Blog Challenge Day 9: Another Four Letter Word

Day 9: What is your definition of love?

Draws blank.
Begins to think.
Starts that talking out loud thing she does.
Begins to type:
I think that love is really just about consideration.  Like, religion teaches humans to “love” but I doubt that suggests that one should have hot passionate sex with whomever they meet!  Sadly romantic love is usually the first idea that comes to mind when the L-word comes up.  My interpretation of love maintains that mad passionate sex is an expression of love, an act of love, but is not love itself; is just one of the ways that you consider someone else.

Love is consideration for how an individual’s decisions affect someone else.

To genuinely consider someone else is to think about how your behavior affects them and therefore make a conscious effort to do things that will not harm them and one better, might even make them happy.

Sometimes that means having hot passionate sex because you know that’s what makes the person you love happy.  Similarly it might mean looking a homeless person in the eye and saying good morning because they are not a stone on the sidewalk— they are a human being who would like to be considered as one.  Or it can mean holding the door for the person coming in behind you.  The gesture acknowledges/considers them.  I think that’s all love really is.  It’s our expressions of it that vary.

When people say they’re “looking for love,” most of the time I think they’re missing love all around them.  From the random strangers who offer greetings to the parents and friends who check in on you from  time to time even when you do a piss poor job of checking in on them.  Those people “looking for love” are probably looking for something else: maybe companionship, maybe connection, maybe intimacy, maybe hot passionate sex.