Seconded.TheYellowCellPhone said:
Love isn't needed but it is one of the best things you can experience
Poll: Am I the only one who thinks there may be infinitely more important things than love?
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Love isn't needed but it is one of the best things you can experience
Ah the the eternal quest for companionship. And sex. Lots and lots of sex. In cars and kitchens and...Doclector said:
I'm sorry let me get back to what I was here to do originally.
Is love essential? Not for survival, no. Might it be essential to being alive? Quite likely. Your word choice intrigued me as you described your opinion of Love's necessity. You say you have been alone most of your life. You only enjoy some of life. You smile only on occasion. You feel lonely. You feel isolated. You feel bitter. From what I'm deriving from your OP, I can assume that you may feel like love is important even if you are thinking that it is not.
In life, we need things to survive. We are driven by our instincts to have those things and so we survive by those impulses. However, we are strange animals as we tend to want things. The things we need keep us alive but the things we want make that life worth something more.
So, I'll say that I think Love is important to being alive. Of course, if you don't feel lonely or bitter or anything like that, then why pursue Love? Then again, if you do feel lonely and bitter then you should fix that. Fight for the things you want and you give yourself meaning, you give yourself Purpose.
Nah, I actually agree with you. Romantic love in my eyes is something that can tear you apart if you want it too much.Doclector said:
Just don't become fixated on it. Forget about it and make progress on a career that you enjoy, or to learn a new hobby. If love will come, than it will, but if it doesn't then don't waste your time looking.
By the way, don't make thread titles with "Am I the only one" because you AREN'T the only one, for anything.
Love is very easy to disregard as something stupid people smile and babble about without any real importance to it when you haven't actually experienced it. Hell, I considered it a silly thing for silly people, and certainly not something worth thinking about.
The thing is, though, you might not necessarily need it to live, but many people consider a life without any meaningless. You can walk, and talk, and breathe, and eat, and piss just fine. But you won't love. From a biological standpoint, the very reason you actually do any of those is to find a mate and procreate. And just in general, people often consider their lives a lot more meaningful when it's not just about themselves.
So yeah. You're not going to explode implode, or otherwise suffer from existential failure from lack of love. But you already seem to be making a good case in your own post about the fact it can make you very empty inside. And to torture this metaphor a bit farther, an empty barrel collapses much easier than a full one.
The thing is, though, you might not necessarily need it to live, but many people consider a life without any meaningless. You can walk, and talk, and breathe, and eat, and piss just fine. But you won't love. From a biological standpoint, the very reason you actually do any of those is to find a mate and procreate. And just in general, people often consider their lives a lot more meaningful when it's not just about themselves.
So yeah. You're not going to explode implode, or otherwise suffer from existential failure from lack of love. But you already seem to be making a good case in your own post about the fact it can make you very empty inside. And to torture this metaphor a bit farther, an empty barrel collapses much easier than a full one.
like you pointed out yourself, you've been alone most of your life. so you don't really know what you're talking about. loving someone and being loved by them is the most awesome thing in the world.
no, you won't die without love. but you're not fully alive either.
no, you won't die without love. but you're not fully alive either.
Can't say I agree with your view, even if I live the same way as you. It is something I would not have survived childhood without... (and I mean death, not stunted feelings) Really it just depends on what a person can take and why they can handle what they put up with.Doclector said:
I would say that you (and myself) fit the bitter fool category to a T.
I could probably live without someone else loving me, but it would be pretty damn hard.
Well, I do live without people loving me. No girlfriend and no real family. I don't like it too much. I mean, I have a lot of friends, some guys, lot of girls, and I have a lot of love towards other people, but I don't really feel a reciprocal emotion from anyone.
That's the thing, I guess. All those love threads hanging around are of people who love others and feel they aren't loved back. It's entirely reasonable for someone to not be loved back and to feel good about themselves, and to have that drive to succeed at a career; but do those people love others to begin with? Hell, even I have sheer focus on my medium-term goals, but I'd like to have somebody that can support me through that.
But think of it like this. In the end, aren't humans all about companionship, procreation and power?
Well, I do live without people loving me. No girlfriend and no real family. I don't like it too much. I mean, I have a lot of friends, some guys, lot of girls, and I have a lot of love towards other people, but I don't really feel a reciprocal emotion from anyone.
That's the thing, I guess. All those love threads hanging around are of people who love others and feel they aren't loved back. It's entirely reasonable for someone to not be loved back and to feel good about themselves, and to have that drive to succeed at a career; but do those people love others to begin with? Hell, even I have sheer focus on my medium-term goals, but I'd like to have somebody that can support me through that.
But think of it like this. In the end, aren't humans all about companionship, procreation and power?
No, love is quite essential. Relationships are not. If you literally love 'no-one,' not your mother or your relatives or your friends or even yourself, you would find life incredibly unbearable.Doclector said:
However, I assume your are talking about intimate love. As you get older, you find life to be more and more boring. Love is one of the few things you can share that breaks monotony, but it isn't necessary if you find interesting things to do for the next 60-80 years. Honestly though, love is fun. That's why people like it.
No i perfectly agree with you. Love is just a flow of feelings to encourage you to find a mate and pass on your genetics and speices legacy. There aren't really any pyschical benfits to anything like advances in science, however it does benefit in some pyschological effects like happiness however love can be just as dangerous as a loaded gun after the effects and feeling of love has worn off.
But what do i know? I got "Frozen" in "how cold is your heart" Escapist quiz so i'm not really an expert on love.
But what do i know? I got "Frozen" in "how cold is your heart" Escapist quiz so i'm not really an expert on love.
The way people talk about love, you'd think that it's something far bigger than what it is. Those very same people probably miss out on the actual feeling, so wrapped up in this notion of an all consuming, over powering force that can't be controlled.
I don't know really. I still have trouble recognising it, and am not sure I ever will, at least not in the Disney musical sense of the word. I think a good analogy is that love is like a coat in cold weather. Damn nice to have, but keep active enough and even if it's not around you won't feel too bad.
Of course, to answer the question if it's necessary. Well, it sucks if you don't have it, and not having it makes life a little more difficult. Not sure if that makes it a necessity or not. Maybe it's just something that's important to have.
Like a good pair of shoes.
I don't know really. I still have trouble recognising it, and am not sure I ever will, at least not in the Disney musical sense of the word. I think a good analogy is that love is like a coat in cold weather. Damn nice to have, but keep active enough and even if it's not around you won't feel too bad.
Of course, to answer the question if it's necessary. Well, it sucks if you don't have it, and not having it makes life a little more difficult. Not sure if that makes it a necessity or not. Maybe it's just something that's important to have.
Like a good pair of shoes.
You can live without love, you can live without porn and bacon too.
I've found my true love, and I can't imagine facing life without her at this point. Insert cliche about being one person here. Simply put, love makes me happy and gives me a purpose. I much prefer it to being an existential cynic like I used to be.
I've found my true love, and I can't imagine facing life without her at this point. Insert cliche about being one person here. Simply put, love makes me happy and gives me a purpose. I much prefer it to being an existential cynic like I used to be.
this is a situation where the first post should not have been even remotely poetic in its use of english. You'd have a better chance of convincing people love is not necassary if you had been like "frickin girls... who needs them. I've gotten dumped umpteenth times and I'm still standing so I am living proof you can survive without love" the way you wrote it sounds like you are depressed that you don't have love, which in my opinion is not a good way to live, regretting what you don't have.
I think i remember reading that the most powerful driver in the human body is hunger, and then followed by sex.
If you think about humans in evolutionary terms, we consume food in order to keep our bodies running, so that we may reproduce with humans of the opposite sex in order to replicate our own DNA and continue the human species. In biological terms, that is the meaning of life: To eat and have sex.
Given that love is a vehicle which facilitates for sex and raising children, it's pretty important. For these reasons i think all the hype that love get's is pretty understandable and it isn't overblown. All the love threads on the Escapist, and all the times love is dealt with in films, novels, games and art, are all just reflections of individuals striving to fulfill that biological imperative.
If you think about humans in evolutionary terms, we consume food in order to keep our bodies running, so that we may reproduce with humans of the opposite sex in order to replicate our own DNA and continue the human species. In biological terms, that is the meaning of life: To eat and have sex.
Given that love is a vehicle which facilitates for sex and raising children, it's pretty important. For these reasons i think all the hype that love get's is pretty understandable and it isn't overblown. All the love threads on the Escapist, and all the times love is dealt with in films, novels, games and art, are all just reflections of individuals striving to fulfill that biological imperative.
Perhaps in the long term there are more important things to be concerned with. Our environment, human liberties, the form of our future and what it holds for mankind. And yet there is a reason that art from all corners of the globe extols the virtue of love. Musicians will not stop singing about it, poets will not stop their prose about it, writers write about it and like an infinite delta the list of it's tributaries could go on and on. The Hindu holy scriptures say "that despite mankind's failings to live up to the ideal, in love we are all touched by the divine", as Jesus asks us to "love our enemies" and the Buddah tells us "Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule." it seems that all wisdom impels us towards love. Perhaps love has something valuable to impart to that future, towards the ideals of social justice and human rights. As an emotion, it seems to showcase the potential for good within the human heart. But more immediately it's value is such that it would be hard to describe without having known it. We seem as a race to be stuck on it like it were the best emotion there was, and perhaps it is, such as to make addicts out of us all.Doclector said:
A man can perhaps live without it. But once he has it he will be hard-pressed to let it go. He will not be able to imagine his life without it and he will surrender anything else for it. If you ask him about his life before it he will tell you that he did not really feel alive. That I suppose shall have to explain all the difference.