A few questions about the L word

I don't think it is any kind of illusion. It is what it is. A chemical reaction.

Just like any other drug - your love tolerance, if you will, goes up. In a reaction to this our definitions of love change. It goes from a complete infatuation to a comfort object.

To answer your question, I say life. Because without it, well, the other option isn't available. I don't think the ability to release love chemicals constantly would make us gods, but it would be pretty awesome to have that sort of control over emotions.

<insert tangent>

Does anyone remember feeling scared, love, happy, angry for the first time as a kid? Those feelings were so much more vivid. I guess that is why old people are so chill, they've basically got a tolerance for every emotion one can feel.

 

I agree it's a chemical reaction but I don't think it's an illusion.


..what's truly strange about love is humans can only be deeply in love for a maximum of about two years, after that the intense feelings are gone.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, wouldn't we be more likely to stay together if the intense feelings lasted our whole lives ..so even when we're in our 80's our heart's would skip a beat and we'd literally forget to breath whenever we saw the person we fell in love with??

But that doesn't happen. Why? Can we simply not handle it? Is it somehow a detriment to the survival of our genes??

 

I don't think love is an illusion either. It is chemical reactions in our brains, which is the physical personification of the act of love. I don't think that limits it to being something as dull and two chemicals or elements mixing and creating a result like making salt out of sodium and chlorine, I guess I feel like it's a lot more than that.

And I think that being deeply in love for two years is just a lasting of a certain kind of love (because there are so many different aspects of love, loving a person is not the same as loving a certain type of cake, etc.) That two years is usually defined as passionate love, as opposed to couples growing older and being in love, still having that passion but their love grows more/differently in the future (usually bringing them closer than that passionate love, look at older couples who are genuinely in love, as they grow older, they are just in more and more love with each other even though they may not be having the same passionate love like earlier in their relationship).

I guess if we were able to genuinely love everything then we would become God/become part of God (depending on your beliefs) and experience that complete, genuine, unconditional love. I almost feel that we as humans can't really get there yet because on earth we will still, for the most part, always have faults that prevent us from that complete, unconditional love reserved for God, on the assumption that God is love.

Like you were saying collie_man, that if love is the greatest thing, then the purpose of life would be to love, right? I agree with that because humans are guided by their feelings at all times, and for the most part, people want to feel good. This sensation of feeling good comes only from love or other feelings that stem from the general definition of what love is.

chyeaaaaah.

 

as to which is greater everyone is entitled to their own opinions. personally i wouldnt decide and would rather not think about it because each is a wonderful thing. as for one loving all things thus being a god, i would say a deranged psychopath who hates all things is as much god as one who loves all things. as to the purpose of life being love, i say everyone is entitled to their own purpose and it cannot be pinned down to love or hate.

 

I like your response a lot. I would have said something similar but I doubt I would have been able to articulate it anywhere near as well as you did. +rep for you.
</insert>

 

Live to love, or love to live?
My answer is both.

 

All emotion are delusions of state brought upon by chemical reaction.
Don't forget to keep them in check.