3 ms·
"Love", the word, can stand for so many more or less related concepts. Is it something we feel? Is it something we do? We're always picking a nebulous definitio
by dxdm 10mo ago
"Love", the word, can stand for so many more or less related concepts. Is it something we feel? Is it something we do? We're always picking a nebulous definition, a different one each of us, different ones at different times.
"Love" is suprisingly ill-defined for the power it has. Maybe that's even part of its power: being a vague word to refer to powerful things within us to try to give them meaning, and a handle to hold them by, which then of course is also a handle that has a hold on us.
That's why, I'd say, it's important to be careful with the other words we place around that word "love", because they can illuminate or conceal, sharpen or blur, all the while gripping people by that handle.
I appreciate what you're doing to promote a better understanding of that word here and give it some context you were missing from the post you originally reacted to. Of course, "love" may mean different things to a Romantic poet or a monk or a teenager or a long-married couple; none of them are wrong, none takes away from the other, and all with some pretty messy edges, probably.
The poster you reacted to used "love" and "anger" to refer to opposing tendencies and motivations within us. You pointed out that "love" and "anger" can overlap. That's right, of course, I don't think anyone would say otherwise. I just think it's not what OP was talking about when they used these words. They used a different, albeit related, concept of love from yours, for a different purpose, relying on the difference between their chosen form of love and anger to make their point. You pointed out that things can be seen differently; that's fair.
What I do object to, though, is the conflation of anger and love. I understand what you're getting at, but I think it's important to keep these things separate and distinguishable, because it is not good to mistake anger for love, or excuse anger with love.
It may seem as if they are inextricably mixed, nothing we can do about it! But I think this is, please excuse the direct language, a little lazy and a little cheap. It's quick to use a few words to stir up some emotions and romantic notions that are sleeping in our hearts. But it opens the way to let anger reign in the name or even guise of love, which is, morals aside, not gonna lead anywhere nice at all. Romantic? Yes. Good? Bad? Ugly? We all have choices, and we should consider them.