Ok, let me just preface this. This is my first ever blog post. I started off with a somewhat controversial topic. The reason I did that is because this topic intrigues me. Who knows though, this may blow up in my face and be the worst blog post ever? If so, which I really really hope that doesn’t happen, oh well. You have to start somewhere and I would rather just jump right in instead of easily take a step at a time.
So since again this is my first post ever let us start out with something easy. Here is my rawest definition of love. Without all the gender, religion, etc stuff. Love is an emotion. Simple as that. Wikipedia defines it as “a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that range from interpersonal affection to pleasure. It can refer to an emotion of a strong attraction and personal attachment.
Now with saying all of that I do believe there is much more depth to love than just what “Wikipedia” defines it as. Or even what I defined it as. I would also like to say, and I’m being vulnerable here which is not a super comfortable thing for me, I am writing this from a perspective of someone who has never been in love. I have never had a relationship with another non family member where I felt as though I loved them in a non-brotherly or friendly way. I am just a senior in high school though so that’s normal right? Anyways, love is a whole lot of different things. This is why I absolutely love the way the Greek translate the word love. They actually have six different words and definitions for it. The first one is Eros. This word for love means the kind of love that is sexual passion. Fun fact: this word was actually named after the Greek god of fertility. I find that kind of funny. It represents sexual passion or desire. The next word for love is Philia. This is the love that you have for an amazing friend. This is what you would say when you are telling your best friend goodbye and you say, “Bye, I love you!”. Also fun fact: the Greek valued this love far more than they did Eros. The next word for love is Ludus. This is the one that the Greeks would use for playful type situations. Like flirting, teasing, or whatever. My personal opinion is that if the Greeks when they made these words they lived in Texas in modern times, they would use this word like we use love when we say, “I LOVE THE COWBOYS!!!!” which I happen to say a lot by the way. Anyways that’s just my opinion. The next word is Agape. Now if you go to church at all you may have actually heard of this one. I know I have. But anyways, Agape love is defined as love for everyone. It is also called selfless love. I think this is why I have heard it in church a lot because this is exactly how our God loves. He literally loves every single person on this earth. This is also how God calls us to love. The fifth word for love is Pragma. This is longstanding love. Basically this is the kind of love that you see between that super cute old couple that you see at a coffee shop together or eating at a cute diner or something. I really love cute old couples by the way! Now the final word for love that the Greek have is Philautia. This is said to be the love of self. I know that for me personally I probably struggle with that kind of love the most. I need to love more like Agape love and not be selfish.
Ok so that was a lot of reading definitions. I know. I’m sorry. I had to put those in there because I feel my blog would lack what I was trying to get across without them. Defining love is hard and easy at the same time. With all of that said (and with me reading all of those definitions and researching love things) I feel like love now has a new definition for me. Where, yes, you could argue that love has a lot of different meaning, I believe love can be summed up into one definition for the purpose of nothing more than to make it simple and complex and break-apartable (if that’s a word) as possible. Love for me is a true, genuine enjoyment of something (or someone). That is pretty simple for all those words and definitions in the paragraph above. I know that. This is just my opinion and my own definition of what love is. Some people will probably disagree with me and that is totally ok! This topic is not very black and white and I get that.
As an end note I just want to point out something. Notice I did not mention love was just pertaining to a specific gender, race, religion or anything. I didn’t really set perimeters on it.
That is just a final thought and I will go into more detail and explain why I pointed this out in my next post. See there, I might have gotten your attention and read for my next post!
Hope this wasn’t too bad!
Yours truly,
-K
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