Happy weekend everyone, hopefully you have something exciting planned and you've got some good weather wherever you may be.
The topics this week I found rather difficult to decide on, but settled on a controversial one just for the pure fuck of it. I think that there are so many ways that you can interpret this topic. Apart from the obvious which revolves around sex, people can love, lust and desire a whole range of things: power, money, fame, notoriety, admiration, respect and so on.
But can you draw definitive lines between each of them like I have done so in the description of my post? As with so many things in life, each person may have a completely different interpretation or experience of each of them, similar to asking what defines a good person vs a bad person.
I'll be sharing my personal opinions here which you may disagree with. That's perfectly fine.
Can you love in different ways or to varying degrees? The sibling love that you feel for your brother, is not the same type of love that you may have for your partner as the relationship you share with them is not the same. Do people really "love" these days or is that just an illusionary concept that we've been fed by Hollywood or romance novels? This is entirely a personal question which each of us may answer differently.
What about people that 'love' attention and get addicted to fame? Often this is intertwined with other things like a desire for power or lusting after people's adoration to stroke their egos more than actually "loving" anything, I think this comes from a deep seated place of lack, a void that people are trying to fill. They love the high they receive on a chemical level, when the pleasure centres of their brain are activated. I don't think that's really 'loving' something or someone as I believe that the old fashioned sense of the word should imply that you love someone based on shared values, common goals, that you feel you can share with that person - time, energy, experiences, points of view. It's also not entirely about that "In Love" feeling of euphoria (referred to as the Honeymood Period which I personally think is a terrible descriptor) as that often fades with time and then grows into a much deeper, richer and stronger bond. Some people get addicted to that euphoric feeling more than feeling lasting love for the person that fuels that. I think this has to do with how attention spans have decreased and those kinds of people are looking for quick excitement more than anything of substance.
Loving someone also doesn't mean putting them on a pedestal, it means accepting that person for who they are, inclusive of their history, quirks, differences, ideological frame of mind etc., and not what you imagine them to be in the "ideal world". Accepting that they are flawed people - we all are - and that each of us is going to have ups and downs in life, we are going to make mistakes, fail sometimes, achieve sometimes and an array of other things. I think that people should be able to accept that when we fuck up (and we all fuck up in different ways along the line), if we are willing and able to acknowledge, own and accept our flaws and mistakes, make ammends, apologize (and sincerely mean it) or discuss things and iron out the misunderstandings or miscommunications, change our behaviours and make a concerted effort to do or be better going forward, then it shouldn't be a score keeping exercise. I think that thwarts the ability to grow and move forward on a personal level as well as in a union of whatever nature that may be - friendship/partnership/relationship etc.
I also don't believe that you can love someone out of obligation. It needs to be freely given and reciprocated without having unrealistic expectations.
The word love seems to have lost a lot of its meaning and even I am guilty of just throwing it around like "I love long roadtrips","I love nature", "I love that song". Perhaps this is as good a time as any to evaluate my usage of the word.
Lust and Desire I think are more similar in nature to each other. People lust after fast sports cars, the perfect trophy wife or husband, the Oscar awards (certain deities only understand why, I personally can't), a house with a picket fence or a mansion. These are all material things, again this is more about image than anything on a deeper level. What is lust fueled by though? On a biological level I think again, lust and desire are both fueled by our biological need for species preservation and "survival of the fittest" that dates back to the earliest days when survival rates were far lower and longevity was much shorter. What is today all about image was once about competing for resources. Having to be a faster and better hunter, provider and protector than the next group of people when the sabre tooth tiger or velociraptor was on the prowl. That was a joke, I know that humans weren't around at that time, but if ever we needed to be better and faster, it was back then.
We've come a long way since then, the dynamics have changed, society is still ever changing and yet our primal nature still underlies the natural laws we have developed and come to accept.
To close, I think there's a fascinating relationship between the three as they can work entirely distinctly from each other or come together in a harmonious melody similar to a bass line accompanied by electric guitar riffs and drum beats. It depends on the circumstances and the people involved. With a friend, you probably love them purely platonically. With your partner, you would probably have a combination of all three.
As always, just my thoughts here and I'm sure that some people will have differing opinions. More than happy to open it up for debate in the comments.
