If you and I love each other — and we mean the same thing — we have successfully answered what love is.
However, when considering the situation from positions 3 and 4, such self-sufficiency may not be enough. How long can those who love each other keep their love? How useful and effective will their love be for their children, for the society in which they live? And by the way, if we start to disagree on love, how can we find a common opinion? In a word, with all the individuality and diversity of love, it makes sense to talk about it theoretically.
In my “picture of the world”, the understanding of love has gone through many transformations. At first it was a youthful romantic erection of the object of love in the cult of a deity and a complete knightly self-sacrificing service to him. When the “victim”, at first flattered by such worship, got tired of it, she began to tear the knight away from herself, like a piece of sticky plaster, and then avoid him in every possible way. The defeated admirer set off to write dreary poems and “perform many feats” so that the stupid lady would understand what a treasure she had overlooked and abandoned — and wringing her hands in sobs. And legs.
Now I understand such a riot of feelings as a perverted manifestation of love more for myself than for the “beautiful lady”. The subtext is something like this: “Look, my love, and the whole world, look how exemplary I am, the best lover in the world, loving according to the most correct rules! Be happy that I fell in love with you, and admire me in return. And if you don’t, I, shining even brighter, will make another happy — and you will die of envy and repeated biting of your elbows.
With age, views, thank God, have changed. I gradually came to equalize positions, spent a long time in «rehearsals» under the motto «You are a beautiful girl, we have a very good time together, but this is not her — that amazing love.» Then came that amazing love that I was looking for, and a long family life with many turns, and balancing on the edge of the abyss, and rethinking. Views and principles have evolved and changed — I want to believe that for the better.
Now the main change that I am making with myself is the transfer of love from the category of equal to the category of selflessness. Before, in order to love someone, reciprocity was subconsciously important (preferably equal). If you reject my love — I feel pain, grief, often — indignation (when I find out who was preferred to me …). And my love for you begins to subside. Love that did not receive reciprocity gradually (or quickly) faded away. Quite a normal, modern, beneficial understanding of love for millions of people. It (which means I myself, who shared it) led me to the edge. Balanced. Passed. I thought about the reasons.
Now I am learning to love people in a different way — without self-interest. In my opinion, the presence or absence of “self-interest” in actions is the key difference between love and dislike. I am not saying that mutually beneficial cooperation, equal market relations are bad. This is just very good, just love can go with mutually beneficial cooperation in parallel — and improve it. Or maybe not — these are different processes. Family and marriage — cooperation. Love — can decorate it and make it better and more efficient.
I liked the definition of N.I. Kozlov, which he gives at the training «Personal life»: «Love is a responsible behavior.» Responsible behavior is, of course, not all love, but an important and integral part of it. I would add joyful concern to this definition. Showing warm, unselfish concern distinguishes love from other forms of responsible behavior. I remember the old Russian version: before, instead of “loves”, they said “regrets”. It is very indicative of Russian culture, which, in my opinion, is more prone to the maternal model of love.
Well, it is important, in my opinion, that a person himself realizes that what happens to him is love. Remember the definition of feeling as a living metaphor for kinesthetics moving inside a person ↑ — here it is the same. If a person evaluates his state as a state of love, he loves. If he thinks it’s just sunstroke or food poisoning, he doesn’t like it. After all, there is no standard for our inner feelings in a state of love (except for fiction) — there is nothing to compare with, you have to create on your own.
Then I propose to discuss the following definition:
Love is responsible behavior in the form of joyful selfless care,
perceived by man as love.
If a woman prepares food for you very efficiently and responsibly, washes dishes and cleans the house, demonstrating responsible behavior, care and attention — and gets paid for it — she just works as a housekeeper for you. If this woman takes care of you selflessly and responsibly and joyfully and considers it love, this is love. Think about the man yourself.