Is romantic love an illusion?

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Permalink Reply by George Gordner III on October 5, 2010 at 1:24pm

Ah, romantic love...
"Although it is hard to say it with quite the piety or flamboyance of those that praise love along with the Lord or condemn it as a capitalist conspiracy, is this: love is an emotion, just an ordinary, nomcosmic, luxurious but not essential emotion. It is not divine, much less eternal, it is not a part of human nature ot the key to the gates of happiness or any kind of "answer."
It is an emotion long surrounded by myths and metaphors motivated by false hopes and the desire for a guarantee that somehow a miserable life can be turned into happiness at a single stroke, that love once found will last, even "forever" that one will be loved no matter what."
"These are illusions, and much of what has been said about love is nothing but illusion, in Freud's sence-a kind of wishful thinking, even when it parades as poetry-or psychiatry. But it does not follow that love itself is an illusion, as many Marxists, feminists and Freudians ( not Freud) have insisted. My purpose in this book is precisely to separate the passion from the illusions, to explode the myth without in any way demeaning or denying the importance of this emotion. Indeed, it is the importance of this emotion that itself has to be explained, but in doing one makes clear its limitations as well.
... From the Intro of "Love" Emotion Myth, & Metaphor" by Robert C. Solomon
my humble gift to you all

Permalink Reply by Tom Pandelaere on October 7, 2010 at 6:42pm

Brilliant.
All our emotions are 'illusions', really. They are nothing but neuronal connexions in the brain and combinations of neurotransmitters therewith. There is no problem with that, as long as we are aware of it. It becomes but an illusion when we lose sight of the chaotic yet existent rodomontades within our heads.

Permalink Reply by Chris Jaramillo on October 11, 2010 at 12:47pm

Love means,
or you may say, when you're in love, with that particular someone, or whenever you look into a mirror and the first thing that comes to mind is that significant other, and suddenly the idea of her makes you like or love yourself that much more for loving her. That my friend is when you know you're truly in love.
Chris
"I don't want to live with a woman, I want a woman I cannot live without!"


"Live life as if there were no tomorrow, but love as if you could love forever!"

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