# Is Love Unreal?



## Pacifist (Jul 24, 2016)

How do we accept, that feelings and love are primarily self-serving conditions since we seek validation of others?

It feels false. It feels like, we loved a person because of their validation in the first place. Separating the feeling of ourselves from a that validation throughout a person and only being able to love the the person is something that someone in my life said to be capable of.

thank you


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## mia-me (Feb 5, 2021)

When you love someone, you're more than willing to put yourself out to make them happy. This has nothing to do with validation. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.


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## Angry-Spaghetti (Feb 25, 2021)

I'd say our interpretation of love is imperfect, because humans are imperfect. Love may be hollow in the end, but if it feels real, does that matter?


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

Pacifist said:


> How do we accept, that feelings and love are primarily self-serving conditions since we seek validation of others?
> 
> It feels false. It feels like, we loved a person because of their validation in the first place. Separating the feeling of ourselves from a that validation throughout a person and only being able to love the the person is something that someone in my life said to be capable of.
> 
> thank you


No I felt it. It is real. I know it is a combination of chemicals in the brain, comfortable associations, and hormones, but it is also a lot more than this. It is connection, it is trust and loyalty. It is sharing secrets. It is being willing to die for her, and wanting to defend her honor. It seems shallow, but there is depth to it that is almost indescribable. Even after we drifted apart after 15 years of marriage, I still know what I felt and why I asked her in the first place. I was never more certain of anything in my life as I was in marrying her (even though it scared the bejesus out of me).


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## SgtPepper (Nov 22, 2016)

Pacifist said:


> How do we accept, that feelings and love are primarily self-serving conditions since we seek validation of others?
> 
> It feels false. It feels like, we loved a person because of their validation in the first place. Separating the feeling of ourselves from a that validation throughout a person and only being able to love the the person is something that someone in my life said to be capable of.
> 
> thank you


Love is a _*verb*_: Love is action. If you simplify it to a mere "feeling" or "experience" you miss out on what makes it powerful. It is more than just a cocktail of chemicals, that's the superficial/detectable portion. Love is creating, building, shaping.

Love is *evident*. At times you can see it with your eyes. In the way a parent molds their children, in the way it constructs powerful life-long bonds, in the measurable impact it has on communities and how it shapes societies.

Love is *transmissible*_. _Love can inspire and motivate. Have you ever looked at something and been inspired by the sheer love and dedication someone put into it? Be it a work of art, inanimate object, or relationship?

These are selfless and tangible examples of love.


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## Negotiator (Mar 15, 2018)

I still remember this book I read as a kid where the villain said, we love because we want to be adored. Basically, love is selfish. 

I'm not sure I agree. I do plenty of things I wouldn't normally feel like doing, out of love. And I'm happy to do it for them. Whereas objectively you might say "oh no my whole evening is ruined". I mean things like bringing your partner to hospital, going to the store late at night because they insist, stuff like that.


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## Queen of Cups (Feb 26, 2010)

SgtPepper said:


> Love is a _*verb*_: Love is action. If you simplify it to a mere "feeling" or "experience" you miss out on what makes it powerful. It is more than just a cocktail of chemicals, that's the superficial/detectable portion. Love is creating, building, shaping.
> 
> Love is *evident*. At times you can see it with your eyes. In the way a parent molds their children, in the way it constructs powerful life-long bonds, in the measurable impact it has on communities and how it shapes societies.
> 
> ...


Everything you just said.


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## mia-me (Feb 5, 2021)

Relative to love being selfish, it's a loaded phrase premised on people's subjective definition of love. Some define it as unconditional and others, conditional.


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## Pacifist (Jul 24, 2016)

But aren’t all of those things produced by our imagination?


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## daleks_exterminate (Jul 22, 2013)

Basically: old religions fucked tons of things up, today it's typically more of overdependence on technology, and consumerism.

"Oh, and love is just an institution based on human frailty. What's your paradise gotta do with Adam and Eve? Maybe love is just an economy based on resource scarcity...What I fail to see is what that's gotta do with you and me"

I think the above is actually hopeful and positive. There's something in the idea of thinking maybe this all is true, and the world is shit, but being really happy they exist and seeing them as worth the bullshit.


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## SouDesuNyan (Sep 8, 2015)

I think love is the realization that what matters the most to you is the same for others. When you look at something with any depth, it appears paradoxical. This applies to love as well, which seems simultaneously selfish and selfless. It's probably a bad idea to even create the word "love", just like it's a bad idea to create the word "god". Any intelligent person would avoid these words because they create too much confusion. Love is not some chemical or feeling. Love is what causes the chemical and feeling. Unlike feelings, love is not created, but discovered, because it is always there. Just like math is not invented but discovered. We just give it a language so that some symbols can point at the mystery with some level of precision.


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## thedazzlingdexter (12 mo ago)

mia-me said:


> When you love someone, you're more than willing to put yourself out to make them happy. This has nothing to do with validation. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.


Wait.. I do this with literally everyone. Thats compassion not love


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## UpClosePersonal (Apr 18, 2014)

Love is an action. Not just any action but an action that requires us to rise above our selfishness to serve a greater good. The good that is served helps to preserve a better quality of life.
Long term committed relationships imprint the partners upon each other so that when one of them dies after many years together it leaves a tremendous void which enables the surviving partner to learn, for the first time in their life, what love truly is.

So if you want to see what real love is, you have to take that journey with someone. You have to remain committed despite how you might feel at certain times in your life. Your anger or frustration with your partner gets washed away by the simple fact that they were willing to take this journey of life with you.


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## WickerDeer (Aug 1, 2012)

I only see it this way:

Love is value.

So what we value is what we love--value is a feeling. It is all of our feelings culmination--it is like the white light, which contains all the colors.

Value is love? But I feel like I must be missing something, because if value and love are the same thing, why would they have different words?

But love is inherently selfless. It is evaluation of something. It is also very mysterious. 

And love is also beautiful--immensely beautiful. 

Love is one of the most delicate but strong things in the universe--it is so full of color and also so singular. Love is so beautiful too, and it's a pathway to redemption, even to salvation!

I love love. 

But I don't feel we've ever really understood it, or I have--so love is very much about evolution. 

And when people are compassionate and they are empathetic to each other, and care about each other and see the beauty in the world and each other, the world might have the potential to be even more beautiful than it is. That's love.


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## Team MMA (9 mo ago)

Love leads to Strength. The Qur'an, Allah says; He's created life and death to test us, who is better action?

The Strongest of you is not he who Wins a battle, but he whom extinguishes his Anger - Prophet Muhammed

edited out (I was angry 😅)


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