Our culture is fascinated — perhaps obsessed? — with love.
Join Tom Price, lecturer at OCCA, and Carson Weitnauer, executive director of Uncommon Pursuit, for a vulnerable and open-ended conversation on the question, “Why do we love love?”
How do you define love?
What problems does romantic love solve?
What is the purpose of romance?
Can we find a good life apart from romance?
Or ask your own…
I am going to work through the first question a little. Its amazing to me that even as newborns we instinctively know to recognize love. Its where we turn for safety, comfort, strength, value, steadfastness, and growth. So I define love as a commitment to bring about what is truly best for a person. It is committed to the point of self sacrifice for the good of another.
I think its important to be able to recognize what true love is so that we dont fall for pretensions of love. Love that decieves may gratify some of our immediate needs giving us the false impression of being loved but does not deliver in terms of commitment. It may provide for loneliness but not the cost of commitment. It may provide a false sense of security but no respect. It may promise significance but can leave you feeling exploited. It is one thing in public and something entirely different in private. Its a love that will fail at a time of crisis.
Our culture often defines love as doing things that makes someone happy. But what makes a person happy is not always what is best, infact it can be the worst. No body raises good children by just giving into whatever a child wants.
I am curious what other definitions of love people have noticed.