A Tricky Definition

Love, All You Need Is

How often do we define the words we use every day? We carelessly toss about words that embody complex and elemental concepts – love and pity, duty and responsibility – without ever examining what they really mean to us. I can ask five people for their definition of the word 'love' and will receive five different answers. So what does it mean when I tell someone that I love them? What does it mean when someone loves me?

Love – it's not a word I am comfortable using. I avoid is whenever possible. I have said it to people whom I suspected I did not really love, which horrified me. If I was willing to use a word like 'love' to describe my feelings for another person, simply to avoid social awkwardness – or, I suspect, to sloppily explain how much I cared, which is a different feeling altogether– then how could I ever trust that word when applied to myself?

If I truly love someone I will never tell them unless they say it first, and even then it feels dishonest, perhaps because I have never been able to define it for myself. What does it mean to love someone? To be loved in return? Or to love unrequited?

Please note that I am consciously avoiding the troublesome subject of romantic love – of being in love, as opposed to loving – because I think it would needlessly complicate my search for a working definition of love. Lust is something altogether different and a topic for another day.

Love - what a concept. It deserves to be capitalized. Apart from our basic needs (water, food, and shelter) love is something we all crave, across cultures, across countries, across ideologies.

It makes sense to define the word we use every day, if only to give it back its power and to ensure that it is used properly. It is far too powerful a word to be applied to one who is undeserving.

Love, Stages of

How do we form bonds? What is it that draws us to specific people? It usually begins with something simple and even shallow – a shared love (that word again!) for video games, a favourite author, a TV show. This bond – superficial as it may be – is the starting point for any friendship. At this time you make a decision, specifically, 'Is this person worth my time? Do they deserve my company? Am I willing to put even the smallest amount of effort into creating what could become a long-term relationship?'

If the answer is 'Yes', the next step is friendship. At this point you have made the crucial decision to care. You have chosen to see this person as an autonomous individual, as a collection of thoughts and habits and fears. In short, as a human being worthy – possibly – of your love.

When you call someone 'friend' you also place them into a new category – they are now eligible for your love. The step from eligibility to love is a big one.

Now the mystery begins. How does a friend – a person for whom you care, often deeply – become a loved one? Caring is essential. You have to be concerned for their well-being, interested in their morality, and willing to help them achieve some kind of happiness. None of these things are responsibilities, though; you can choose to shape a friend's happiness and ensure that they are productive in their life and wise in their choices, but this is not necessary. When you care for someone you give them the freedom to be their own person, unconditionally.

But what of love? How does caring become love? When does a friend cease to be simply eligible for love, and become a loved one? This is when it gets tricky and abstract.

I think it happens when you make a conscious decision to accept responsibility for someone else's life. I don't mean it becomes your job to pay their rent; it simply means that you care and respect someone enough to value their life and their happiness as much as you value your own. You now have an obligation to their life; it is your job to ensure that they are a good person.

Perhaps the responsibility that is inherent and essential to loving someone is why we find it so easy to love those for whom we have an obvious responsibility, specifically pets and children. The work is done for us; it is already our job to care for these helpless creatures, so loving them would appear to be the obvious next step.

Love, Who Do You?

I have taken this definition and applied it to the people in my life, and have discovered that I love very few of them. Only a handful – including my immediate family – made the cut. This was surprising but also a relief. I realize now that I have a responsibility to only a few select people; this is something I have wrestled with constantly. Who do I put first, who deserves my time and energy? Not necessarily those who reside in the friend category. I care for these people – they would not be friends if I didn't feel warmth towards them – but they should be my focus only when I feel comfortable.

Those people whom I love, however – by dint of loving them I have a responsibility to them. This is not as overwhelming as I thought it would be. In fact, it is a great gift to both them and myself. I will be there for them, because I have no choice, because I've made a choice. Scary, almost, but exhilarating – my life has real meaning now, beyond my own petty needs.

But oh, to love unrequited! What does this mean? I shall save my comments on this for another day.

***

A caveat: for the most part, the ideas I presented are not my own, but are in fact the product of a conversation with Zach Webster. I could not have come up with a definition of love myself - I would have been happy to wade about in poetics and imagery without ever really defining the most important emotion we can feel as human beings. But that's me, and it's not Zach, so he guided me towards the conclusions in 'A Tricky Definition'.

In truth, I am not sure I even agree with them. This is probably why the piece drifts at the end. I was not entirely comfortable with the conclusions we came to - or perhaps, I simply was not able to articulate them.

You be the judge.