Name: Anonymous 2007-07-02 2:23 ID:xZEmkp2A
I think all love is the same, but each RELATIONSHIP demands different obligations. Sex and partnership for a spouse. Obedience and respect for parents. Guidance and discipline for children. Different obligations, but the emotion itself is the same.
What I think love boils down to is the willingness to sacrifice and serve. I think when all the social obligations and rules are pulled away, all those relationships have those things in common.
I've come to this conclusion based on my reading of the Bible, Shakespeare, and anecdotal evidence I've recently heard about Japanese culture. The Bible because it never talks about the notions of romance... rather, it focuses on how you should serve people in different relationships. Shakespeare who writes that "love is engendered in the eyes," meaning that it starts in a playful and lustful way, but that that initial feeling is only a chimera and must become something else. That is also the Japanese view on love. It starts with something like that but BECOMES familial love.
The notion itself of romantic love wasn't started until the Renaissance, and I think it has been more detrimental to happiness and marriage than many things. So many people seem to want something special. Roses, continual and unabated bliss, pillow talk, and boomboxes raised over the head. When all that initial lust/play dies away, then their idea of "love" is gone, and they can't be happy because that stuff isn't love.
Heh, so what do you think. I wouldn't blame you if you believed that that "special warm feeling in your heart" was love, because we are most definitely conditioned to believe in that as love. Maybe I'm just jaded because I did used to believe in that concept, but like I said... after careful inspection, I think that is the stuff of fantasy.
What I think love boils down to is the willingness to sacrifice and serve. I think when all the social obligations and rules are pulled away, all those relationships have those things in common.
I've come to this conclusion based on my reading of the Bible, Shakespeare, and anecdotal evidence I've recently heard about Japanese culture. The Bible because it never talks about the notions of romance... rather, it focuses on how you should serve people in different relationships. Shakespeare who writes that "love is engendered in the eyes," meaning that it starts in a playful and lustful way, but that that initial feeling is only a chimera and must become something else. That is also the Japanese view on love. It starts with something like that but BECOMES familial love.
The notion itself of romantic love wasn't started until the Renaissance, and I think it has been more detrimental to happiness and marriage than many things. So many people seem to want something special. Roses, continual and unabated bliss, pillow talk, and boomboxes raised over the head. When all that initial lust/play dies away, then their idea of "love" is gone, and they can't be happy because that stuff isn't love.
Heh, so what do you think. I wouldn't blame you if you believed that that "special warm feeling in your heart" was love, because we are most definitely conditioned to believe in that as love. Maybe I'm just jaded because I did used to believe in that concept, but like I said... after careful inspection, I think that is the stuff of fantasy.