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A simple word, it has so many different meanings, many of which are very, very 'deep,' to so many different people.
In a strict scientific sense, love is nothing more than your brain releasing certain chemicals when it is triggered by something, be it a thought, a memory, visual stimula, etc.
This, however, seems to many people to be a far too clean cut, cold, and uninspiring definition of love. Some even go so far as to argue that if this is your view on the matter, you don't really 'know' what love is, and what you think of as love is somehow... less, for lack of a better term, than what they think of it as.
Part of the reason that many people think this way is that love doesn't seem to be a single emotion, or even just emotion by itself for that matter. Many feel it as a combination of many, many different emotions, and often thoughts as well, many of which are quite powerful. This, for obvious reasons, tends to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to articulate precisely what it is that they define as love.
Another part of the reason is... complex, and is a different topic from this one, so I will get into it later.
Another problem that my personal experience, both what I have lived through and what I have talked to others about, has led me to believe that 'love' is an unique experience for each individual, and each time it happens. This can be demonstrated by loving both your partner, and your family. In both instances, what you feel is 'love,' but they are vastly different from each other. Indeed, if you are fortunate enough to have multiple people you love, you can see it further differentiated, in that the love you feel for the different people is never quite the same. It may be of similar 'strength,' but it is different from one to another.
The only thing that remains consistent across all types of love and across all those who feel it is that, once you are fortunate, or unfortunate depending on your view and the cirumstances, enough to feel it, you are never the same afterwards. In some cases, this can be a good thing. In others, it can be a bad thing. It has inspîred both some of, if not the, greatest things in human history, and I am willing to wager it has also inspired some of the worst.
Down through the years, across the world, this single word has inspired many ideas, some good, some bad, and some downright weird.
An example of this last one can be seen most strongly in present day North America, and various other places.
Here, we have created the idea of, 'The One.'
The idea is as simple as it is absurd. It, when boiled down and stripped of all it's romantism, basically states that, for every person on the planet, there is, somewhere out there among the billions of other humans on our world, a person that is perfect for them, the only one they can 'truly' love, the only they can ever 'truly' love.
Part of the reason this idea is so absurd is practical.
At the present time, to the best of my knowledge, we are at around 7,000,000,000 people on this planet at this time.
Assuming you could know you love someone just by meeting their eyes ( love at first sight, which I will talk about next. ) within a second of seeing them, and there was some way to guarentee you saw a different set of eyes every second for twelve hours a day, and you did this every day for 60 years, you would still of only seen 946,728,000 people.
This sounds like quite a lot, and it is, but it is still less than 1/7 of the world's present population. It is also far, far more than you will ever, ever have a chance of ever seeing.
A possible, but still incredibly high and thus rare, amount of eyes seen per day of, say, 2000, nets you 43,830,000 eyes met using the same criteria as above.
This all assumes indescrimate social interaction between everyone, of course, and this is in itself something that doesn't happen.
Income, religion, height, weight, style, culture, language, and many, many more things seperate people within the same region, often within the same town or city. You can live in a town of only several hundred, and never know most of them.
Other problems include the fact there are people who are dead, and people who have yet to be born.
There have been, approximately, over 100,000,000,000 humans that have lived on this world so far, with an unknown number who have yet to be born.
What if your one and only died 3000 years ago, in ancient Greece? What if they have yet to be born? Even if you could, somehow, see every set of eyes on this planet within your lifetime, which you can't, it still doesn't guarentee you that you will find your 'one,' simply since they are very likely already gone, or very likely not yet born.
Another problem presented is an assumtpion we have been operating on so far.
The idea of love at first sight.
The idea itself is, like the last, relatively simple. When you first lay eyes upon a person, something in your mind just... clicks. You are instantly, irreversably, undeniably in love with them.
At surface value, this sounds like a highly romantic, very possible idea. Indeed, many couples do claim that their relationship started with love at first sight.
However, practicality once again rears it's ugly head.
Practicality, thou art a heartless bitch.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that it is in fact possible to fall in love with someone at first sight, you immedediatly face some serious questions and problems.
Let's assume for a second that one day, you're walking down the street, and you see someone. You lay your eyes on them, and something just clicks.
The thoughts and feelings that assail you, naturally, leave you paralyzed and unable to act.
By the time you are able to, the person is gone.
You search, frantically, but can not find them.
Congratulations, you're now in love, and you will never see the person again.
Now what do you do?
Coupled with the idea of the 'one,' you just lost your only chance at ever experiencing love. From this point forward, a part of you is missing, and no one else will ever come close. You may find someone you're willing to settle for, but none you will ever love.
Even taking the other road, and assuming you can fall in love with multiple people, you are still missing a part of you. You may find love again, but there will always be that love that you feel, but can not reclaim, or even claim in the first place for that matter.
Another problem one faces is, is it actually possible to fall in love with someone that fast?
Based upon personal experience, and my conversations with others, I am highly skeptical of this.
I suspect I have been in love. It wasn't, however, something that happened immediately, or over night, or even over a year.
It took a great deal of obstacles overcome, many attempts by others, family, friends, and exs, to split us up, and so much more, before I was finally able to come to the conclusion that what I felt, indeed what I still feel, is love.
This is not to say you can not feel something for someone very fast, of course.
I have experienced that end as well, with both caring about someone very deeply, and also experiencing someone that I found so unimaginably seductive and desirable that the mere thought of them was enough to send me into an almost uncotrollable state of lust.
However, even that itself, I feel, is odd, do to the fact that to achieve that, it took a great deal of discussion, and sharing of many, many intimate secrets and private thoughts that many people don't, or won't, do for a great deal of time, if ever.
I would like to point out, for that part, that that was a twofold combination that was required, the one part being such a high level of maturity and intelligence on their end in order to be comfortable with the conversations neccessary to achieve that type of... relationship, for lack of a better word, and such a degree of indifference on my end to whether they might try to use that information against me, not to mention no concept of personal boundaries. For the average person, I consider that sort of scenario highly unlikely.
Others that I have talked to about this share similar experiences, in regards to the time taken to fall in love with a person.
A recurring, though far from inevitable, theme I have found is that, when first meeting a person, they do indeed have some sort of emotional reaction to the person. The other recurring theme is that many of them are able to pinpoint an exact moment in time, a single event, when it dawned upon them that they loved the person.
However, there is often a space of a couple of years, if not more, between these two events, and rarely is the space of time between them shorter.
Another idea that many people seem to have is that love is painless. I disagree with this.
Love can, and will, hurt you like nothing else will.
It is, however, something that is worth going through that pain for.
( Notices he has been rambling for a while, so tries to get back on track. )
I, personally, believe that it is entirely possible to love more than one person, even at the same time. ( Love as in the way a man loves a woman, or a man loves a man, or a woman loves a woman. Not talking about family style love, as that is a given in, to the best of my knowledge, all, or at least most, cultures. ) It is also possible to be in a relationship with more than one person at the same time, with them having full knowledge of and consent of the arrangement, though that is a lot harder, and a different topic.
I believe love to be entirely subjective, an uniquely personal experience, that can vary almost infinitely from one person to another.
I further believe that love is not something that is achieved instantly. Do to the subjective nature I view love as, it is possible, I suppose, but I remain skeptical of it.
