“Love is all you need,” sang the Beatles, but what is this thing called love? Is love a manifestation of altruism, desire, attachment, attraction, instinct or a combination of all? Love arrives in many forms and many costumes, sneaks up quietly or strikes like a lightning bolt. It softens and intensifies, warms and frightens, deepens and recedes. It’s a crazy thing.
Attitudes towards love vary widely. It is considered by some to be the pinnacle of human activity, an all-good force that animates the universe. Others have created a hierarchy of love, ranking love between individuals at the bottom and universal saintly love of all at the top. I suspect most of us would place ourselves somewhere in the middle.
The kind of love we feel for our children is different than that we feel for our mate, and for that matter, our parents and siblings. Love can be protective or consuming, but however it manifests, is powerful. We can want to feel loved, but at the same time have difficulty expressing love towards others. Does love require empathy? Not necessarily.
Part of the difficulty is having only one word to describe a highly variable experience. We can say we love ice cream, but is that really love or merely the simple satisfaction of sensory desire? If we had different terms for different types of love, it would make things easier. Some non-English speaking cultures do just that.
Ancient Greek, for example, had terms for four types of love: Agape: Unconditional, selfless, and spiritual love; Eros: Passionate, romantic, or sexual love; Philia: Deep, non-romantic friendship, often between equals; Storge: Natural or instinctual affection, such as the love between family members.
Spanish has two: Querer: Translates generally to “to love” (or “to want”) and is used for friends, family, and partners; Amar: A much stronger, purely romantic or deep affection. So too Japanese, with: Ai (愛): Deep love for family, friends, or life concepts, which is also used for strong romantic affection; Koi (恋): Specific to passionate, physical, or romantic love, often implying an unrequited or intense initial crush.
Ironically, American Sign Language even distinguishes between types of love: Living Beings: The sign for loving a person involves crossing your arms tightly over your chest; Objects/Actions: The sign for loving an activity or object involves kissing the back of a closed fist.
And what of the loss of love, what can that tell us? Mostly that love is central to our emotional wellbeing. In my own case I have suffered the loss of my wife of fifty years. Even after one year, I’m haunted by a deep sadness. It’s not that I don’t feel loved by others – my children, my sister, even some of my friends; I’m lucky that way, but it’s not the same kind of love, not the love of a lover.
A lover’s love is emotionally intense and more significantly, deeply intimate. Over our 50 years together, Norma and I made love many thousands of times. We knew each other’s body as well as we knew our own, each curve, crease, movement, even each breath. In those moments we became one operating unit, completing each other in perfect symmetry. Now that symmetry is broken and I alone remain to tell thee of it.
