On Love

There is a constant quote by my philosophy teacher Mr. Sanders “I believe the Greeks were the ones who had a true understanding of love, they had three different types of love.” He constantly says this but never gives an explanation.

In my own research of the subject there are four types of love set by the greeks, agape, eros, philia, and storgē. Which is just general affection and contentment, passionate or romantic love, friendship, and affection for parents or offspring; respectively. I think that this is pretty close to how love should be treated, but I would like to elaborate a little on it and also simplify it to three.

First, there is the love of friendship. This is the love felt toward a friend, there is no sexual relation, you have a feeling of admiration, compassion, and connection with an individual. These are the people to whom you can confide your secrets, your problems and help you through some of the worst of your troubles. These people are different from your family and may be considered family but still are outside the immediate family. This is the love to which you would never want to leg go and help give you a sense of comfort.

Second, there is the love of your family. This includes parents, siblings, and offspring. This to me is a stronger love then that of friendship and of romantic or passionate love. This love seem to be almost irremovable, you can hate someone of your immediate family (parents, siblings, and offspring), but there still is an almost necessary obligation to love them in some way. Many people may disagree with me on this one but I hold it as the top. The love of offspring comes from you having helped create that life and you being a major role in shaping how that person develops as an adult. The responsibility of caring so much for the life of another human being is so strong that someone who cares to take the responsibility is in love with their child. The love of your siblings is a result of their influence on your life, regardless if you want to accept it but the person you are is greatly shaped by your siblings, if you have siblings, and you shape their lives. This vice versa role helps create love between the two. Now there is love of your parents, this one is easy, one your parents help to create you, so your entire existence is do to those people you call your parents and the other which is the most important is if they took the responsibility to raise you in the best possible way through their means, this amount of devotion to you is enough to grant love, compassion and respect to your parents.

Third, there is romantic and passionate love. I believe I don't really have an understanding of this type of love. My best explanation of this type is that it is of two people being in romantic-sexual relationship with each other. I will try my best to explain this love. This love goes beyond infatuation and lust, they are only temporary and can imitate and replicate the same feelings of actually being in love. There is a physical part of this romantic love but it is also a personal. The best way I can put it is that you like 70 to 80 percent of a person and hate or dislike the other 30 or 20 percent but that doesn't really bother you, it may bug or annoy you but at the end of the day you still care for the person beyond you annoyances. This love isn't always filled with happiness and joy, it is the love that means that you care for the other person above yourself, in fact all of the loves share that same trait. The other persons concerns, troubles and hardships are what you care about, you want to make them disappear or have less of an affect on the other person, not because it would make you happy but because you know that they will be happy regardless if that is going to make you any better. There is a sexual aspect of this type of love, there has to be some level of physical attraction because humans as a creature need that as a component to be able to stay in a relationship with another human. There is a sense of oneself in this love but it is not always and not the main point of it. As my philosophy teacher says it is not love if the person your with is in the relationship because you make them happy, if your in a relationship like that then head out as quick as possible. Now this may be a little stunning to some of you and you may completely disagree with it but I look forward to your disagreements and hope you comment so I can respond to them.

Love in general is a sense of caring for others above yourself. You desire the feelings they make you have and they desire the feeling you make them have, there is selfishness in love but love is when you care about the other persons life and are willing to make some sacrifices to secure their happiness.

(now I may have forgotten some of my points, and I may not have put all the points I wanted to or had not put them down the way I wanted to, I only thought of this a couple times in my head before I began writing. During writing I had come up and lost some better points and ideas but the argument I think is still there, I encourage you to bring up inconsistencies and your own view on love so I can better my argument and adjust my ideals based on yours-if you provide good reasons of course)