The definitions of love?

Love. 

This is an ordinary yet interesting topic to talk about, isn't it?

Well, one of the reason of why I want to talk about this matter all of sudden is actually because I just watch a video of international speech contest that was held in Chinese. 

The speaker was a high school girl who's willing to be a lawyer when she grow up. An amazing kid with brilliant mind, even though she's only 16 at that time. 

This is what she looks like. 

She delivered this amazing speech about discovering ourselves and how she was having difficulties earlier in her life when she tried to discover about who she was, and what career should she pursue. 

Long story short, she found her career plan that is most suitable for her now, which is a lawyer. And to be honest, that was really mesmerizing considering her very-very young age. 

Anyway, at the end of her speech, the jury was bombarding her with questions and she could answer each one of them well. A little too well, in fact.

There is this question about her opinion about young people's love and this is what makes me think about love for pretty long time. 

She said that all of the young people that's having a boyfriend or girlfriend in their young age (or as she referred, puppy love.), is seeking recognitions from outside themselves. Being in love is another way of them to be recognized by another people that doesn't require intellectual capability. 

You know, you don't have to be smart for your boyfriend to love you.

And this is one of the reason of why they are doing what they are doing. 

I have to say that I kinda agree with her in this case, because, well. It is true, I think. 

While for me (and her too, apparently), that is not my way to be in love with someone just because I crave for attention. You know, romantic love that's based upon such intention and just instantly snatched...

It's not gonna work out, in most scenarios.

That is why, for people like me, her, or another people that's wanting to find that really true someone, will save it for the best. We will not give our love that easily to someone we just met.

Because, from another aspect, you could see love as a lifetime responsibility when you are trusted to keep it lasts. To only love that one person you already chose and choose you too.

And when your intention's not to make it lasts, then we're gonna know that you have already fail in understanding the real definition of love.

Anyway, this is the definitions of love that I found on the internet.

Kurt Vonnegut, who was in some ways an extremist about love but also had a healthy dose of irreverence about it, in The Sirens of Titan:

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

Anaïs Nin, whose wisdom on love knew no bounds, in A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953:

What is love but acceptance of the other, whatever he is.

Stendhal in his fantastic 1822 treatise on love:

Love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will. … there are no age limits for love.

C. S. Lewis, who was a very wise man, in The Four Loves:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Lemony Snicket in Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid:

Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby — awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.

Susan Sontag, whose illustrated insights on love were among last year’s most read and shared articles, in As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980:

Nothing is mysterious, no human relation. Except love.

Charles Bukowski, who also famously deemed love “a dog from hell,” in this archival video interview:

Love is kind of like when you see a fog in the morning, when you wake up before the sun comes out. It’s just a little while, and then it burns away… Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality.

Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.

( source : here.  )

Well, there are so many beautiful definition of love that we could search and think about for a little while, apparently. 

I think, in conclusion, we have to live with love everyday.

Love our parents. family. friends. and another people.

Be compassionate and have empathy for others is one way to prove that you are a creature full of love. 

We have to wrap ourselves up with love every single day.

But as for romantic love, there is a slightly different story.

I think we can't just give the love away easily to everyone. Even the kindest people in the world. 

We have to think about it very well. Consider the good and bad part about the person, and again, consider if we could accept each other well.

Because this is a matter of a lifetime, while we are expected to keep it last until both of us die.