Does Love truly exist? Examining the Concept of True Love

Does love truly exist or is it a figment of our imagination or merely a recurrent theme in romance novels, television programs and films. Emotions such as hate, fear, desire, lust, anguish and joy are easily defined compared to the complexity when defining and understanding love.

Everywhere we turn we see themes on love like advertisements, love songs, poetry, stage dramas and literature. They all portal scenes of joy, desire, want and other soppy depictions of what love should look like.

But what actually is this thing called love?

The feelings of love sometimes elicit some of the aforementioned emotions including lust, desire and pleasure but hardly explain this so called love. The feeling of love might be linked to deep attraction a need for compassion, joy affection and peace.

The feeling called love covers a broad spectrum like the love of a profession, a creative outlet, and love for food, personal, impersonal and interpersonal love. Others might include religious perception of love like Agape love (Gods love as related to Christians) depiction of love in sculptures, cultures and ancient beliefs and practices.

Many people make the mistake of attributing the feeling of love to lust and desire which is further than the truth. Lust and desire is not true love but are elements that might be found in the feeling of love. The biggest challenge in understanding true love is how to separate lust from love.

Lust is a deep sexual attraction and an uncontrollable feeling of intense desire that is primeval and carnal. Lust is strongly associated with physical appearance a heightened sexual state with or without the need for emotional commitment or attachment

Such a strong desire is at variance with the emotions attributed to love which shows clearly that lust which is the more common determination in couples has nothing to do with love. The Movies hardly justifies love were two strangers meet and after two dates end up in the sac with someone professing love is nonsense.

Such movies only erode our core values of morality and abstinence making casual sex seems like a natural process. Separating movie fiction from actual fact is important especially for young impressionable teens and some gullible adults.

Romance novels are slightly better because the writer usually puts the characters through a cocktail of emotions from lust, desire, rage, disdain, confusion, attraction, defiance and submission. Getting to know the other persons inner state, character and personality might be the key to the complex feeling we call love.

Although romance novels are more in tune with the different emotions associated with love the notion of tall, dark, handsome, rich or aristocratic is purely fiction and is not based on reality. Love has more to do with companionship, complete trust and consideration of each others feelings that might have strong sexual attraction and a feeling of peace.

Some people profess to have heart breaks when their love is not reciprocated or a love interest is involved in cheating or infidelity. Having a partner that has stellar attributes like dependability, fear of God, integrity and share your core values dreams and beliefs could define true love.

Heartbreak or a broken heart is when one experiences emotional pain rooted in feelings of despair sadness about certain situations. Heartbreak might occur because of infidelity, the terrible feeling of loss related to the death of a loved one, divorce, unrequited love interest and rejection.

The pain could be physical or physiological can be debilitating and might lead to illness and on rare occasions even death from remote causes like stress or hypertension. Heartbreak can also be real or imagined depending on the individual characterized by a feeling of utter despair.

Pair bonding requires two separate individuals to stick to one partner while married and remain loyal to the union. Being monogamous doesn’t mean the happy couple is in love but that they have made a commitment before God to be committed to the marriage.

In most cases love develops slowly over time between a husband and wife especially when true friendship and trust becomes a binding factor. Monogamy and several years of blissful marriage is no guarantee that love would grow between the couple making love a difficult emotion to determine.

Oxytocin receptors trigger romantic feelings because of a significant increase in dopamine that is carried from the brain through conductors. The feel good chemical is responsible for strong emotions of bonding and pairing, excitement, desire and even lust.

Scientist has found that in certain animals that pair for life and remain single after the mate dies messing with the chemical in parts of their brain drastically changes their character. They lose this restriction and become players that change partners at will.

So the feeling of love might be attributed to the function of certain chemicals in the brain in response to certain conditions.

Christians believe in agape love which is the unconditional love of God to humanity, Gods love is unconditional regardless of our short comings. Agape love also delves into charity, selfless service to the less privilege, neighborly love and the love of God. The Greek word denotes an all encompassing love that is eternal and unchanging.

Wealth has a negative influence on love especially when material things become important to certain individuals. Attaching emotional feelings to gifts has nothing to do with true love but the need for material things.

During courtship gifts is an important part of the process but shouldn’t be a determinant of ones emotional investment, love should be unconditional. Getting married into wealth might provide only security or material benefits but not true love.

For true love to exist there most be attraction between the two individuals, trust and commitment. Friendship is important while commitment, compatibility and companionship are high on the list.

Other kinds of love are maternal love for her children, job love, parental love, love of money, addictive love for certain substances/items. Not all love is good and the love for substance like drugs is addictive and dangerous, love is a strong emotion that could mean strong family bonds, friendship or a lifetime of happiness and companionship.

So back to the question does love truly exist? You bet it does but it comes with lots of complexities emotions and mysteries.