Love.
It's a simple four-letter word to describe an amazingly complex emotion. I think it's a word that people overuse these days, though. It's almost as if the actual esteem it was meant to convey has been degraded by using it in ways that devalue its meaning.
Let me demonstrate.
I say I love chocolate.
I also say I love my mom.
Which one is accurate? Are they both the truth?
Well, if I compare how I feel about my mother to how I feel about chocolate, I would say that both feelings are based on multiple positive experiences and connections made with both of the aforementioned objects of my affections over the course of 32 years.
But I would also say that I could live without chocolate and (eventually) be just as happy without it in my life. The same is not true when contemplating life without my mom.
Based on those deductions, I'd say I like chocolate-- maybe even that I like it a lot. But do I love it? No.
Not really.
There are different types of love: friendly love, brotherly love, romantic love, and a basic love for humanity. But is it a different type of emotion we feel for each of those types of love.... or does the love just manifest itself differently depending on the nature of the relationship?
I'm inclined to say that it is the relationship and not the magnitude of esteem that defines the feeling.
For example, I've had romantic interests who I know have been just as important to me as members of my family, and perfect strangers who I have allowed myself to become just as concerned about as though they were my brothers and sisters.
My point is that no matter how you dissect it and what type of label you put on it, love can be both a large shield AND a powerful sword... It is not a word we should let bounce off our tongues with every whim.
And yet we do.
I say I love bacon. Greek yogurt. The Big Bang Theory. Music. Matthew McConnaghey.
But do I?
Really?
NO.
And even though the bacon I ate this morning is not going to be too terribly devastated that I misrepresented the air of my affection for it, I want to be careful not to misuse that word. Because I'll misuse it once; then twice; then three times... and on and on until it starts to take on a different meaning from the one it once held in my head.
It becomes love, degraded. Love, twice removed. A strong like, with a bite.
The more I apply it to different things and different people different situations about which I am not even certain I feel the same, the harder love becomes for me to define, even in my quietest moments.
So how do I define love?
The easiest way for me to define love is by using an even shorter word. God.
God is love.
What does that mean, really?
Well, put simply, in the Bible (and in Shakespeare, for those of you who would prefer I reference a different type of historical expert on love): the greatest love a man can demonstrate is to lay down his life for another.
Think about it: loving someone means that you would lay down your life for them.
THAT is the sentiment the word was originally created to convey.
Not love, degraded. Not love, twice removed. Not even strong like, with a bite.
Love is essentially putting the lives of others before yours at all times, for all reasons, and even if it has the potential to lead to death.
So do I love yogurt? Not that much.
Do I love bacon? Maybe enough to pay $6 for it (that's up for debate) but not enough to die.
Do I love Matthew McConnaghey? Welllllll... I might have. But he had to accept a role in a stupid movie that actually endorsed dwarf-tossing (The Wolf of Wall Street) Sorry, Matt. The thrill is gone.
But I do love my mom. And I do love my friends. And I do love people in general; not always enough to lay my life down for them.... but I do try to live my life in a way that puts their needs before mine. That is the essence of love.
So if I tell you I love you.; don't take that lightly. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.... and I know the meaning of what I say.
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