It was Love at First...?

            “Do you believe in love at first sight?”  It seems such a simple question on first sight, but as soon as my friend posted it, she saw a flood of emotional responses fighting for possibilities and defending the honor of loves past and current.  However, as we all debated we realized one profound truth that we all forgotten in the simple question.  That love, itself, is not simple, love is complex.  Love is not a black or white fact, but a flexible emotion that we feel.  We cannot know if someone loves the way we can see if someone blinks, instead we must sense it the way we sense if someone breaths, we must assume by the warmth in the air and the signs of their motions to know if someone is breathing.  There are also different types of love we can feel and different levels and stages of love with in those types.

            Before I begin, I must pause to note that I am not talking about lust.  Although lust and love are similar and can be often confused, as they both are based in a combination of passion and desire, lust is a completely different emotion based upon innate animal instincts with the intention of continuously populating the earth.  We also must recognize that love is not something we can judge about other people.  We do not know how someone else feels love, and it is not possible for us to truly know.  All we know is what we feel ourselves.

            Love is an emotion based upon caring about someone or something else.  Therefore, like any other emotion, it can felt in a second.  Like anger, joy, and sadness, your emotion can change in a moment.  Of course, like all emotions, the more bases and more time put into developing that emotion, the longer it is felt.  You may feel love for something in a moment and immediately stop moments later because you don’t put the time into developing that emotion, or you realize that your original emotion was unfound.  It happens all the time with the emotion of fear, one moment we are shocked into fear, only to realize moments later that we had nothing to be afraid of.  We react to love in just the same way.

            Obviously, there are certain types of love that cannot be gained in an instant.  Although all types of love can come over time, storge love is they type of love that comes from slowly develops from friendship.  By the very definition, storge cannot be found in an instant.  Euros, on the other hand, are based upon aesthetic enjoyment and can easily be felt the moment you notice something.  Ludus, which is love played like a game of chess, is entered into the moment the players start to play the game.

            The key to love as most wish to experience it is in the recognition that love is an emotion that must be nurtured.  You may have had that initial feeling of care towards that other person, but you must develop it more in order to make it last over the years in the form of friendship, romantic relationship, or any other form.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_styles