Inner Love Motivations
Dear [Melinda],
Well, I would say that love manifests itself outwardly through the actions of the one who harbors it. However, my definition doesn’t stop there. Mine is also concerned with the inner motivations that drive those actions. So why do I care about those? A couple reasons:
- All actions begin with motivations within their perpetrators.
- The depth and degree of these motivations drives the sincerity of the resulting actions. The motivations determine whether for example, the actions are the result of true love, or of a hidden agenda or other form of dishonesty.
- You might argue that a person’s feelings of love are an unreliable motivator, and thus, the love actions based on them are likewise unreliable. However, trusting in sheer will (devoid of feelings) to consistently motivate love actions over the long term is at least as dangerous, and I’d argue that it’s more so. Why? Well, consider that it’s much harder to stay motivated to consistently show someone loving kindness without the yearning [...] and the gratification that results from satisfying those yearnings. Without these pleasures as reinforcing rewards for the behaviors associated with love, a person will likely grow bored and leave; maybe not tomorrow or next week. But s/he will leave eventually if he gets no pleasure (feeling) from staying.
- Also, people’s wills are as fickle (or as stable) as their feelings. This is so because the choice of action and the feelings that motivate it are so tightly bound in the human psyche. It really boils down to the pleasure principle. People perform better at tasks they enjoy doing than those that they’re indifferent about or hate. In love therefore, people do not act without motivation to begin the whole process and if the motivations are pleasant, then the more genuine the actions and dedication they’ll show their lovers.
- I’ve found true love-at-first-sight [LAFS] to be the longer-lasting and the most consistent of the various motivators of love actions. I still feel love for my [First Love], even though she and I have not spoken for nearly ten years. If she would have treated me better, we’d still be together. The problem with love-at-first-sight is that many people mistake it for something more transitory. Many think that it’s really just a physical attraction that is instigated only by the beloved’s physical form (shape, sound of voice, scent, and touch). But it’s actually so much more. It may be one of those ineffable phenomena that nearly half of the population never experiences. But anyone who has will tell you that it indeed exists and that they can’t imagine loving anyone with any depth without it to guide them, and studies of it suggest that relationships that have it, tend to last longer and the people get along much better. The mysteries surrounding it will likely fall away once humans [can] objectively determine its presence through medical scans.
- Love may end with action, but it starts with feeling, and if we understand the mechanisms that produce such feelings, and can therefore make better mate selections as a result, then we will have improved the actions themselves.
- Love is not a completely selfless exercise, unless perhaps, you’re loving a child or an aging parent. [In fact, the healthiest love is quite selfish.] In my view, there must be some sort of pleasing payoff for loving; else why love at all?
No, I have little use for the commercialization of love feelings. Yes, I [...] question the depth (and sanity) of anyone who falls in love simply because they received a dozen roses. These items are [great for expressing] an already-existing feeling, but not [as good at creating] it [in the first place].
February 27th, 2011 at 6:52 pm
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