Love has always been a captivating topic for humanity, stirring our emotions, thoughts, and social interactions. Its complexity and power make it an enduring subject of fascination, likely to continue captivating our minds in the future.
It's more than just an emotional state. In the throes of love, the production of growth hormone, somatotropin, and sexual steroid hormones skyrocket. This, in turn, sharpens our thoughts, improves memory, boosts self-esteem, and fosters strong confidence within us. Serotonin and dopamine are also greatly influenced.
Ancient Greeks were familiar with several different types of love, each with its own significance that could potentially change our lives.
Ludus - Playful love, born out of flirting and the initial moments in a relationship. Ludus could be likened to the feeling of happiness when we're out, dancing the night away with strangers.
Agape - Selfless love. It's the kind of love you give to all people, whether they are your close ones or complete strangers. Agape is love as a gift, the highest form.
Storge - This is the love of attachment, especially towards parents and children. It's often the familiar or natural empathy that parents feel towards their children. The word itself was rarely used in ancient texts and was later used solely to describe family relationships. It also had a secondary connotation of accepting a situation, in the sense of "tolerating" a tyrant, and was used to describe the love of a person for their family or sports team.
Pragma - This love only appears in long-term couples, where pragma evolves into deep understanding. Pragma is about making compromises, showing patience, and being tolerant. Pragma is about putting effort into giving love rather than expecting to receive it.
Philautia - The last one is the love for oneself. Self-love manifests in two ways - healthy and unhealthy narcissism. However, nurturing a healthy self-love enhances your ability to care for and love others naturally.
By fostering self-love, you inherently increase the love available to share with those around you.
When passion, intimacy, and commitment come together, the result is complete love. The three components don't have to be present in equal measure, of course, but this ideal form of love should have at least a little of each. The excitement of passion, the comfort of intimacy, and the team spirit of commitment are necessary to achieve this ideal of love. It's also known as "Perfect Love."
Perfect love is the perfect loving relationship between two people.
Couples continue to have an amazing sex life even after many years of being together. They are deeply emotionally connected and committed to each other in the long term. In this sense, it's worth noting that love is an action, not just something static.
Relationships can move from one point to another over time. Perfect love, like any other important thing in life, requires care - specific actions to support, maintain, develop, and protect it. In this sense, ideal love is truly variable, not constant, and where it will change depends on the partners themselves in the relationship.
The partners share profound trust, respect, and affection. Their lives are intertwined to the point where imagining existence without one another seems unfathomable. They find their happiness intertwined with each other's presence, believing that true contentment lies in their union. Together, they navigate through their disparities and confront the challenges that naturally surface in their journey.
Love is truly a rich and multifaceted journey that goes beyond limits, profoundly influencing our lives. 💕