Love.. selfishness or something else?

Love.

I always thought that love meant a person feeling that thing that causes them to devote everything they can to protect someone. To always show them how much they mean to them. To make sure that no matter what they were safe. When someone says "I love you" it indicated that they had a desire to always embrace you and care for you.

Love can be heart breaking as much as heart warming.

But, is it really all this?

Love. When someone says "I love you" what is it they really mean? Do they mean that they accept you 100% and that you are someone they will always feel strongly for?

Love. I think, these days, it is a selfishness. "I love you" means nothing more than "I have an emptiness in my existence, and you fill it.". When two people find each other, and proclaim their love, are they really saying "No matter what, I will always care for you" or are they saying "No matter what I need you." ?

Do people "IN LOVE" actually have this, or do they simply require some emotional fulfillment that they find in another? A selfishness that requires someone else to be that for them?

Is saying "I love you" and having it reciprocated, just another way of saying "I need you" ? How many marriages have ended with one partner expressing rage at being abandoned. As if to say "I NEED YOU, HOW DARE YOU TAKE WHAT I NEED AWAY?" ?

Love.. is it even real?

True love.. what is it, is it the absolute desire to care for someone no matter what, or is it the absolute selfish desire to have something you lack within yourself filled by another? Selfishness. Is it making sure that no matter what they remain with you? Or is it simply a strong emotional reaction to having a severe lack of something within yourself?

Unrequited love... This one is a conundrum. When one person can love another so selflessly that they do not even accept the others disinterest. Obviously, love caters to the self, the one. in this case, they give themselves to someone who doesn't even care, but this shines down on the fact that it is indeed a need to fulfill something lacking in themselves.

LOVE. Is it a shackle to our own self worth? "Without you I am nothing."?

I think we use the word love in a fruitless and frivolous manner.. "I love thai curry." -- the curry does not love you. "I love my wife." -- she divorced you.

Love, is it nothing more than a way to feel better about ourselves? A method of keeping the things we inherently lack intact, by relying on others to make us whole?

I can say I've loved.. but not now. She whom I loved never cared for me. I was seeking her, as she was a very good mate, to be complimentary to my life. A part of it. With me.

Selfishness in it's true form.

She broke up with her ex and he was crazy mad about it... his "love" was nothing more than his own desire. She was his property "How dare you break up with me!"

Love.. nothing more than a selfish desire to compliment ourselves, in almost every respect.

We should use the word desire instead. "I desire you" meaning I want you. Love, in this day and age, is meaningless.

I love ATS. ?

I say love is selfishness.. Desire is the reality.

I put this in rant because it is... in it's own way.

Like in the other thread about the most abused word, I'd have to vote for love. It is misused and misunderstood to a large degree I feel.

Love, and emotions in general are very abstract concepts to most. They are all decyphered differently by different people's psyches. What gives one person happiness may give another pain, the reaction of two different people to the same input will never be the same. People have different needs, and sometimes these may get confused as "love" or "passion", even though humans do indeed have a strong desire to be loved.

I like the Buddhist approach to emotions, and it applies really well to love. Love is like the weather: sometimes there will be love and sometimes not. If you don't feel love you can either move or just wait until you feel it again. Sure there are combinations of people that seem to always be in love. In these cases I think there might be a sense of detachment to the person they are with as the SOURCE of the love, and they merely feel love from everywhere, and their partner is just another beautiful expression of love, like all living things can and should be.

Possibly when you look at the world from a loving perspective there will more abundant love around you? I'd like to think so!

I don't understand how today in schools you keep seeing people every week or two with a new person saying to them 'i love you' when they will soon won't even be important to each other because they found someone else.

Love is true when you find in a way your 'missing piece'. Today the meaning is completly different.

To answer your question though. Is it selfish to expect love from the world? Is it selfish to expect the weather to always be nice?

Yes I think it is. But learning to overcome selfishness and be receptive, humble and compassionate I think is the human condition. I struggle with many of these still, but I know not to demand love from this world ever.

Originally posted by Aliquandro

Possibly when you look at the world from a loving perspective there will more abundant love around you? I'd like to think so!

Thats exactly what I first imagined also, loving the world, it's vastly different to the selfishness of wanting love.

I'm glad to see I was not so far off the mark in that

SO much energy is spent on love. But it's all the wrong sort of love. It's still imo, selfish. "Make me feel loved!!!" thats not love.

Cheers!!

reply to post by GlueEater


Ahh but that's my point.. YOUR missing piece. It's you that loves that which someone gives to you. It's not you necessarily loving them.

if you need to find your piece to feel love, is that really love?

It's your piece that is missing. Your need. Your want. not something given to you by someone else.

this is the crux of my ranty post. we all need things. Love is something given, not taken..

otherwise, it's simply a need to be fulfilled. A desire.

Originally posted by Aliquandro
To answer your question though. Is it selfish to expect love from the world? Is it selfish to expect the weather to always be nice?

Yes I think it is. But learning to overcome selfishness and be receptive, humble and compassionate I think is the human condition. I struggle with many of these still, but I know not to demand love from this world ever.

You my friend, have what I think is the right mind set.

To expect love from another human being for loving them, is the same as expecting a sunny day on a rainy heart.

Good call!

Overcoming it is hard however, yet having love for the world and indeed all things, is not hard at all. It's the simplicity that we've attributed to giving it to an individual that stresses me.

Which is why I don't consider it love. One embraces all things and tries to give it everything you can, to express in the best way possible your emotions.. the other is a warrant for your own desire.

Two old people who love each other, one will die. The other will then be left feeling empty. That is my point. Love for them was self appointed reciprocal desire for each of them to be well and with them.

Love is beyond that. it has to be.