I remember in early grade 11 attending a debating tournament. For those who are not informed of my past activities, I was fairly active on the OSDU debating circuit in the Thunder Bay region from grade 10 through 12. At this particular debating tournament, there was one impromptu, and two prepared debates (on the same topic, sides just reversed. I can’t remember the prepared one (though I’m sure it was quite boring, as most were) but I remember the impromptu one. BIRT Love cannot exist without laughter.
This is known as a philosophical debate, as opposed to a policy debate. It was a resolution as opposed to a bill (we were doing parliamentary style). I never liked resolutions because you didn’t have the opportunity to bring in plans of implementation and couldn’t discuss the impact of the result of the debate, because you aren’t really solving any issue that is really tangible. Unfortunately I landed on the government side of this, and taking on my usual role of Prime Minister, I set forth in my usual capacity during my short prep time to think of definitions (always my favourite part of prep). I had to define 3 phrases, “Love”, “exist”, and “laughter”. The latter two are quite easy to define, but the former…nearly impossible.
Of course, taking my usual route I went to define things as I usually do in these cases, to pull out my Canadian Oxford English Dictionary and copy the definition that seemed simplest to say. (If I had had access to the Internet I may have looked up “Love” on Wikipedia, as I did today) As with most every philosophical debate I’ve ever done, I failed miserably. I just am not a philosopher. You can’t define “Love” out of a dictionary, nor can you truly vocalize it in language (many have tried and some agree that they actually have done such a thing through classifications, like a common example ofAgape, though I don’t think you truly can) As humans we try to intellectualize irrationality, and emotion, into something we can convey in our highly developed communications like language. But does that really work?
Frequently it is quoted that 50% of marriages fail in the end. What does that say about how we express “Love”? Is marriage not supposed to be one of the most solid expressions of love and commitment? As my closest friends know, I follow politics and current events closely. Most recently we had the historic opportunity to watch the progression of the same sex marriage bill come into existence here in Canada. I am on the pro side, because I believe that people have fundamental rights of equality, but while still understanding that people also have choice. Just because you have the opportunity to act on something doesn’t mean you should. The same thing happens with this legislation. Just because gays have the opportunity doesn’t mean they will all jump on the marriage wagon. Extend this to Abortion. Would I have a women who conceived my child have an abortion? No, but the option is there.
Marriage, with it’s claims of love and commitment, in our modern society, fails at it’s intention. I believe this is partly because of our lack of ability to interpret love in it’s many forms AND communicate it. We don’t have the ability to do so, because it is impossible to express it in the way our society believes is acceptable to do. Infatuation is much shallower than love, and unfortunately for Love, Infatuation is vocalizable, and masquerades as love, confusing people. It takes time for people to realize this false love and act accordingly. This results in a few things, the dissolution of the connection (i.e. divorce) or the continuation due to social decorum. Many couples have very unhappy relationships yet fight (often literally) them out for the rest of their lives. I believe that some people though may continue to be ignorant of the fact that it is just a masquerade and just believe they still have “love”. Which begs to differ is love even exists.
I believe it does, and for the readers who were thinking in their heads that I’ve never been in love, hence the reason I am writing this, you are mistaken. I am in love at this time and will continue to be for a very long time. I just can’t see a mutual love existing for the rest of any ones lives in any case, as time changes things. This may seem cynical, but I am a pragmatist, and believe it to be true. While I believe that I cannot define love, my current working answer (the closest I’ve been able to define it as) is “When you care for one person more than anyone else in the world, even yourself”. I’d be interested to see other people’s opinions, but that is as close to intellectualizing it as I can produce.
I’ve noticed that I have not been making my “Random” Wikipedia links very random. I’m not sure I really care…heh. I’ll continue to call them that because it adds a sense of interest to them. This one is on a specific type of love. One many people have heard mentioned in English class while studying Shakespeare. I think it is a horrible type of love. Such a thing can really cause alot of psychological damage and make someone insane (in all the senses it can mean). It can also bring guilt on the recipient party. While for this type of love to exist, the one party must not reciprocate it, there (in my belief) can be some kind of display of acknowledgement of the imbalance by the non-reciprocating (NP) party. This leads to the NP to induce further insult to injury with their “sympathy case” attitude. I believe that this is the worst possible situation as it adds a further level of pain to the party expressing the strong feelings. In any analogous situation to this where one party acknowledges the pain of the other while not doing anything to really alleve the pain of the other party, it is often considered tortuous and diabolical. The same is true in this case.
Is this obsessive behavior really a type of love, or is it just a obsessive in individual who just really doesn’t understand the concept of love and cannot get over the non reciprocation from the NP? I believe it is a type of love and that such individuals really do believe that it is genuine. They are not someone who can’t get over the rejection of another (note that there doesn’t always have to be rejection in this type of love). I don’t know how such a thing could be alleviated for both parties but my perception is that if the NP wishes the obsession to subside (or at least diminish) that they may have to “humour” the other party. I believe for this type of love to actually be true, that it will not go away and that most of the time there is a level of acceptance in the other party that they consciously know that it will never work. My proposal is that by “humouring” them that may just be all that is needed to diminish the behaviour. I may be wrong and it may backfire, resulting in even more obsessive behavior, but I believe that if it is openly discussed with both individuals and some small alleviating action is taken, it may help the situation.
I have gone off track I believe from my original intention to discuss love and my definitions of it. I apologize, but I believe the last specific type of love is fascinating from a philosophical viewpoint. While I never liked formally debating it (because you can never win in this kind of discussion, as the definition is fluid) I do enjoy talking about it informally. I encourage discussion on topic that I post on my site, and am glad that I am seeing so many different people (some I know, some I don’t) who visit my site. These last few paragraphs have been added to my original post (as was originally intended) and I see “Milldawg” (I know the identity of, but as he prefers to use his alias, I will not identify him) has commented that he agrees with my definition of love. I hope that a few more people are willing to post their comments. (Particularly I would like to hear from Lyle, Kas, Christine, and Mike, but everyone is welcome). I have another topic to write about, but I’ll save it for another day. Bye 
Currently Listening to: Lady in Red – Chris De Burgh
Random Wikipedia Article: Unrequited Love