Love: how I see it

By T, Staffer of De Birhan Media

15-11-2011

“You can shed tears that she is gone, 
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday, 
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, 
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she'd want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.”  David Harkins

 

I love the above poem by David. Love is hard to define but easy to sense. You know the sensual meaning of it yeah?

The love that Jamaicans have for Ethiopia is a kind of love. That you can understand. The recent attacks on Ethiopian women by their lovers and husbands are love too? But what do the theorists say about love and what is the opinion of me, T, Staffer of De Birhan Media? Haaaaaaa lol.

Accoridng to Data Guru Some theories of Love: We develop styles of love that are based on expectancies developed from childhood experiences with caregivers: Secure; Anxious/ambivalent; andAvoidant (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Hazan & Shaver, 1987; Shaver, Hazan and Bradshaw,1988). It says love has four major tasks 1) to attract a mate; 2) to retain the mate; 3) to reproduce; and 4) parental investment (Buss, 1988; Swenson, 1972).

It divides primary love styles as such: Eros - Love at first sight, based on physical attributes and is mostly physical arousal; Storge - loving affection that develops over time, is primarily affection and commitment; Ludos - a rover and collector of loves, very pluralistic. I have fallen prey to the first type of love. I was engrossed by the body shapes, facial structures, hair and smile of many girls, ladies and women. I have fallen prone to the second one too; I can say I almost loved most of the good ladies I happened to stay long with alike. Ludos is unclear this time.

Secondary love styles: Mania - intense preoccupation with the loved one, intensely jealous and possessive, in need of constant reassurance of partner's love. Projects desired qualities on partner. Pragma - looking for a compatible partner; Agape - Selfless, caring without self interest. (Lee, 1977; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986). From the secondary styles, I would say I have the last two. I have been looking for a compatible one and caring without self interest too.

 I also have passionate love. Passionate love is an intense state of longing for union with another. It has three components, cognitive, emotional and behavioural. 1) cognitive - intrusive preoccupation with the person, idealization of that person, and desire to know the person; 2) Emotional - Attraction/Sexual attraction, positive and negative feelings, longing for reciprocity, desire for union, physiological arousal; and 3) Behavioral - Actions to determine the other's feelings, studying the person, service to the person, maintaining physical closeness. 

I am compassionate too. I love humanity. I care and cry for the helpless, although I am one of helpless too. Companionate love is the affection that we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined. (Hatfield; Berscheid and Walster, 1974).

According to Sternberg (1988), the experience of love is a function of levels of intimacy, commitment and passion (Sternberg, 1988). 

Which kind of love do we mostly have? What kind of love do I have?

Let us take a break. Listen to the music below and give flavour to your reading. A very cool, lovely Ethiopian song by a beautiful Ethiopian for a beautiful girl in Bethlehem,Ethiopia. Bettyyyyyyyy

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Liking is obviously within all of us. That was what the studies found out too. Liking is a normal incidence within all of us. Human beings like two things per a day at least. Infatuated love is one that is passionate this usually comes between lovers that are also sexually partners. Infatuation is the extreme type of love. Empty love is one that is more of commitment based. While fatuous love is both passionate and commitment based. Consummate love on the other hand is intimate, committed, and passionate. Love to ones country, love to a writer that you do not know, or love to a book is consummate love.

Very ambiguous to define

Love is an ambiguous word to define and comprehend. It is easy to be caught. Those of us who have gone through sight love, first love and so on or even had experienced betrayal by our partners, it may even sound abstract. When you find  a girl that you loved most and wanted to be with forever, loving and getting married to another man, what do you say about love? How about when you fall in love with a woman that doesn’t at all sense that you love her but takes you as her best friend or brother? What if she was older than you were and incompatible in every aspect with you but faultless she is and you are afraid as hell to tell her that you are her best frosty chocolate that she can sip? We don't know why we fall for certain people and we can't choose when we fall in love but we can decide how deep and hard we fall for them. All are ambiguously vague questions and facts. When you have a crush or really like someone, you only like them when they seem perfect and flawless. While love is when you're aware of their imperfections and flaws yet you still love them in spite of them. It is true that the ugliest person can become beautiful when they allow themselves to be open to Love, Hope and Faith and that is the kind of woman I am in ... with, I would say.

And they say love is blind and then some confuse you with their love and lust.

Yvonne M. Glasgow (Ph.D.) a professor of Holistic life and Philosophy says  no one ever said love would be simple and the reason for the lack of this statement is the truth that finding love is almost as difficult as finding the Holy Grail and just because you may think that you love someone does not mean that you do because it should be a proven fact that 99.9% of people don't even have one clue of what love really is.

Hell yea she is right. Love sucks. A very vague thing. If I think of this beautiful and worthy woman of zero fault, and at times feel like hmmm by repressing my feelings and controlling my want for more … what is love? Take it in whatever sense - the word love should be changed.

RIP Amy Winehouse says it better below,

O woman, perfect woman! what distraction
Was meant to mankind when thou wast made a devil!
-- John Fletcher (1576-1625)
-- Monsieur Thomas, Act iii, Sc. 1