On Love - Revisited

For giggles I Googled "love". One billion, 900 ten million results delivered in under a quarter of one second. Wow! What an amazing tool. Nearly two Billion websites of mostly useless, trite misinformation. A cursory scan of selections, not wasting time in opening any, was horrifying. The overwhelming majority appear to be links to porn sites. One of my own blog posts is there. There is even a 'Love Calculator' available to determine the chance of a successful relationship between two people. I didn't score well.

Turning to my trusted dictionary I find love nestled between lovat and love affair. I learn that love is both a noun and a verb. Excerpts inform me that, among other things, love is "a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person," "a feeling of warm personal attachment." All well and good.

Wikipedia does not disagree and expands further in defining love. "Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment[1] experienced by certain animals, most notably humans. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. In religious context, love is not just a virtue, but the basis for all being ("God is love"[2]), and the foundation for all divine law (Golden Rule)."

I learn that there have been eleven motion pictures, three dozen TV series episodes, a Greek Soap Opera, twenty-two albums, twenty-seven singles, two bands, one record label, and a "Love 97.2 FM" - a Singaporean radio station, all named Love.

Love appears in the title of thousands of books, essays and articles, annually. Numerous talk shows center on the topic and a myriad of talk show hosts, on radio and television, are self-proclaimed experts on the topic. With such a wealth of information available, what have I to add? Little of significance, I am afraid. Yet I am compelled to throw my own twopence into the pot.

There is no end to the way we can define love. But the definition of a topic does not of necessity provide me with the ability to perform. My history of failed marriages is proof of an inability to follow through on the promise. I could read dozens of books, articles and papers on heart transplants and not be able to complete one successfully.


And to be able to wax poetic on a topic no more qualifies me as an expert than it gives me the ability to fly unaided. I may, however, be sneaking up on the intermediate level simply by knowing what love is not.