Love: is it the absence of fear?
General
I’ve struggled with the word ‘love’ since forever. A word which can describe a feeling for which you will give your all, and then describe how you feel about chocolate ice-cream is too vague to be useful.
As a word is seems to exist at the far end of many continuums, and change in relation to its objects. I’ve even tried card games with people to arrange a set of related words to better understand people’s mental models of love and affection. This is probably just part of the reason why the Greeks have 7 words for it.
It dawned on me a few weeks ago that perhaps I’ve been going about this the wrong way.
It’s clear that love is clearly a combination of sensations all of which can be positively named and defined.
But perhaps it’s also the absence of sensations in that combination? Perhaps love is the absence of fear.
