All you need is love, part I
When speaking about love, people mostly refer to a romantic relationship. Sometimes they may be gracious enough to widen the meaning to the kids and pets. Nevertheless, the perspective is way too narrow for this complex and diverse feeling. The ancient Greeks divided love into 8 different types:
- Agape: Universal love, love for strangers, nature, and Divine.
- Philautia: Self-love, can be healthy or unhealthy.
- Philia: Love for friends, shared goodwill.
- Ludus: Playful or uncommitted love.
- Eros: Passionate or sexual love, around the concept of romantic love.
- Storge: Familial love, sometimes asymmetrical especially with younger children.
- Pragma: Practical love, reason, or duty-based.
- Mania: Obsessive love.
I would claim that the building block of life is Agape. First, you need to feel this, have your roots firmly in the ground. After that comes healthy self-love and -care, Philia. It is the tree trunk that allows the other branches, the other types of love, flourish. Feel the universal love, love thyself, and then you can love others.
My opinion is that narrowing the word LOVE down to only Eros has done a great disservice to the world. Especially the huge focus in our society to only Eros, narrow type of LOVE. All Mass entertainment is focused on this, most advertisements sell with this, and it is made the single most important thing; finding the LOVE of your life, aka spouse. Or to the other aspects of Eros, like sex. It seems to be one of the goals in life; to be in Eros kind of LOVE all the time. Preferably with one spouse, but if it doesn’t work out it is OK to change every now and then. What happens to the growing majority that cannot find, or doesn't want to find, this one thing?
Feelings of loneliness and left out are the result of overly exaggerating Eros: thinking that one can only have love, the real kind of LOVE if one has a spouse by them side. Alone I am without Eros, alone I am loveless. Because the other types of LOVE are ignored, there is nothing left for the singles. Other feelings can include feeling unwanted and inadequate. It doesn’t matter what other things you have accomplished. Your ability to find a spouse to stand by your side will result in compliments. And if you don’t.. well. Maybe you should just lower your standards or start a new hobby to find the one? The one is waiting for you, you just haven’t found them yet!
What if we would turn the focus from the Eros kind of love to the other types of love? Can you imagine what the world would look like? Instead of singling out the singles, we could ask if the children have enough Ludus in their life. Or if the man married for 10 years has enough and right kind of Philautia. Is it just me, or is the old lady next door in need of Storge?
This stigma of LOVE referring only to Eros needs to be torn down. If you want to love others in a playful, Ludus kind of way, it is often understood as Eros. Especially when one of the participants is single. In this viewpoint the ones in relationships have more space to move around, they have their "shield" ready; they already have a spouse. For singles expressing any kind of love is more likely to end up in misunderstanding the approach as a sexual way.
Whether you are married, single, grandpa, or toddler, YOU ARE LOVED. Nature around, the self-love, the love from your friends.. these are so much more than the single-sided view we have established today. You don't need to enter a relationship only to escape the feelings of being inadequate in society's view. Feel the love that already surrounds you. And feel free to explore and express all the types of love, not only Eros.
In the next part in my "love letters to the world" we will dive in love languages and different ways to show your love. The last part is about action. And the one between, is about writing Love Letters.
Wishing you all types of love in these social distancing times <3
-Sanna-
Ps. Most of the text here is my memories and opinion from the conversations and internet discussions I have had in the past years. Some parts on the internet will back this up, others will not. Feel free to disagree :)
Thanks for opening up a more extensive love-landscape. I've experienced a lot of discussion of eros and agape, but the others are either new to me or emerging from old shadows of forgetting. Many thanks and blessings. Looking forward to Part II