What is love? (baby dont hurt me....)

1. Make a list of "kinds" of love, or situations that seem to you to be about love...

This question somewhat bothered me, as did our discussion in the last class. I cannot for the life of me, decide what gives someone else the right to determine what is or is not love to another person. Love is such a strong term, and although this love may not be reciprocated (as with an object or a band) I can't seem to find a solid divider for what I think is "inside" and "outside" of the box. To help me with this, I decided to look for the dictionary definition of love to give me some insight so I could make my list.

love (lv) n.
1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
3.
a. Sexual passion.
b. Sexual intercourse.
c. A love affair.
4. An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
5. A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
6. An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.
7.
a. A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language.
b. The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.
8. Love Mythology. Eros or Cupid.
9. often Love Christianity. Charity.
10. Sports. A zero score in tennis.
(source: dictionary.com)

Based on this definition and my own opinions, I can think of a few different love-type scenarios:

-first there's love for another person, obviously. i assume most people would associate this type of love with a family member, a lover/partner, possibly a friend. whether or not the person loves you back is another story, but then again, theres a difference as to whether you love a person or are in love with a person, or are lusting for a person but you call it love...i dont know.

-according to def. #4, love can be "An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object." an object or a pet cannot love back (unless it is a mammalian pet of course) so i think that any object or animal can potentially be described as the target of one's love, as long as it has the passion and reason to back it up. i have trouble deciding that any one thing can or cannot be loved.

- def. #5 states love as "A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment. " I believe that this definition doesn't actually fit into my personal definition of love. i guess the "a person who is the object of deep or intense affection" is okay, but i dont consider a deep or intense attraction to fall into the category of love. attraction is just that...you are attracted to something...maybe because of how it looks, or acts, or its personality. but i dont think you can love something based on an "intense attraction". just my 2 cents.

- then there is "A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language" in this case, bands and other such things could fall into the category of love. i still think that one can love a band in a particular circumstance. i do not think that this falls into the same category as attraction, but i do agree with this definition being a specific type of love.

of course you cannot just define love based on a dictionary definition. it is a feeling, one that covers much more than can be written down on paper. love is quite possibly the strongest emotion that someone can place on something, something that i believe is even stronger than hate in most senses. and i dont think that you can just say, well this has a limbic brain and this does not, so it cannot be loved. thats just really been bothering me. that you cannot express love for a material object because it cannot love back...i think that is still love in certain cases.

so i'm just gonna list a bunch of things that i associate with love. things that i think are worthy of the word love and can be loved, or do love, or celebrate love, or whatever i end up writing:
-weddings
-hospitals
-"first" objects: bike, tooth, big self-made purchase
-family (people, gatherings, etc.)
-milestones
-things handed down through generations
-life-changing/altering things
-pets
-lovers (current, old/ex)
-posessions that mark your status and how you got there
-achievements/things that mark them
-person that influenced something in your life
-friends
-something that helped you through a hard time and had meaning to you at a point in your life(poem, band, story, person, etc.)
-something that makes you happy and never fails to do that
-something that becomes an obsession: movie, show, song, etc.

i cannot think of much more to write right now, but i am very opinionated on this topic and i can't wait to talk about all of this stuff in class.