The Power Of Love Essay, Research Paper

The Power of Love

Through life, people experience many kinds of love. Many people often believe they love someone, when they actually do not because they may not know what the word means. As much as we want to understand love, it is still simply indescribable. As C.S. Lewis tries to explain it in his book, The Four Loves, it is still a mystery as to what love truly means. I believe in order to know what love means, one must experience it. It is quite true that went two individuals are in love with each other, they know it and can feel it. No matter how much love is studied and looked at, every individual must experience it to understand it. Along with this love lies circumstances which lead people to either happiness or destruction. That is why love can be divine or demonic.

Love is a very powerful word, and it has many meanings. These meanings are different for every individual. According to Lewis, there are four kinds of love. There is friendship love, affection, Eros, and charity. Lewis believes the strongest and most important of these loves is Eros. This kind of love deals with two intimate individuals. Lewis goes along to say that Eros is when one loves an individual for who they are, not what they can do. They love numerous things about an individual, not just the sexual aspects of the relationship, which is called Venus. Venus means sex, and Lewis relates this closely to Eros, he also contrasts the two. He agrees that when two love each other, they should have sex, meaning have pleasure with one another. Although, he also states that sex is not necessarily needed when in love, he does not disagree with the idea of having sex even if they are not in love or married. He believes it is right for every individual to want to be pleasured and to have fun, even if not in love. His main point between Eros and Venus is that they are two different things, and they do not necessarily go hand in hand, although they usually do. For a couple to be in love, it does not mean they should have sex, and for two to have a sexual pleasure does not mean they love one another. He does state though, that sometimes with having sex, it can make the couple love each other more and grow stronger together. It goes along with saying that it depends on the couple and their feelings of Eros and Venus. Every individual interprets that meaning of love differently.

Interpreting love differently is what makes the world go round. If everyone interpreted love the same way, there would not be a special person for everyone, but numerous individuals for a single person. People would not be unique and different in their own ways. Love is what forms people into who they are. Because of the many different kinds of loves and the different ways people view it, is why love can be divine or demonic. It overpowers the soul and the mind. It can be good and it can be bad.

When two people are in love, they are happy and look past the bad things in one another. “Affection, as I have said is the humblest love. It gives itself no airs,” (pg.33 paragraph 3). They look at the good, and can usually ignore the bad. They work together through problems and issues that arise. The two help one another out and make sure they are both doing well. They care for one another the same and do what it takes to keep their love strong and fun. This kind of love is called divine love. The lovers are content with each other and value one another for themselves, but not what they can do or be. They do not need to find other partners because they are happy with each other. They stay true to each other as long as they are together. The couple will usually get married and sometimes have children together and lead a happy life. Correct, not every waking moment is cheerful, but they work through these moments and grow stronger together, and more content with one another. This divine love is what brings happiness into the world as we mature as adults and grow old.

This kind of love can also be called demonic when taken too far and too seriously. A couple can be in love an also fall out of love. People do not always love just one person their entire lives, but numerous people. It takes two to be in love, it can not just be one loving the other, and the other not loving back. If this is the case, then they are not in love. This often can cause problems and lead to self-destruction, and can be very unhealthy for an individual. There are many times when a person loves another, and that other does not love them back. With this, the person may become obsessed with that individual and try to do what they can to make them love him or her back. This can lead to trouble between the two individuals. Abuse may occur, such as verbal abuse and physical. The matters can continuously get worse, and the victim suffers greatly. This is demonic type love. This kind of love controls an individual, which leads to harm on that individual. Sometimes it can lead to violence or even suicide. This love is very unhealthy and leads to many problems, not only to the individual but those around him who he comes in contact with. There is no real cure for this type of love except time. It takes time to get over an individual that one loves, but that is the only basic solution to that kind of suffering. With this kind of love, people can do nothing but hope for the best.

Love can be extremely confusing. There are just so many types of loves. Many people will state that in one point in their life they can truly pin point a time when they new that they were in love. People will also say that in that relationship they had true love and that there was affection in it too. Affection exists apart from the other loves. To be completely honest sometime it never exists at all. As Lewis would say, “As gin is not only a drink in itself but also a base for many mixed drinks, so Affection, besides being a love itself, can enter into the other loves and colour them all through and become the very medium in which from day to day they operate,” (pg.34 paragraph 2). There is no one universal definition or even definite characteristics of love, it varies with people, culture, type, and circumstance.