Musing

[desoto_hia873]

I heard something on the radio last night that's got me to thinking:

Is love a decision?

What do you think?

Comments

[sandy-s.livejournal.com]

Yep. It is. It's allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable with someone else...taking down the walls and letting the other person in. It is definitely a decision.

Infatuation and lust, on the other hand, not so much.

Just my opinion. :o)

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

It's a complicated issue, that's for sure. Especially when the lust gets mixed up with the love. Why don't we come with instruction manuals?

[flurblewig.livejournal.com]

::strokes beard, ponderingly::

To a certain extent. I don't believe you can ever totally control how you feel, but you can control how much space you give those feelings, and the way you react to them. I also think it's a lot easier to prevent or stop it by removing yourself from the situation, than it would be to create it where it didn't exist naturally. You can decide to act like you love someone, but I'm not convinced you could actually decide to *do* it.

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

You've grown a beard? What does Mr. Flurblewig think about this? :-D

I agree - it's alot easier to stop than to start. It's just all so complicated sometimes.

[sunnyd-lite.livejournal.com]

Love is a decision you make every day. It's work, but with a very worthwhile reward.

Lust, on the otherhand, not so much.

again, JMHO

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

It's too bad choosing to love wisely isn't as easy as finding someone to lust after. I'd have fewer psychic bruises if that were the case.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

Which aspect of love? The feeling of love, or the expression of love?

I don't think the emotion of love is something subject to decision or control, but the expression of love -- what a person does, whether or not they are sensible of love's sweetness at the moment -- are acts of will.

[thenyxie.livejournal.com]

What she said.

Damn. Someday, I'm really going to learn how to bottom line things and not use so many words ;)

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

sensible of love's sweetness at the moment

That's the part that's so easy to lose, isn't it? Piece o' cake in the beginning, but then you get used to someone and you have to remind yourself not to take them for granted.

I rather think that love is something that improves with age, like wine.

Watch me suck all the romance right of this question...

[thenyxie.livejournal.com]

Kind of a tricky question. I'd guess most people would go with the tried and true traditional "You don't choose who you love" answer. And while I think that is true in the beginning of relationships at least, it's what you do AFTER that that defines whether or not it's truly LOVE. LOVE should mean that you accept that person 100% completely for who they are, seek always to understand, never to judge, to care for them and think of them first in the sense of being able to consider your own needs and put them aside for a while to care for theirs. And to do all this because YOU choose to. Never a chore, always a pleasure. I've seen many people wake up to find themselves head over heels in love, but most of what we call "love" is selfish; a way of asking someone else to fulfill that which we lack in ourselves. To move beyond that kind of love takes a realization for most of us, it takes a step, it takes a decision. To love others out of conscious CHOICE is an alien concept to most of us. Most of us seem to blindly surrender to emotion and give control to the person they love--to logic it out as I've just done seems cold, calculated, as far from love as one could get. Passion and lack of control makes it "real" as far as most are concerned. But it takes more than that to keep a relationship together and working and happy. To realize we have control, that WE choose this, that they have not trapped us, or forced us, or controlled us, and still love and be tender and be able to surrender to passion with that knowledge is something that we tend to have to LEARN how to do. To me, that's when it becomes most "real"; when it's given consciously, FREELY, with the knowledge that we alone are responsible for what we give. To me, that's what true love is.

But then again, I am strange and overly analytical. And I may be biased by my own experience ;)

Re: Watch me suck all the romance right of this question...

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

I don't think you sucked the romance out of the question. I've been watching Six Feet Under and it naturally has its share of bereaved older people. If you can make it that far and keep love intact - doing as you say above - well, there ain't nothing more romantic than that.

Re: Watch me suck all the romance right of this question...

[sandy-s.livejournal.com]

you accept that person 100% completely for who they are, seek always to understand, never to judge,

Unless they're abusive or their behavior is harmful to the other person in some way, which as you said is part of taking care of your own needs. You can only love someone else if you're taking care of yourself.