which encompass loyalty. Many people are loyal to their employers or their sports teams, but would bristle at the notion that they love them.

[abcdavid01]

Well that's just a matter of degrees. Love then can be called the zenith of loyalty.

Ghost, there's an afterword to newer versions of Fight Club, the book, which makes a similar assessment. Palahniuk writes about this festival called "Tiku" in the Andes where the men fight each other until they're bloody. They have no possessions and no education and every year they look forward to this festival. Afterwards they go to church and get married. The idea is that being tired can almost be a replacement for wealth.

[Moretorque]

I always thought the concept of love was pretty simple seeing as how it is just rooted in animal instinct, it's all about how hard your wiener gets and when it goes soft you know the love is done.

[kai1275]

The concept of love has always eluded me. It's an abstraction, so how do you define it? Well I define it literally as falling in love. This means the biochemical process that occurs with a potential mate. In that sense it is also easy to see why homosexuality is a perversion.

Yet this narrow definition is not how most people use the word love. What of love between parent and child for example, or love between friends? Well I think I've cracked it. When people use love this way, what they really mean is loyalty. When a parent says they love their children, it means they will protect them. With friends it means they are part of the same team or tribe/clan. Brotherly love. Even a long married couple, long since past the biochemical attraction phase, use love to mean loyalty. That is why trust is considered one of the most important aspects of a relationship.

Unfortunately, an extremely individualistic society like ours breeds distrust. For example, my parents both follow different religions. My sister is a hardcore feminist. I am not loyal to them. Their beliefs make them my enemies, my oppressors or at least part of a competing clan.

Thoughts?

You need to get a bible and read it. How the f**k you gonna define something using different terminology outside of the original source? Bullshit.

[Moretorque]

The concept of love has always eluded me. It's an abstraction, so how do you define it? Well I define it literally as falling in love. This means the biochemical process that occurs with a potential mate. In that sense it is also easy to see why homosexuality is a perversion.

Yet this narrow definition is not how most people use the word love. What of love between parent and child for example, or love between friends? Well I think I've cracked it. When people use love this way, what they really mean is loyalty. When a parent says they love their children, it means they will protect them. With friends it means they are part of the same team or tribe/clan. Brotherly love. Even a long married couple, long since past the biochemical attraction phase, use love to mean loyalty. That is why trust is considered one of the most important aspects of a relationship.

Unfortunately, an extremely individualistic society like ours breeds distrust. For example, my parents both follow different religions. My sister is a hardcore feminist. I am not loyal to them. Their beliefs make them my enemies, my oppressors or at least part of a competing clan.

Thoughts?

You need to get a bible and read it. How the f**k you gonna define something using different terminology outside of the original source? Bullshit.

Enlighten us on the Bible please.