On Love

"Two bodies and one soul" -Aristotle

Love is not only that feeling you'd get when you finally find your other half. Love is a feeling that you were born with, and as you grow up it grows with you. You are born to love your family, then you grow up a little and you love a toy or a game. Then you grow a bit more and you love a friend. Then a book, a home, a piece of music, a country, a drink or a meal, and definitely a god. Then you might find your other half and you experience love in the greatest of its meanings. But what is that common feeling between loving a family member, a home, a friend, a country and a partner? 

It might be the feeling of belonging, the need to be close to that person/thing. The feeling increases depending on what it is you love. If it's a book, then you'd love to have it to read from everyone now and then. If it's a friend, then you might love talking to everyday. If it's a family member, a best friend, a country, or a partner then your feeling of belonging can reach a point when you're ready to die for that person/thing. At some point you feel that your life is not as important as fighting for that person/thing.

The word love is derived from the Germanic word lubh, which means desire. For me, love is the need and desire to be close to your beloved or object you love. It's the one thing you search for that will make you feel complete. It's one of the very last steps in your journey towards happiness. Love is a feeling that puts you in a state of peace of mind with yourself and your world.

When you love someone, you'll be ready to do things you'd rather not do for that person to be happier. Love is wanting to meet someone half way. Love gives you power, it teaches you patience, it helps you understand life. Love touches your soul in a way that nothing else can. Love is the only thing that can survive death into eternity. Love makes you feel younger, it makes you always react as an adult. Love brings light to your eyes, it brings hope to your heart, it brings song to your ears. Love teaches you unity.

Love doesn't only involve a relationship with you and the outside world. In fact, the greatest love is loving one's self, loving your own life. And loving yourself does not make you a snob. It means that you should treat yourself nicely, pamper yourself, don't overwhelm yourself, try to find best place for yourself, be good to yourself. Only then can you really experience the feeling of love to the rest of the world. Not just yourself.

Old Greeks defined love by dividing into three different feelings that when combined together will give you the feeling of love. Eros, which means desire, not necessarily sexual desire, but the desire to seek true beauty which exists in the form of different ideas to different people. Philia, means fondness and appreciation to the other, it is usually Incorporated with friendship and loyalties to Family. Agape, that is the paternal love, by which they meant the love of God to man, and vice versa. It was also extended to mean brotherly love for all humanity. This kind of love involves fondness and passion without expecting a reward. These three feelings together make up the feeling we now call love.

As humanity continue to live, love will continue to grow, everyone will continue to experience it, but only few will try to explain it. Love can save the world; imagine a world without love, where everyone hates everyone. Imagine if someday humanity woke up to find out that they don't know how to love. That it's a feeling that everyone used to experience, but now is gone and since it has no definition no one can reach that feeling again. This won't happen of course, but defining things, definitions that come from inside you, will always result into a clearer and more refined feeling. And for that, find your own definition of love and live by it.