BS: what is love

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: annamill
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 08:10 AM

I'm surprised noone has mentioned this one.

Art of Loving - Erich Fromm

It tells it all!!

Love(whateveritis), Annamill (tongueincheek)

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 07 - 08:22 AM

Love is blind
Love is cruel
Love is hurtful
And never full
Love will come
Love will go
Love is something
No one knows

If you say you love
I will feel fulfilled
If you say you want
I will stand by you
If you say forever
Forever it should be
But nothing last forever
I was blind
I did not see.

You left me for another
'I love you' to her sounds real
But you loved me also
From the distance
It seemed was meant the deal
Should I miss the one who was so close
Love is with me still
No as now it's with another
I LOVE YOU this time is REAL

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Joe_F
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 09:10 PM

That night when joy began
Our narrowest veins to flush,
We waited for the flash
Of morning's levelled gun,

But morning let us pass,
And, day by day, relief
Outgrows his nervous laugh,
Grows credulous of peace,

As mile by mile is seen
No trespasser's reproach,
And love's best glasses reach
No fields but are his own.

-- W. H. Auden

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 07:04 AM

wow

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:32 AM

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

-ee cummings

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Jeanie
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 04:57 AM

"What is love, 'tis not hereafter.
Present mirth hath present laughter."

Feste, Twelfth Night, Shakespeare.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 10:51 PM

Here's a traditional contribution to this thread:

Love it is a killing thing,
Beauty is a blossom;
If you want your finger bit,
Poke it at a possum!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 09:30 PM

Love is the opposite of evol. At least, that's what I've always thought.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,alandris
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 07:38 PM

This isn't an exact quote, but Kurt Vonnegut said Love is the condition in which someone else's happiness is essential to your own. Simple, yet profound.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jun 05 - 08:03 AM

"Because hate is legislated . . . written into

the primer and testament,

shot into our blood and brain like vaccine or vitamins


Because our day of time, of hours --- and the clock-hand turns,

closes the circle upon us; and black timeless nitght

sucks us in like quicksand, receives us totally ---

without a raincheck or a parachute, a key to heaven or the last long look


I need love more than ever now . . . I need your love,

I need love more than hope or money, wisdome or a drink

Because slow negative death withers the world and only yes

can turn the tide

Because love has your face and body . . . and your hands are tender

and your mouth is sweet ---- and God has made no other eyes like yours...."


Source: THIS IS MY BELOVED" By W. Benton [Entry April 28]

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 05:49 PM

Morticia read one of Kahlil Gibran's poem's at Micca and mine's wedding last month!

"Love one and other, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each others cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one and other of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together but not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the Oak tree and the Cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: UncleToad
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 03:04 PM

Love Is love
that wakes in the night
and holds two hands
trembling in fright.

Love is love
that whispers kind words
when the darkness is screaming
in herds like spring birds.

Love is there
when I wake in the night
stroking my thoughts
and holding me tight.

Love is love
when there's nobody near
to hold on to the soul
and wipe away one small tear.

Love is love
always there for me
if I wake in the darkness
trying to see.
-----------------------------------

This was sent to me anonymously...
    hopefully from an old love
          trying to find her way back.

Uncle(JustAnOldRomantic)Toad

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,bill
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 08:43 AM

I thought I was in love with a freinds soon to be ex girlfreind. and that worried me. now thanks to you mob I,m not even sure what love is.Now I feel confused and guilty and I need a beer.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 26 May 05 - 12:16 PM

Maturity=love=maturity=love=...

Onward and upward

Art

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 May 05 - 06:02 PM

Joseph Campbell said that people often confuse love with "the zeal of the loins."

Art

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 May 05 - 05:54 PM

I will try to look at this as if this question was being asked within a musical thread in a forum about folk songs:

Love is what most pop songs are about because, being a universal feeling, it is the topic most easily SOLD to the most people by those in charge of the music business.

Folk songs, on the other hand, are often topical and about fairly specific geographical places, and also many various eras and times. It would not be easy to SELL those songs to an entire modern nation's people because many of those people don't live where the tales told in the songs are relevant. I.E. lumberjack songs from the USA would not likely be in the songlists of cowboys unless they did the hard work necessary to become receptive to those songs.

Only those people interested in history and the big graphic tales, take the time and make the efforts necessary to appreciate the actions therein.

A good tune makes it all the better---maybe even easy to dance to.

I give it a TEN !!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: John O'L
Date: 24 May 05 - 06:46 PM

Just received a "what is love?' email from my sister-in-law.
Supposedly said by little kids, I think these comments were made up by an adult. I think the survey of little kids is bullshit, but maybe that's just me.
Most of them are pretty mushy but these I thought were good:

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.

Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening
presents and listen.

If you want to learn to love better you should start with someone who you hate.

You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it.
But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 05 - 05:34 PM

Love is the condition that obtains when another's well-being is more important to you than your own. Dear friend pimple, this does not appear to be what you are experiencing. I would choose another word for it, then -- lust, or obsession, or adolescent passion, or what-have you.


A

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 22 May 05 - 03:05 PM

Love is the best, worst and most powerful thing in the world.

Love is also missing a question mark...

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: *Laura*
Date: 22 May 05 - 02:39 PM

As John Lennon said 'All you need is love'.

But then he also said 'I am the walrus, I am the eggman' - so now I don't know what to believe!

xLx

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Azizi
Date: 22 May 05 - 02:01 PM

Freda,

My apologies. I just read through this thread instead of skimming it and saw your post on 20 Jan 04 that had excerpts of Gibran's poem on Love.

Oh well. Unlike Fibula Mattock, I think Gibran
s poem it quite powerful, lyrical, and thought provoking.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Azizi
Date: 22 May 05 - 10:45 AM

Well, Fibula Mattock-how about this one?


"Nothing you could say could tear me away from my guy (my guy)
Nothing you could do, 'cause I'm stuck like glue to my guy (my
guy)
I'm sticking to my guy like a stamp to a letter
Like birds of a feather, we stick together
I'm tellin' you from the start
I can't be torn apart from my guy

Nothing you could do could make me untrue to my guy (my guy)
Nothing you could buy could make me tell a lie to my guy (my
guy)
I gave my guy my word of honour to be faithful, and I'm gonna
You best be believing I won't be deceiving my guy

As a matter of opinion I think he's tops
My opinion is he's the cream of the crop
As a matter of taste, to be exact
He's my ideal, as a matter of fact"...


"My Guy" Lyrics

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock in the back door
Date: 22 May 05 - 10:25 AM

That Kahlil Gibran bloke's way too flowery for me. I think I said it better with the story about the vomit.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Azizi
Date: 22 May 05 - 06:43 AM

Sorry, I forgot that I didn't have my cookie.

GUEST 22 May 05 - 06:35 AM was me.

And since I'm here, let me take this opportunity to sincerely thank those who have posted to this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 05 - 06:35 AM

Excerpts from Kahlil Gibran's 'On Love' in "THE PROPHET"

"Then said Almitra, 'Speak to us of Love.'

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep....

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips."


Kahlil Gibran's 'On Love'

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine
Date: 22 May 05 - 06:03 AM

Roy Orbison says it's like a stove.

Van Morrison begs to differ:
"The love's to love the love's to love the love's to love...
Say goodbye"

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Bill the Collie
Date: 22 May 05 - 02:51 AM

It's a sair thing love
When it hits ye in the waistcoat

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 22 May 05 - 01:08 AM

Love is an unarmed giraffe.

Stephen Lee

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: mg
Date: 22 May 05 - 12:27 AM

Dear Potaotu...Daylia is right. I think you need to get a new name. A woman reading that is going to go yuck before she ever meets you. It doesn't sound like a name you would respectfully call someone else, so why call yourself that? No one should be given a name like that, whether by themselves or others. How about just a regular first name, like Jim or Mark or Juan? Or a nickname like Tex? mg

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 21 May 05 - 12:43 PM

o - how do you know if you're in love?

Well, I think it's maybe too early for me to tell, but after a couple of months with new bloke I found myself kneeling on his bathroom floor scrubbing vomit from the lino after the poor boy had just boked, and I thought to myself "blimey, he's even lovely when he's sick". And I'd miss him if he wasn't in my life. And I'm a nice girlfriend for taking such good care of him.

(By the way, this love thing is the same mood that has previously had me heartbroken, devastated and torn in two when i realised that love isn't enough, ever. That's just some romantic construct fabricated to sell movies and books and really bad songs. One has to keep a sense of proportion and pragmatism, even when one is deeply in love ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Jeanie
Date: 21 May 05 - 11:17 AM

I don't think it's worth spending too much time worrying about whether or nor you are "in love" with someone or looking for signs as to whether or not someone is "in love" with you. There's a world of difference between being "in love with" someone and just simply *loving* them. Love is traditionally portrayed as the blindfolded archer, causing people to "fall in love." If you can become "in love", you can just as easily become "out of love".

*Loving* happens without blindfolds. It is the contents of the less showy lead casket in the "Merchant of Venice" that I quoted earlier in this thread: "Who chooses me must give and hazard all he hath." Therein lies the prize !

- jeanie :)

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: *Laura*
Date: 21 May 05 - 08:17 AM

So - how do you know if you're in love?

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 May 05 - 06:57 AM

Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel
-- H.L. Mencken

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Donuel
Date: 21 May 05 - 06:41 AM

What is love was the very question that the Jesuit order in Rochester NY asked me verbatim.

They perceived my occupation and secularism a threat and arranged for a special interview.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 May 05 - 06:09 AM

If you wish to be loved, love..

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Peace
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 05:22 PM

Love is also about forgiveness, something I find myself more and more in need of as I age.

Subject: hip pops sangs texts
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 04:56 PM

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 11:42 AM

printing out all of this thread and giving it to your parner to read.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: jacqui.c
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 05:26 AM

Love is accepting others as themselves and not wishing to change them.

It is knowing that, whatever the circumstances and however long you might have together you know that that would be preferable to not having that person in your life.

It is being aware that your are two separate individuals but that being together brings a joy that illuminates all asects of your life, even if sometimes you might not agree on all aspects of that life.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 09:39 PM

..and the personal is political. what does it mean in theory? nothing. it is only in practise that it exists.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 06:12 PM

This are some quotes from an excellent book I've been reading recently:

***

"What the world generally refers to as love is an intense emotional condition, combining physical attraction, possessiveness, control, addiction, eroticism, and novelty. It's usually fragile and fluctuating, waxing and waning with varying conditions. When frustrated, this emotion often reveals an underlying anger or dependency that it had masked. That love can turn to hate is a common perception, but here, an addictive sentimentality is likely what's being spoken about, rather than Love; there probably never was actual love in such a relationship, for Hate stems from Pride, not Love.

Love is unconditional, unchanging, and permanent. It doesn't fluctuate---its source isn't dependent on external factors. Loving is a state of being. It's a forgiving, nurturing, and supportive way of relating to the world.

Love isn't intellectual and doesn't proceed from the mind. Love emanates from the heart.

Reason only deals with particulars, whereas Love deals with entireties.

Love takes no position, and thus is global, rising above separation. It's then possible to be "one with another", for there are no longer any barriers. Love is therefore inclusive, and expands the sense of self progressively. Love focuses on the goodness of life in all its expressions and augments that which is positive. It dissolves negativity by recontextualizing it, rather than by attacking it.

This is the level of true happiness..."

***

To those words, I might add that in this life I have only seen such love fully demonstrated and realized in fewer individuals than I can count on the fingers of one hand. I've seen it partially realized in many good people. It is quite comparable to the kind of love a good mother instinctively feels toward her small child...only instead of being extended JUST to that child exclusively, it goes out equally toward absolutely everyone...every living being...regardless of their flaws or their individual nature. It expects nothing, demands nothing, gives everything. Such is the Love that God has for all of Creation. Such is the Love that Life has for all living beings.

Such love is attainable. Those few who attain it are said to be "enlightened", which is a good description, because they are filled with light. In the presence of light there can be no darkness.

In romantic love as this society thinks of it, there is usually a good deal of darkness (mixed with some light)...and a great deal of need and desire. That which sees itself as incomplete is in need and desire, and expects that it can get what it needs or wants, from somebody else. This is an unfortunate illusion, but one that has most people in its control for their whole lives. They call that illusion "love", and write books, plays, movies, and songs about it. It's very dramatic, full of highs and lows, so it makes for a good book or movie. Entire industries depend on this illusion for their livelihood.

An example of actual Love in action is the life of Mahatma Gandhi. Another such example is the life of Mother Teresa. Others: the life of Jesus or Buddha or Baha'Ullah (the prophet of the Baha'i religion).

Love is seeing the other AS yourself, and behaving accordingly...because in truth there IS no other. There is only One of us here. One masquerading as many. That is the foundation of all the holy teachings.

Love will never invade another country. Love will never execute or imprison. Love will not torture. Love will not persuade by force or rule by fear. Love will cure illness rather than attacking only the outer symptoms of illness...by filling whatever lack there was that showed itself as the illness in the first place. Love will establish equality, not protect and perpetuate elitism. Love will recognize that human rights spring from an eternal divine source inside every human being, not from the temporal authority of some government or church or bureaucracy. Love will find meaning in the beautiful heart of Life where the loveless find only victory, fame, vengeance or profit.

Love can save the World.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 03:16 PM

What is on second.
What is love.
ergo, Love is on second.


most guys think it's at home plate!

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 01:56 PM

Love is the perception of unity. It is the awareness that "We are One". All that is good, kind, and beneficial flows from that.

Accordingly, Love can end war, end poverty, end injustice, end violence, end crime, and save the World.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: GUEST,Paranoid Android
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 07:09 PM

Love is driving to her house listening to the Eagles singing "When we're hungry, love will keep us alive" knowing that when you reach her, all your hunger will be quenched.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Jeanie
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 03:23 AM

Brucie,

Methinks you know from whence it came :)

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Peace
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 08:11 PM

Jeanie,

That is beautiful.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: lucky_p
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 07:44 PM

For romantic love to happen, you have ready, willing, and able to go all the way into the soul of the person, down to the bone; and you have to allow that person to get all the way into you. Interestingly, the hardest part is not loving another that way, but believing you're truly lovable in your innermost core and thus allowing someone to get all the way in to love you that way.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Jeanie
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 06:57 PM

There are three boxes:
a gold one with an inscription which reads: "Who chooses me shall gain what many men desire",
a silver one with the inscription: "Who chooses me shall get as much as he deserves",
and a lead one with the inscription: "Who chooses me must give and risk all he has."

Which box to choose ?

- jeanie   :)

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: Peace
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 12:44 PM

That which when you don't have it is really obvious; and when you do, it is equally evident.

Subject: RE: BS: what is love
From: MBSLynne
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 11:02 AM

I don't think it's something you learn not to do really. No age limits to love, lust or any of the related things.