What is the definition of love? For sure, it's a relative question, with a different meaning to each of us.
For some, the perception of love has been shaped by divorce, death, and other loss. An appetite created from the void of the aforementioned. For others, it's about birth, marriage, friendship. For many, it's affected by all of the above.
But children, in their innocence, define it differently. They use their simple words to convey a complicated emotion.
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:
"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca - age 8
When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4
"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." Karl - age 5
"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." Chrissy - age 6
"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired." Terri - age 4
Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7
"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss" Emily - age 8
"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen," Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)
"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate," Nikka - age 6
"There are two kinds of love. Our love. God's love. But God makes both kinds of them." Jenny - age 8
"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." Noelle - age 7
"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6
"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore," Cindy - age 8
"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare - age 6
"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine -age 5
"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." Chris - age 7
"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann - age 4
"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." Lauren - age 4
"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." Karen - age 7
"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross." Mark - age 6
"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget," Jessica - age 8
Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."
Ecclesiastes 3:18, 1 Corinthians 13:4 7
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
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Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
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Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
never selfish, not quick to take offense.
There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith,
its hope, and endurance.
In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope, and love;
but tCrystallization (love)
Crystallization is a concept, developed in 1822 by the French writer Stendhal, which describes the process, or mental metamorphosis, in which unattractive characteristics of a new love are transformed into perceptual diamonds of shimmering beauty; according to a quotation by Stendhal: What I call 'crystallization' is the operation of the mind that draws from all that presents itself the discovery that the loved object has some new perfections.[1]
In the summer of 1818 Stendhal took a recreational trip to the salt mines of Hallein near Salzburg with his friend and associate Madame Gherardi. Here they discovered the phenomenon of salt “crystallization” and used it as a metaphor for human relationships.
"In the salt mines, nearing the end of the winter season, the miners will throw a leafless wintry bough into one of the abandoned workings. Two or three months later, through the effects of the waters saturated with salt which soak the bough and then let it dry as they recede, the miners find it covered with a shining deposit of crystals. The tiniest twigs no bigger than a tom-tit’s claw are encrusted with an infinity of little crystals scintillating and dazzling. The original little bough is no longer recognizable; it has become a child’s plaything very pretty to see. When the sun is shining and the air is perfectly dry the miners of Hallein seize the opportunity of offering these diamond-studded boughs to travellers preparing to go down to the mine." [2]
[edit] Story behind term
Along one particular trip into the 500-ft deep Salzburg mines, Stendhal and Madame Gherardi were introduced to an intelligent Bavarian officer who thereafter joined their company. Soon enough, the officer began to become quite taken by Madame Gherardi. The officer, according to Stendhal, could be seen to be visually "falling in love" with her. What struck Stendhal the most, as an undertone of madness grew moment by moment in the discourse of the officer, was how the officer saw perfections in this woman which were more or less invisible to Stendhal’s eyes. For example, he began to praise Madame Gherardi’s hand, which had been curiously marked by smallpox in her childhood and had remained very pocked and rather brown.[2]
Stendhal reasoned, "How shall I explain what I see?" He wondered, "Where shall I find a comparison to illustrate my thought?" Just at that moment Madame Gherardi was toying with a pretty branch covered with salt crystals which the miners had given her. The sun was shining (it was the third of August) and the little salt prisms glittered like the finest diamonds in a brightly-lit ballroom. From this observation Stendhal formulated his concept of mental "crystallization" and thus set forth to explain it to Madame Gherardi, who was curiously unaware of the officer's enhanced infatuation for her.
He told her, "The effect produced on this young man by the nobility of your Italian features and those eyes of which he has never seen the like is precisely similar to the effect of crystallization upon that little branch of hornbeam you hold in your hand and which you think so pretty. Stripped of its leaves by the winter it was certainly anything but dazzling until the crystallization of the salt covered its black twigs with such a multitude of shining diamonds that only here and there can one still see the twigs as they really are." That is, "This branch is a faithful representation of la Ghita (Madame Gherardi) as viewed by the imagination of this young officer."
Thus, according to Stendhal, the moment one begins to take interest in a person, one no longer sees him or her as they really are, but as it suits one to see them. According to this metaphor, one sees flattering illusions created by a nascent interest; illusions analogous to pretty diamonds hiding a leafless branch of hornbeam, perceived only by the eyes of the one falling in love.
Stendhal describes or compares the “birth of love” in a new relationship as being a process similar or analogous to a trip to Rome. In the analogy the city of Bologna represents indifference and Rome represents perfect love:
"When we are in Bologna, we are entirely indifferent; we are not concerned to admire in any particular way the person with whom we shall perhaps one day be madly in love with; even less is our imagination inclined to overrate their worth." In a word, in Bologna “crystallization” has not yet begun. When the journey begins, love departs. One leaves Bologna, climbs the Apennines, and takes the road to Rome. The departure, according to Stendhal, has nothing to do with one’s will; it is an instinctive moment. This transformative process actuates in terms of four steps along a journey:
1. Admiration – one marvels at the qualities of the loved one.
2. Acknowledgement – one acknowledges the pleasantness of having gained the loved one's interest.
3. Hope – one envisions gaining the love of the loved one.
4. Delight – one delights in overrating the beauty and merit of the person whose love one hopes to win.
Stendhal's depiction of "crystallization" in the process of falling in love
This journey or crystallization process, shown above, was detailed by Stendhal on the back of a playing card while speaking to Madame Gherardi, during his trip to the Salzburg salt mine.
Psychologist Dorothy Tennov describes the process as a transformation in which the loved one’s characteristics are crystallized via mental events and neurological reconfigurations such that attractive characteristics are exaggerated and unattractive characteristics are given little or no attention.[3] She uses this basis for her description of a "limerent object", related to the concept of limerence.
References
1. ^ De l'amour, Paris, 1822
2. ^ a b Stendhal (1822). On Love. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-044307-X.
3. ^ Tennov, Dorothy (1979). Love and Limerence. Maryland: Scarborough House. ISBN 0-8128-2328-1.
