The theme of my July newsletter is LOVE and in keeping with that theme, the Ah-Man Blog will focus on love over the next few weeks. I want to start by putting the word into context.
Following is the definition of loved as retrieved from Wikipedia:
Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. [1] In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. In religious context, love is not just a virtue, but the basis for all being ("God is love"[2]), and the foundation for all divine law (Golden Rule).
The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my wife"). "Love" can also refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros (cf. Greek words for love), to the emotional closeness of familial love, or to the platonic love that defines friendship. [3] to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. [4] This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.
Love, in its various forms, acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, it is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.
The reason I shared this definition of love is so that readers will understand where I am coming from. I will expound on love, its different stages, the Greeks and Biblical takes on love, the different forms of love such as Eros, Philo and Agape and, finally, on the permanence of love and its fleeting nature.
Speaking of the latter, temporary love is the reason why many of us fall in and out of love. According to the first two definitions above, love is based on giving and receiving. If someone in the relationship is not receiving and or giving, the relationship becomes strained, and in most circumstances, ends. We have all experienced this type of love on our journey.
So over the next couple of weeks, as you read about these different types of love that have been talked about for thousands of years, I would enjoy hearing from you and how these blogs might have helped you heal or see love from another perspective.
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