Sunday 11 November 2012

Do you know the 4types of love?

 

Love - a single word that holds a lot of meaning and power. And while it brings joy and gratitude to anyone who hears it, this can also cause confusion. When you say "I love my mother," "I love my cat" or "I love my work," it does not necessarily mean that you are feeling the same or equal amount of love for these three different things that you "love". Given that love is more of a choice and action than a just a feeling, your actions of love may also be according to different degrees. So, what are the types of love and how do they differ from each other?

Agape
First on the list of the types of love is agape. Agape is actually what contemporary Greek refers to as "unconditional love", or a love that IS love, like in the phrase s'agapo, meaning, "I love you". During the ancient Greek, the word actually referred to "true love's" deepest sense, instead of the simple attraction. This is even used for describing the contented feeling or putting someone in a very high regard. Agape is used for expressing the unconditional love given by God to all His creations.

Eros
The passionate love that is combined with longing and sensual desire, eros is something taken from "erotas" or "intimate love." But it does not necessarily mean that eros is a love that is sexual by nature. You can interpret this as the love you have for someone who is more than a friend to you. Out of the types of love, this one is best fit for marriage and dating relationships.

Philia
Modern Greek defines philia as affectionate love or friendship. Among the different types of love, this one is dispassionate and virtuous love, the concept of which has been developed by none other than Aristotle. This includes the loyalty to family, friends, community and calls for equality, familiarity and virtue.

Storge
Storge, the last in the list of the types of love, pertains to affection in both modern and ancient Greek. This is a kind of natural affection as what parents feel for their children. Storge has rarely been used in the ancient works, almost solely to describe the relationships in a family. Ancient texts used the term for denoting the feelings parents feel for their children or a husband and wife's feeling for one another. This is also being used for expressing putting up or accepting situations, like "loving a tyrant."

Other Types of Love in This World
There are basically only four major types of love but there are still others emotions that ought to be acknowledged as well. And while these emotions are not love they are commonly mistaken for love prematurely. The first of which is crush. First crushes are really memorable, as this is when you experience some somersaults inside your stomach. Surely we all know that somewhat stupid grin on your face each time your crush passes by. What an amazing rush!

You also have the so-called obsessive, or that kind of love that borders on being too clingy. This kind of feeling is not considered as healthy because it can give you the tendency to manipulate your partner's life that may then lead to them leaving you altogether. More often than not, this kind of emotion is being experienced by novice lovers or those who have "fallen in love" for the first time. Scared and insecure, obsessive lovers tend to go so overboard that their relationships usually end because of it.

Last and definitely the most painful kind of love is unrequited love, or loving even if you know that the other person can never love you back. Full of pains and heartaches, this love is unfortunately one sided and although you might be in a relationship, chances are you will never get the happiness that you wish for because you know that the love you can give does not equal the love that you will receive by far.

The four major types of love and the other feelings mentioned are all essential and as the old saying goes, they make the world go round. Without these, there is no way for people to express how they feel about others and tell these people how much they mean to them. They will never be able to show what they want to show, and learn the things that they need to learn. Love teaches people a lot of things and without it, life might as well be considered as incomplete.

The different types of love might technically differ in meaning but at the end of the day, what is important is that we know how to love, not just ourselves but also others, especially God who love us more than we deserve.

Relation, "an aspect or quality (as resemblance or causality) that connects two or more things or parts as being or belonging or working together, as being of the same kind, or as being logically connected."

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