What is love?

I've been thinking recently about how language is so inadequate to convey meaning - when all at once this song popped into my head 😳 ‘What is Love’ - so I had a quick spotify search and found it. Whilst there are a few songs with the same title, the one I was hearing was sung by Howard Jones. It may sound strange to some of you - but this often happens to me spontaneously when I’m not even thinking of a song 🎵 🤔 or when I'm engaged in a seemingly unrelated task. However, when I listened to it in its entirety I was better able to understand the reason it was playing in my subconscious.

Love is a word we use to describe many diverse feelings and experiences, and it seems so inadequate somehow. How can we compare the feeling of ‘I just LOVE ice cream’ to the feeling of love we may have for a child, or a parent, or a partner. There is no comparison. Yet love is a word that most of us use almost every day to describe a myriad of different things, experiences and relationships.

I was doing a bit of research on the origins of language recently, and as a result I came across some interesting facts that I'd never heard before. For instance, I didn’t realise that in ancient Sanskrit there are ninety six different words for the experience of love ❤️ and in ancient Persian, there are eighty different words! Yet in English there is only one! That makes our English version of love feel somewhat diluted to me. Our language seems to have contracted over time, and so now we have less words to express the complexities of our feelings.

An example of this is how since the era of communication via the Internet, we have developed another language that consists mainly of letters to represent complete words. So, lots of love becomes L O L and T T F N is ta ta for now.

Love is a word that has been written about, sung about and talked about, probably more than any other word. We say it’s possible to ‘fall into it’ and ‘fall out of it’ - yet most of us will never really understand the true meaning of it, or experience the fullness of it in our lives.

As the song says - ‘What is love?’ Love is not romance, because romance can fade and die. Love is not ‘fluffy’ and definitely not always pretty, as all the books and movies would have us believe. It cannot easily be defined or captured by art and music - though it may exist within these mediums. Love in its purest form cannot be explained or even understood by mere human understanding.

I believe I've spoken about this before - so forgive me if I repeat myself again. Love is not a noun, Love is a verb - a ‘doing’ word. It is the hand we offer to the elderly gentleman to help him across the road. It is the cake we bake for the friend who continually irritates us with their unsolicited advice. It is the smile we give to the sad faced lady on the bus. It is all these things - and - it is so much more.

Maybe the greatest act of love is to offer it freely with no expectation of reciprocation or reward. I used to believe that the most important thing in life was to feel truly loved - especially as a young woman. Yet now I am older, I realise that it is more important to love than to be loved, because to experience the feeling fully within, independent of attachment, frees us in the most profound way. This is what I heard in the lyrics of the song 🎵 today, and what prompted my musings on the subject.

Love, I believe, is a Divine Expression of God expressed through our shared humanity. Carl Rogers called it - unconditional positive regard - saying it was uniquely designed to further personal growth in every individual. I would add that our capacity to love another cannot exceed our capacity to recieve love, for how can we offer what we do not have. First fill your own cup, and then give to others from the overflow.

The truth is, and this is the saddest fact, that so many people just don’t feel worthy of true love, and as a result the experience of it continually eludes them. They feel they must earn it, or believe that they are undeserving. That they are always on the outside looking in. That it is synonymous with a person. That it is to be chased after and captured, or that if they ever find it they will inevitably lose it so they don’t even try. Eventually they even stop looking - and as a result it remains elusive.

Knowing we are eternally loved opens the floodgates and cracks us open to experience a deeper and more fulfilling life. Have you ever noticed how when someone says they are ‘in love’ the feeling seems to radiate from them, making their whole world seem brighter and more alive?

What is your experience?

And is it a positive one?

I can’t help thinking how wonderful it would be to experience all ninety six aspects of love - (though my felt sense is that there are probably even more ways than ninety six, once we are open to it!) How amazing to be so full of love that it leaks out of us in every circumstance! To become a conduit that influences all our relationships, making us ‘change agents’ in the world.

Maybe this sounds impossible, but I am hopeful that one day we will experience a world without conflict, a world where love and compassion replace war and hatred. It begins with us. Our animals seem to have got more insight on how to love than we have! Could that be because they live more fully in the present moment - don’t bear grudges, forgive quickly and offer us unconditional love? Perhaps we would do well to take a leaf out of their book. What do you think?

Much love Carole 💜

Footnote:

See also my previous post from 27th December 2024 titled -

‘What really matters?’

There are many parallels with this post.