What is Love?: The Everlasting Impact on Our Culture and People

We have all wondered at one point or another what love is. The simple answer is “a strong attraction to another person.” This, however, is quite vague. It doesn’t tell us how one actually feels love.

Lets start at the beginning shall we; love has been around since ancient time, for example marriage. An institution created in the time of our ancestors that would not be possible without one thing. You guess it, love. 

Whether it’s love for your family, a sport, friends, a pet, or that significant other, it is pretty hard to dispute love.

Think of your favorite thing in the world, an object or your other half. Think of how they make you feel. Now think of them disappearing forever. It hurts doesn’t it? That my friends, is called love.

Wanting to know more about love, I asked people “What is love to you?” The responses I got are quite insightful. 

Teri Begue: when you can’t stand being away from that one person who makes you happy. When you can’t live without that one person in your life. When they are all you think about

Anna Do: “Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out. You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything.” -Helen Keller

“When you love someone, you put that person before yourself. No matter where you are, you feel safe when you’re with that person. Love is when you want someone else happy, even if what they do hurts yourself. You will do whatever it takes just for this person to find happiness. I think that the word ‘love’ nowadays has become overused and does not have much thought behind it when said. Some people experience this artificial puppy dog love and thinks that it’s true love, when it’s not. It bothers me when they throw meaningless “I love you’s” around because love to them usually means sexual favors. And once their relationship is over, they learn that it was just lust. Love is selfless. Love is love….”

Sorry if this was a bad explanation, but it was just a stream of messy thoughts put into a paragraph. Love is just hard to explain, but easy to feel if you open your heart. 

WWE Diva AJ Lee: “Love is a warm puppy”

Deasia Hawkins: “Hmm… Love has no real definition because it’s different for every person. For me love is getting extreme butterflies; ones that make you feel like upchucking o.O It’s having this pain in your chest when you think about that special person. It’s accepting them for their flaws, knowing that that’s what makes them beautiful. It’s getting into a fight then five minutes later acting like nothing happened. It’s beautiful yet tragic, confusing yet understanding, gentle yet rough, complex yet so simple. It’s having your other half, your soul mate; and knowing that they’ll always be enough to get you through the day”

Andy: “It’s like describing the color blue.”

When I think of love I think of soul mates and hence from that a quote from ancient Greece.

“Humans used to have four eyes, two noses, two mouths, four arms, and four legs. One day a human angered one of the gods and out of anger he spilt all humans in two. From that day on us humans were cursed to walk the Earth to find our other half”.

So my friends what is love to you? I implore thee find thy other half, find your soul mate. And to those who already have, my advice is this: Hold on tight and don’t let go.

-Special thanks to Teri, Anna, Deasia, Andy, and AJ Lee, whose quotes were an invaluable addition to this article. Without them it would just be me rambling on.