Love Does Not Exist, Only The Illusion Of

[biggpri]

think about this: when you fall in love with somebody, it is not the person you are in love with, but rather, the emotions they invoke within you (joy, euphoria, the feeling of being desired, etc.) for if that person were to stop prviding you with those emotions, they would quickly fall out of favor.

[pankreeas]

I agree. You cannot force or will someone to love you. There's nobody packin' arrows filled with love solution. It just happens. Nothing exists unless we can unleash every one of our 5 senses on it. And since love is blind, right there love is kicked off the island. You cannot say you are in love... nobody can determine what it is... I'd say love is more of a fetish than anything. Everyone's is different and most can't understand anyone's reasons except their own.

Another aspect to creating love I think is overcoming standards. Rich, poor, ugly, fat, etc... You could potentially fall in love but there is right away eliminations due to others expectations or thoughts. Or your own for that matter. You could be in love with just the feeling it evokes as biggpri touched on. Then once you actually remove the fantasy and are left with the reality of being with that special someone do you actually lose some ground on love? since now you can no longer control the feelings, because now you are open to scenarios where you experience fear, hate, etc... you never got that "feeling" from envisioning your love in bed with your best friend... love is what you had planned as you were fantasizing it would play out 5 minutes before you went into R.E.M sleep. Letting go of love is gambling with reality, and you will never be sure you're even gonna break even.

So let's all just admit we love ourselves and be done with it. Greed is our strongest emotion Isn't it? is there anything more really to it than greed and self fullfillment. Even if you love helping orphans..or givin that homeless man 5$ you're getting that "high" and euphoria of making a difference. Now picture drug dealers just feeling happy to make someones day, instead of $$... the majority don't get that gosh darn butterfly in their stomach feeling even though they help millions of people every day. Who is anyone to say I am a good or bad person when I risk potential incarceration to sell someone a better day? who cares about my motives.... I could be donating all the money instead of laundering it. I could just be a pro-drug freak who really just enjoys making the world a better place. Remove emotions and it's just people doing things.. reality tv with no commentary.

**Bare with me here.. lots of random thoughts just laid out before I forgot. The last bit may have derailed off topic but my damn ADHD brain just clicked into overdrive**

Damn I lov.. I mean... i sure do enjoy how these forums temporarily distract me from real life.

[dutch-marshal]

love is the biggest propoganda brainwashingmachine there is!

[Mona Lisa]

I actually take the opposite view, that love is very real; it's just that it doesn't always manifest itself in obvious ways. This is really deep stuff.

[Nagognog2]

They don't call it "Falling" into love for no reason. But if you gotta fall somewhere, I can't think of a better landing zone. Can you?

[rxbandit]

After taking a trip after a rough break up, swim also came to this conclusion. There is no such thing as love. He thought that everyone is in a sense selfish since even the kindest act gratifys our moral conscience. If we do something for someone else we often feel good about ourselves, we do not entirely do this thing for the sake of the other person but the way in which it makes us feel.

Later swim got over his heartbreak and had another more meaningful relationship, he tripped once more. After thinking for along while about the illusion of love, he thought that perhaps most of our actions are a bit selfish, but too persons could in a sense improve each others life mutualistically. There relationship would be symbiotic, propelling both persons into personal growth and success. I believe love is this mutualistic relationship that is beneficial. When love makes both parties; stronger, smarter and happier. I believe it is in fact Love.

Ayn Rand defines love as utmost admiration for someone elses accomplishments. I think this also follows with my view on love. Love is not a blind selfish thing but a positive thing to strive towards.

I do think that love as defined by the media is a complete illusion if not delusion. Redefine the terms and it makes alot more sense.

We are selfish creatures, how we manifest this depends on our moral conditioning.

[LookingForHer]

Love does exist.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Self-less love"... Angels don't live on Earth. And saints are fake.

But true care does exist.

But not on Earth. I mean, there are some beings on Earth with true care. But they are REJECTED by society. Here is the thing. True care is about the truth. You cannot truely care for someone unless you know they are innocent. And how do you know they are innocent? Not without the truth! That is why true care relies upon the truth.

Now, humans HATE the truth. If someone tries to understand someone else truthfully and doesn't let their "socially-lubricating" lies slide, they'll be rejected by society.

So they'll have no one to love anyhow.

There are other planets where all beings have true care, and lack sadism, and DO ALSO have self-interest.

Here is the thing, without self-interest, there is nothing to love. True care can only love innocent things with self-interest. If no one wants anything, what is there to help and assist with? The best way to be is to have true-care AND self-interest, and lack sadism.

But most people on Earth are the reverse. They have sadism and lack true care.

The saddest thing, is that the lowest of people (humans) try to seem like th best (freeists). They cooperate with others, and then call that "true-care", when it is just self-interest, because they helped cos they wanted to gain out of cooperation.

Then they do fucked up things out of sadism, and call it "self-interest", despite that they KNOW it harmed themself too! They make themselves seem like the opposite of what they truely are.

Earth is basically where all the sadistic and selfish spirits have been gathered. Placed there by those who rejected them for their sins. Until judgement day comes, the time for the entire Universe to be cleansed of non-innocence.

That will be the day that the Universe is evolved enough to know HOW to deal bad people, properly. Soon. Coming very very soon...

[bailey]

Love isn't an illusion in and of itself. My experience, however flawed and fragmented, is that LOVE is the force that makes all things come to be; the center that has no boundary. The illusion is that love can be mine or yours or belong to and be controlled by anyone. Love moves through you- you don't control it; so give up on trying to find personal satisfaction that is everlasting through romantic relationships- it will never happen that way. Love is beyond personal relationships, but does include them.

[rxbandit]

Originally Posted by bailey

Love isn't an illusion in and of itself. My experience, however flawed and fragmented, is that LOVE is the force that makes all things come to be; the center that has no boundary. The illusion is that love can be mine or yours or belong to and be controlled by anyone. Love moves through you- you don't control it; so give up on trying to find personal satisfaction that is everlasting through romantic relationships- it will never happen that way. Love is beyond personal relationships, but does include them.

Could you expand upon this definition. I'm curious what your belief is, however its a bit vague.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by rxbandit

Could you expand upon this definition. I'm curious what your belief is, however its a bit vague.

I guess the best I can do is to say LOVE is a transcendent reality, not just a concept.

[Harry]

One of the best examples I can think of to explain love, or represent it, and in my opinion true love being an unconditional thing, can be found in the frequency and stats for death and dying in the old, and particularly in very long term, happy marriages.

It is a statistical proven anomaly that when a long term partner dies, the spouse often dies shortly after. Often there are real medical reasons for this, explainable ones, but the anomaly lays in the frequency of ones who die without physical causation, predetermined ailments etc. For whatever reason, and frequently, their hearts just simple stop beating.

No one has ever really been able to explain it by way of science, and to me it is the greatest proof that unconditional love exists.

[rxbandit]

How someone thinks greatly effects their health. If someone is a hard worker and stays busy or has a purpose they are more likely to live longer. If someones purpose is their significant other and that person dies, that persons health may deteriorate quickly.

If someones health does deteriorate after there wife or husband dies it may be because they begin to neglect their health in depression. Often lonely people think irrationally and forget their healthy routines such as regular meals and uniform sleep patterns.

How we feel and what we think is directly related to neurotransmitters and hormones. If we have negative thoughts or emotions we are more likely to get sicker easier. The body is an amazing thing.

Ones significant other dying in old age is similar to going through an emotional withdrawal.

[Harry]

Originally Posted by rxbandit

How someone thinks greatly effects their health. If someone is a hard worker and stays busy or has a purpose they are more likely to live longer. If someones purpose is their significant other and that person dies, that persons health may deteriorate quickly.

If someones health does deteriorate after there wife or husband dies it may be because they begin to neglect their health in depression. Often lonely people think irrationally and forget their healthy routines such as regular meals and uniform sleep patterns.

How we feel and what we think is directly related to neurotransmitters and hormones. If we have negative thoughts or emotions we are more likely to get sicker easier. The body is an amazing thing.

Ones significant other dying in old age is similar to going through an emotional withdrawal.

I understand what you are saying, it is basically 'they died of loneliness' which is to say determining factors (death of a loved one) precipitated a loss of health, changed the physical/chemical nature of their being, bringing on depression, etc, etc, thus leading to death. What I am saying is that these factors are considered in the studies.

The anomaly is that their hearts in an unusually high number of incidents, all things factored in, just simply stopped beating without physical/medical explanation.

It has been studied at great length in the field of geriatrics, and still largely remains an anomaly.

I offer no proof it is their loss of a loved one that causes it, saying that they loved the person they lost so much they just decided they no longer wanted to live, maybe wishing to meet with them in the hereafter if they believed in it, or maybe would just rather go to sleep for internity, or cease to no longer exist. Their individual beliefs and thought processes determining. What I do know is that due to the fact it is an anomaly, that being, healthy people's hearts just frequently stop in these particular scenarios without medical explanation, I tend to go towards Occam's Razor.

As it can't be explained, so it therefore simply is. They loved, they lost their love. They no longer wish to live without it, and their hearts simply stop.

[pankreeas]

Makes me think of the term "high on life". If you are high on life then love is most likely your enabler.