Key word Love

The Key word Love has many different meanings; one plain word cannot simply describe its complexity. The word Love can be dated back to the earliest English writing in the eighth century. The very roots of this word can be trace back to the old English word “lufu”, which is related to the Old Frisian “Luve”, Old High German “Luba”, and Gothic “Lubo”. Also it was derived from the Latin words “Lubet” meaning pleasing and “Lubido” meaning desire. The meaning behind the word Love had such an intricacy that the Greeks used the words Eros, Phila, and Agape to distinguish its meaning. Eros means passionate love, a sensual desire and longing. It could be interpreted as a love for someone you plan to spend the rest of your life with. It is a feeling of appreciation for the inner beauty of and individual rather than outer beauty. Phila, meaning friendship in Greek, represent the type of love a person feels for a friend or a family member. It is the bond that holds a friendship intact, caring for the people who raised you and those you grew up with. Agape means Love, it can be describe to denote the feeling of a persons’ spouse or having held someone with high regards.
According to the Oxford English dictionary love was originally used as a meaning to have feelings or a great affection, and fondness to another person. In the past love represented a distinctive set of emotions from one person to another base on how much feelings were felt. Today of course love is used in a similar manner to express ones emotions. However, the meaning behind love has been dramatically decreasing in the 21st century. Before the 19th century, because of arranged marriages the term love represented significant feelings towards another person through a constant build up of emotions after a long period of time. One person cannot simply see say love at first site when arrange marriages are conducted through the parents of each individuals. The feelings of love that are developed later between the spouses are a buildup of care, devotion and trust in one another after a certain period of time. During that time love represented a special feeling that could only take time to develop. For example, the blooming of a flower; a seed with the right sun light and enough water it becomes a lovely full grown flower. This meaning of love has been carried over to the 21st century.
However, this word has been over used in our society. People today confuse the desires of lust and the need to have someone that they throw around the word love with ease and little emotions. When you walk into a room and you catch a glimpse of a beautiful girl or a handsome guy, people automatically states that they are in love. After getting together for a day, they will already declare their love for one another. Ironically those type of relationships end of falling apart and those two ends up despising one another, even after being in “love” merely the day before. I have witnessed many people stating that they love the person they are currently going out with, but they said the same thing with the last five relationships that they have been in. It seems that people get deluded by the happily ever after stories that whenever someone reasonable comes along they must take this chance to say “I Love you”, in hope it will last forever. But the more they use it, the more it is repeated, the more meaningless it becomes. This is a type of situation that can be represented by a meal. Everyone has a favorite meal or favorite type of food. For example, I like eating pizza. The taste, the color, and the texture it intrigues me. Nevertheless, if I had to eat it every day, seven days a week for four weeks a month; I will get tired of it. The food would not taste as good if I had only eaten it once a month.
Even though this word has been abused by many people over the years and the meaning have decreased, there are people who hold it to high regards. To me the word love represents a simple word called selflessness. When you think of the words of love between a man or a women, a mother and her son and between two best friends they all have something in common. The ability to put those you care about before yourself. In the past or the present when you are in love with another person, all you care about are those people. You care about if they are happy, sad, mad, etc. No matter what their emotions are, or how they are acting you still cherish that person because you love them. In the past the word love had many different words to represent its meaning to the world, but today in the 21st century we all sum those definitions to one word “Love”; the innate ability to put the well being of those who care about deeply before you. Seeing you love one in pain, your friends in tears, or a family member hurt, wishing it was you who was in the accident, you were the one that is crying and wishing for a way to take their pain away. That is what love means, over the many years love have not change, it has been abused, over used, but never changed. It still have the same meaning it did when the Greeks were in power, and when Old English was just English. But rather than having words like Eros, Phila, and Agape we have Love. It is a word that should be held in high regards because to finally be able to claim you are in love is to claim that you are willing to set aside your well being for another. Also it is not something you can just declare; it takes time and devotion to strengthen the relation that you are, no matter if it’s the love of a family member, or the love of a friend. It takes years of developing the trust and understand with one another to be able to such a claim.
I spent many years thinking about the meaning of love and its true nature. Now I finally understand the universal meaning behind this complex word. The word never changed, it just combined itself over the years.