"WHAT IS LOVE?"

Topic:
"What Is Love?"

Moderator:
Robert Light

Meetup Date:
Wednesday, January 11th, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., with a 15 minute break at 8:00 p.m.

Meetup Location:
Upstairs at The Bent Mast, 512 Simcoe St. Victoria, BC, V8V 1L8

Members:
If you plan to attend, please take a moment and RSVP.

Definition:
Since antiquity, love is one of core concerns for philosophers. Thanks to Plato, through his Symposium, this question has acquired its letters of nobility. Love in a general sense, can be defined as an expansion of the heart toward another human being.

Synopsis:
Love is the most powerful emotion a human being can experience. The strange thing is, that almost nobody knows what love is. Why is it so difficult to find love? That is easy to understand, if you know that the word "love" is not the same as one's feeling of love.

The word "love" is used and abused for the expression of different sets of feelings.

The word love is used as an expression of affection towards someone else (I love you) but it also expresses pleasure (I love chocolate). To make it a little more complicated, the word "love" also expresses a human virtue that is based on compassion, affection and kindness. This is a state of being, that has nothing to do, with something or someone outside yourself. This is the purest form of Love.

The ancient Greek used 7 words to define the different states of love:

Storge: Natural affection, the love you share with your family.

Philia: The love that you have for friends.

Eros: Sexual and erotic desire kind of love. (positive or negative)

Agape: This is the unconditional love, or divine love

Ludus: This is playful love, like childish love or flirting.

Pragma: Long standing love. The love in a married couple.

Philautia: the love of the self. (negative or positive)

These are 7 different kind of feelings. The love you feel for your partner is not the same as the love you feel for your mother. Even the love for your partner changes in time. You feel different emotions for different situations and people.

Quote(s):
Plato ~ “Any general aspiration towards the good things and to happiness, that’s the love”.

Albert Einstein ~ Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

Watch: "The 7 Types Of Love" - on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/WTDfpJZyJoY