- Essays
- Free theme
- Love in a person's life
Love is an inspiring feeling that gives a person something that money and other benefits can never give. She makes you feel alive and inspired. Regardless of the fact that it gives happiness or pain, it is beautiful because it makes a person take a new look at his life. Unfortunately, most people in our world are people in a “case” who are afraid to show their feelings, they look at the world detachedly and think only about how to quickly come home and lie down to watch TV. How a person’s life changes when love appears in it. The world suddenly becomes so bright, unpredictable, interesting and colorful. The heart rejoices at every smile of a loved one and this joy brings so much pleasure! All the beauty of the world can only be felt if you love.
Love is multifaceted and love can be called not only romantic feelings for your partner, because there is maternal love, love for your friend, brother, sister, dad. What is meant by this complex feeling? This includes understanding, support, respect, and the desire to sacrifice something for the sake of a loved one. Love is an extremely deep feeling, because it is impossible to truly love a person just because of their beautiful appearance. Love forces you to accept a person completely, along with his shortcomings and merits.
Love can destroy, especially if you see a person as the center of your Universe and understand that you cannot live without him. When love is unrequited, it brings enormous pain, which is very difficult to cope with. In this case, you should not forget about self-love, because if you don’t feel respect for yourself, don’t value yourself, then no one will be able to truly love you. You should not bring your love to the sacrificial altar, because it should not give devastation, but inspiration. We should not forget that love does not appear out of thin air, it is created by man himself, therefore it is always within the power of any person to destroy indifference to himself with his reverent and caring love. History knows many cases when, thanks to love, not only the relationships between people changed, but also the people themselves. Thanks to love, you can save a life, it is omnipotent and is the most precious gift.
Love and sex in the life of a modern person
Love and sex in the life of a modern person. The need for love and, as part of it, the ability to love is an integral part of the human psyche. In the very first days of its birth, a small creature needs a loving aura - only it contains the peace necessary for a child. The path of a child from birth to personal maturation is a path colored in the tones of parental love: as long as it is there, the child has no doubts about his need and security, and he develops fully. As soon as parental love, for any reason, weakens or disappears altogether, the notorious children's problems rise in full force.
About fifty years ago, Rene Spitz, a professor of psychiatry at the Colorado Medical School, noted in his works that more than 30% of children in orphanages, despite good nutrition and medical care, could not withstand institutional life without manifestations of love. This led to multiple escape attempts, especially during the first year of stay at the shelter. Almost all modern child psychologists emphasize the vital importance of love, expressed in frequent affectionate touch and constant supportive communication, necessary for the well-being and healthy development of children.
The need to love and be loved does not go away with age, as you sometimes hear from people who are not entirely knowledgeable. Equally, both men and women, from the day they are born until their last breath, need love and the expression of their own feelings. This, of course, also applies to those who demonstratively declare their indifferent attitude towards the feeling of love. If anything changes over the years, it is only the form of experiences and the external form of expression of feelings, but the essence of love sensations remains practically unchanged. Narcissistic love, which is very common among adolescents and partly among adults, expressed only in the readiness to accept external expressions of love, apparently performs a preliminary function in relation to future more mature active love (gifting of love).
According to modern ideas, the need for love towards oneself is a reflection of a long-term state of fear and uncertainty that “demands” compensation. Narcissistic “love” removes the burden of seeming uselessness, noticeably lightens and temporarily, as it were, reduces the feeling of one’s own inferiority. Despite the fact that there is no objective evidence that a person is characterized by a state of love readiness, it is assumed that something similar exists. Readiness for love cannot be a 100% guarantee of the appearance of sudden love fever, but it significantly increases the likelihood of such a development of events. The condition described includes several different elements. First of all, love appears to the “candidate for falling in love” as something desirable and satisfying. People who view romantic love as a sign of weakness or a hindrance to career development are able to keep their own emotions under control and are unlikely to allow themselves to “spontaneously” fall in love; however, those who believe that love ennobles and reveals the best sides in a person often unconsciously plunge into an active search for a suitable object for love. There is also a craving for intimacy and camaraderie.
Such a desire is usually generated by loneliness, jealousy or the desire to somehow compensate for lost love. Frustration – a depressed mood combined with tension and anxiety – contributes to the formation of love readiness. Love frustration can be caused by deprivation or forced limitation of the breadth of sexual contacts. If sexual desire, as a component of a passionate, committed relationship, is not satisfied, it will inevitably lead to frustration. Casual sexual relationships, if possible, bring much less satisfaction and cannot compensate for what is desired. Finally, loving readiness is a reflection of a person’s hope that he will be loved. There is ample evidence to suggest that some people are in a constant state of love readiness, but fail to “move forward” any further.
With certain concessions, they enter into relationships that do not fully correspond to their spirit, what is called romantic love, and therefore do not experience any satisfaction. Apparently, there are many who are not at all able to remain in the described state of love readiness, or they tend to quickly lose it after a short period. Of course, the degree of love readiness cannot be measured: often people who fall under the above description unexpectedly fall in love. One of the manifestations of love readiness is aestheticization. Aestheticization is not always aimed at perceiving the essence of a person. In accordance with the laws of beauty, she idealizes his physical and spiritual attributes, turning them into a single object of desire and aesthetic contemplation, into a source of aesthetic pleasure. Aesthetics, like the ethics of sexuality, is primarily about love. Ancient philosophers, starting with Plato, considered aesthetic delight in front of a beautiful body to be the first step on the ladder of spiritual ascent to ideal love, the essence of which is absolute beauty. In love, even the carnal principle - the attraction of the body - acquires the features of true beauty. Lovers perceive each other as certain aesthetic images.
Each finds in the other traits of beauty, embodied with all-conquering power in her unique individuality. This applies to both the physical appearance and spiritual qualities of a loved one. Beauty is addressed to human consciousness as the highest form of mastering reality. Its characteristic features are inherent in the spiritual progress of society. At all times, beauty presupposed the presence of health, ensuring the natural course of physiological processes. The beauty of a woman is in the full life of the freshness of her skin, the elasticity of her rounded breasts, the flexible harmony of her body, the harmonious expediency of her forms, intended by nature to best fulfill the mission of motherhood. In the same way, the object of aestheticization in relation to a man is signs of strength and endurance - harmonious build, strong muscles, convex chest, swiftness and firmness of gait. Aestheticization also extends to the spiritual world of man. People are attracted to each other by the attractive power of talent, the charm of a bright individuality, everything that is a distinctive feature of a person and determines, among other human qualities, his sexuality.
Love aestheticizes sexual desire, the instinct of procreation, “the madness of the lower feelings.” Everything that love touches acquires a special enchanting power, becomes more perfect, more beautiful. Love complements the creativity of nature itself. The aestheticization inherent in love elevates the contemplation of the beauty of human essence as a prologue to sexual intimacy. The aestheticization of love is the result not only of direct communication between a man and a woman, but is also based on the perception of artistic values. Art - painting, music, sculpture - creates an aesthetic interpretation of the person himself and everything that is really significant for him in a specific historically objective situation.
Love in the modern world.
If love is an ability of a mature, creative character, then it follows that the ability to love in an individual living in a particular culture depends on the influence of this culture on the character of this individual.
Nowadays, love is a relatively rare phenomenon, and its place is taken by various forms of pseudo-love
, which, in fact, are numerous forms of disintegration of love.
Modern man is alienated from himself, from his neighbors, from nature.
Although everyone tries to be as close to others as possible, everyone remains extremely lonely, imbued with deep feelings of anxiety and guilt, which always appear where human loneliness cannot be overcome.
Human happiness today lies in having fun [20. P.106]. To have fun means to enjoy the use and consumption of goods, shows, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, films - everything is consumed and absorbed
. Our character is adapted to exchange and receive, trade and consume; all objects, both spiritual and material, become objects of exchange and consumption.
One of the most significant expressions of love, and especially marriage with its alienated structure, is the idea of "coherence"
. The ideal of a happy marriage is the ideal of well-functioning coherence: the husband must “understand” his wife and help her; he should make favorable remarks about her new dress and delicious dish. She, in return, must “understand” him when he comes home tired and upset; must listen carefully to him when he talks about his business difficulties; not to be angry, but to “understand” when he forgets her birthday. The whole set of these types of relationships comes down to a well-established connection between two people who remain strangers to each other throughout their lives:
“...we are in the ring of one bondage -
In the double stream of being."
[2. P.59]
They never achieve "deep connection"
but they are kind to each other and try to make life as pleasant as possible for each other [20. P.155].
With this understanding of love and marriage (“team”, mutual tolerance), the main emphasis is on finding refuge from the otherwise intolerable feeling of loneliness.
In “love” one finally finds salvation from loneliness. A union of two people is created against loneliness, and this union is mistakenly taken for love and intimacy [20. P.154,155].
Emphasizing the spirit of coherence, mutual tolerance
etc.
– this is a relatively new phenomenon.
In the years after the First World War
This was preceded by the concept of love, where the basis of a satisfactory love relationship and, in particular, a happy marriage was based on mutual sexual satisfaction [17. P.213]. There was a belief that the reason for many unhappy marriages was to be found in the fact that the partners in the marriage did not achieve “sexual compatibility”; The cause of this trouble was seen in ignorance of the “correct” sexual behavior, i.e. in ignorance of sexual techniques by one or both partners. To “cure” this problem and help unsuccessful partners who could not love each other, many books gave instructions and advice on proper sexual behavior and promised, implicitly or explicitly, that happiness and love would then follow. The fundamental idea was that love is the child of sexual pleasure and if two people learn to sexually satisfy each other, then they will love each other. What was ignored was the fact that the truth is the exact opposite of this underlying assumption. Love is not the result of adequate sexual satisfaction; knowledge of the so-called sexual technique is the result of love.
Love as sexual mutual satisfaction or love as “coordinated work” and a refuge from loneliness are two “normal” forms of devaluation of love in modern society
. There are many individual forms of the pathology of love, which, leading to consciousness, are considered neurotic.
The basis of neurotic love is that one or both lovers remain attached to the image of one of the parents
, and, already as adults, transfer the feelings, expectations and fears that they experienced towards their father or mother to their loved one. These people never free themselves from the image of childhood dependence and, as adults, seek this image in their love demands. In the most severe cases, emotional immaturity leads to a violation of the social capacity of such a person; in less severe cases, the conflict is limited to the sphere of intimate personal relationships.
A more complex type of neurotic disorder in love, based on a different type of parental situation, occurs when the parents do not love each other, but are too restrained to quarrel or show any signs of displeasure outside. Detachment does not allow them to be involuntary in their relationship with the child. The child lives in a
this atmosphere does not allow close contact with father or mother, and, consequently, the child is deprived of the opportunity to solve his problems and lives fearfully. He never knows what the parents feel or think; in this atmosphere there is always an element of uncertainty and mystery. As a result, the child goes into his own world, into dreams, but in reality remains detached and retains the same attitude in his future love relationships. Further, this self-isolation affects the development of intense anxiety, a feeling of distrust in the world, and often leads to masochistic tendencies as the only way to survive intense arousal.
A form of pseudo-love that is often encountered and often perceived as “great love” is worship love . If a person has not reached the level at which he gains a sense of authenticity, his own “I”, through the productive realization of his own capabilities, he tends to “worship” a loved one. He is alienated from his own powers and projects them onto a loved one, whom he reveres as the highest good, the embodiment of love, light, bliss. In this process, he deprives himself of any sense of his own power, losing himself in a loved one instead of finding himself in him.
Another form of pseudo-love can be called "sentimental love" . Its essence is that love is experienced only in fantasies, and not here and now in an existing relationship with another real person. The most widespread form of this type of love is the vicarious feeling of amorous satisfaction experienced by the consumer of novels, screen and journalistic love stories. All unfulfilled desires for love, unity and intimacy find satisfaction in the consumption of such products. For many couples watching these stories on television, it is the only way they can experience love—not with each other, but together—as spectators of other people's “love.”
Another form of neurotic love is the use of projective mechanisms to escape from one's own problems by focusing on the shortcomings and weaknesses of the “loved” person. Individuals turn out to be able to perfectly understand the small shortcomings of another person and blissfully pass by their own, ignoring them.
There are many other options for the pathology of love in modern society. And the forms listed above are only a part of the most common forms of pseudo-love in our society.
True love is possible only if two people are connected to each other by the centers of existence , which means that each of them perceives himself from the depths of his existence. Only in such a “central experience” does human reality consist, only here is vitality, only here is the basis of love. Love is a constant risk, it is a state of movement, growth, working together; the presence of harmony or conflict, joy or sadness is secondary to the basic fact: two people feel the fullness of their existence, in unity with each other, each of them finds himself , and does not lose. There is only one proof of the presence of love: the depth of the relationship, the vitality and strength of each of the lovers - this is the fruit by which love is recognized.
Our souls today gravitate much more toward discord than toward harmony, and even in our personal relationships there is more discord than harmony, strife than friendliness. Parents and children, boys and girls, husbands and wives - their souls and relationships are ruled more by the springs of self-love than by “friendliness”, “I-requests” than by “we-requests”. The souls of loved ones compete more than they live in peace; their power strings sound more often than peaceful ones. Almost from the cradle, the microbe of discord infects our psyche and creates in us a discordant subconscious, discordant feelings.
A civilization of fragmented humanity and fragmented man - this is what one could call the current civilization.
New civilization
, which is ripening in the bosom of the present one, will perhaps become
a civilization of a single humanity and a whole person
, and its general law will probably not be competition, but the community of people.
And one of the main builders of this civilization can be love. All love is brotherly, sexual, kindred as the principle of a person’s relationship to the world and to other people.
Will we have time? Will we be able to accomplish this greatest revolution in human history? Will we recreate the primary human molecules - a family, a social group - so that their atoms are held together not by external forces, as now, but by internal attraction to each other?
To answer these and other questions, we conducted a survey among students in grades 8-10 at our school. 296 people were interviewed, including 145 boys (M) and 151 girls (W).
It should be noted that the young respondents filled out the questionnaire responsibly, which indicates a serious approach to issues of love.
Study finds younger generations continue to believe in love
(97.8% of all respondents) and only a few (2.4% of all respondents) believe that it has lost its significance; Those who answered that “love does not exist” attached great importance to sex, writing that sex is the only good thing in life (they apparently did not take into account that sex is one of the components of love).
The majority of students who filled out the questionnaire (79.15% of all respondents) were already in love
, which indicates that ideas about love and the desire to experience it are formed in a person from childhood (for example, 18% noted that they fell in love for the first time in kindergarten; 12% - at the age of 7-9 years).
From 50% to 83% (depending on age and gender) recognize love at first sight
; Some respondents (10% M; 25% F) noted that this is how love came to them.
An interesting fact is that with growing up comes the understanding that one must love not for appearance (from 68% to 60% M; from 56% to 34% F), more precisely, not only for it, but also for “inner qualities” (70 %M; 80%F), “for character” (40%M; 35%F), “for soul” (≈ 30% of all respondents), for willingness to help (20%), for sense of humor (10%), for fidelity (15%), “for everything” (30%), “for everything or for nothing - just love” (13%F), “not for anything, but against everything” (15%F).
There comes an awareness of the beauty and complexity of this feeling [See. Appendix 3B]. There are downright philosophical
definitions: “Love is needed for life, because it is life” (F, 14 years old);
“Love is a deep understanding of the spiritual nature of man. It unites people – wife and husband, parents and children” (M, 14 years old); “Love is something that cannot be bought or sold” (F, 15 years old). The dualism of this feeling is noted
: “Without love you cannot know hatred” (F, 14 years old);
“Love is necessary and not necessary. Not needed - interferes with normal work and life; needed - gives strength in work” (F, 14 years old); “Love is evil and at the same time good. It can be sweet, but more often it is bitter” (M, 16 years old). And a childishly wise observation
: “Love is when there is complete mutual understanding in the family. You can swear, you even need to, but by discussing and analyzing this swearing” (F, 13 years old).
With growing up, the idea of love only as a favorable feeling [See. Appendix 3B – 7, 8, 9, 20, 23, 24] are supplemented by an understanding of its other aspects. Thus, some respondents also have an idea about “negative”
consequences of love (“Love is suffering” (M, 15 years old); “Love is nothing without sacrifice” (M, 15 years old));
salvation
in it (“Love is needed so that you will never be lonely and know that you have a future” (M, 15 years old); “Love is needed as something good in the world. When you love, you don’t feel lonely, because there is a person nearby with whom you can share your experiences" (F, 14 years); "Love helps you live, many try to correct their mistakes. Love makes a person better, kinder" (F, 14 years); "Love is needed so that life does not become hell" (M, 15 years old); "In our cruel world, without love is like without air" (F, 15 years old); "To feel appreciated, to feel confidence, the joy of love" (F, 16 years old). By the way, it turns out our young men suffer more and more often from loneliness and are weak!)
To the question “Who loves more?” »
the answers are not equivalent, but many about [See. Appendix 1, paragraph 7]
The survey revealed a “healthy” attitude towards sex
: “Sex is a very real thing that a person needs” (F, 15 years old);
“I have a normal attitude towards sex, like everyone else nowadays” (F, 15 years old); “Sex is needed for a full life” (M, 16 years old). Some tenth graders entered adulthood, indicating the presence of sexual contacts [See. Appendix 1, paragraph 10]. The majority of respondents identified the main thing in love as a sense of responsibility for their loved ones, to make them happier (and therefore to be happy themselves). Moreover, some girls are characterized by a shade of some sacrifice
: “Let him be well” (F, 15 years old).
The most important functions of love are also noted - creating a family
and
reproduction
(≈ 40%). For example: “Love is a set of psychological and physical actions aimed at reproduction” (M, 16 years old); “You need love to start a family, to materialize yourself” (M, 14 years old).
Several people, giving the definition of love, noted the diversity of its manifestations: parental love (≈12%), love for natural objects (≈8%), love for music, poetry, and everything beautiful (≈25%). There are several interesting definitions associated with the so-called sexual minorities [See. Appendix 3B - 17].
It is thought-provoking that no one
The respondent did not mention this type of love as
“love for the Motherland.”
This speaks to the need to strengthen patriotic education, both in the country as a whole and, in particular, in the gymnasium and in every family.
There were also “answers-phrases” with a touch of “beauty”: “Love is a bouquet of flowers that contains nettles” (F, 16 years old); “Love is an atomic feeling” (F, 15 years old); “Love is a temple for two” (M, 14 years old); “Love is the river we float along” (M, 14 years old); “Love is two people with a fever” (M, 15 years old); “Love is a vase, and the vase breaks easily” (F, 14 years old).
But in general, the younger generation of students aged 13 - 16 are people of the 21st century - representatives of a new civilization based on love. It is no coincidence that some of the respondents (up to 20%) noted that love will save the world, will save humanity, that love does not fade away, but continues to develop, improving, transforming, acquiring new forms and types, and what kind of death awaits us depends on the actions of each of us: death humanity or the death of one civilization and the birth of another...
And there will be plenty of wanderings and wanderings,
Starana Love is a great country!
[3. P.137]
CONCLUSION.
Love is the most complex, mysterious and paradoxical reality that a person faces. And not because, as is usually believed, there is only one step from love to hate, but because love cannot be “calculated or calculated”! You can’t be calculating in it - nature will easily upset any calculations! One can only be sensitive to it in order to follow its whimsical flow and in time with the soul guess all its bends, shifts imperceptible to the eye, turns sometimes inexplicable to the mind. In love, it is impossible to be petty and mediocre - it requires generosity and talent, vigilance of the heart, breadth of soul, a kind, subtle mind and much, much more that nature has endowed us with in abundance, and that we foolishly waste and dull in our vain life.
True love is an expression of creativity
and
it involves care, respect, responsibility and knowledge
.
This is not affect
, in the sense of exposure to someone else's influence,
but an active struggle
for the development and happiness of a loved one, coming from the very ability to love. If love means having an attitude of loving everything, if love is a character trait, it should be present not only in relationships with one’s family and friends, but also with those with whom one comes into contact at work, in one’s professional life. activity and, in addition, love must be present in relation to the entire surrounding world, to all manifestations of life.
Love has many faces and its world is inexhaustible, because each person loves in his own way. Love is a personal experience that everyone can experience only for themselves and for themselves; in fact, there is hardly anyone who has not had or does not have this experience to at least a small degree, at least in childhood, adolescence or adulthood.
Love is one of the few areas in which a person is able to feel and experience his absolute indispensability . Here he is the highest value, the highest meaning. That is why only in love can a person feel the meaning of his existence for another and the meaning of the existence of another for himself. Love helps him to manifest himself, identifying, increasing, developing the good, positive, valuable in him.
It should also be noted that love
- This is
one of the manifestations of human freedom
.
No one can force you to love (you can force you to do a lot: work, even commit evil, but not love) - neither another, nor yourself. Love is a matter of free initiative, it is the basis of itself
. She has no external incentives, she is not reduced to instincts.
Thus, love is the foundation of the human world , the main of the “sacred things”, fortunately, reviving its meaning, along with mercy, conscience, faith and hope.
I just feel like a ship,
stay afloat for a long time,
before you know that “I love” -
the same as breathing or living!
[3. P.59]
Love now is much simpler than it could be. She is hampered by both the hardships of life and our current psychology, which is hostile to love, because it lives from “I” and not from “we”.
Our modern relaxedness and even promiscuity in the promotion of sex, the cult of sophisticated eroticism teach modern man to worship that in love that in it is secondary and subordinate to the spiritual, moral and aesthetic principles. No matter how much happiness sexual intercourse brings, the “star peak” of love is still in spiritual harmony, heartfelt closeness, and the absolute irreplaceability of a loved one
, whereas in sex replacement is quite possible.
Now - be it fiction, art, religion or philosophy - we must first of all awaken in a person the ability to love and, in particular, to love another person.
Only in love and through love does a person become a person...
