When February 14 rolls around,
hearts and minds everywhere focus on love. Some look forward to the day with
unbridled anticipation, while others feel only trepidation. During our lifetimes,
most of us will experience both feelings depending on how life is going at that
moment.
Love can be enduring, or elusive.
It can be the center of our dreams, or the crux of our nightmares. Love can
bring us to the mountaintop or plunge us into the deepest, darkest valley.
Valentine’s Day celebrates all
kinds of love. According to the ancient Greeks, there are seven different types
of love. I’m not sure that all the emotions we humans call “love” can really be
narrowed down to seven categories, but I suppose it’s a start.
1.
Eros, or
erotic love, represents the physical body. This type of love has all the
passion and desire to fuel a romance. It is because of Eros love that Cupid wears a blindfold.
2.
Philia, or
affectionate love, is the love we feel for our friends who have our backs
through the bad times in our lives. These trusted friends provide the chocolate
cake when our romantic love hits rock bottom.
3.
Storge is
familial love. Storge is the type of love
we feel for our parents and children. It can also be the fondness we have
toward childhood friends where the relationship is built on familiarity and
acceptance.
4.
The playful love of ludus
is found during the early stages of falling in love. That’s when just seeing
the interest of our affections can set our hearts all aflutter. Ludus can also describe the relationship
of friends who enjoy hanging out with each other.
5.
Pragma is
enduring or practical love. This kind of love is found in married couples who
have made the effort to maintain their relationship through compromise,
patience, and tolerance. It can also be found in couples who stay together for
political, social, or other practical reasons.
6.
Philautia is self-love.
In this sense, it is a good thing! In order to truly love someone else, it is
necessary to first love yourself. Philautia
is unhealthy when a person places himself before others.
7.
Agape is the
purest love. It is selfless love free
of expectations that accepts and forgives. Agape
is unconditional love.
We all understand that in a
romantic relationship, we give our hearts, and we expect that love to be
reciprocated. Since Cupid is blindfolded, sometimes love is blind. We focus
only on the good qualities and overlook the irritating ones. Whether we survive
the good, bad, and ugly that makes up every human being on earth depends on how
much effort we put into keeping the love alive.
When we look at the different kinds
of love, it is easy to see that agape,
or unconditional love, is the type of love that caregivers have for their loved
ones with dementia. When Jim developed dementia, my love for him became multidimensional
and included both pragma and storge. I often likened my love for Jim to that of a
mother for her child. More importantly, I don’t believe that the love of a
caregiver fits neatly into some Greek or psychologist’s category.
Each of us is a unique individual
with an individual capacity for love. Not even a scientist can accurately
measure the love one person has for another.
A lot of hearts given on Valentine’s
Day are not worth the paper they are printed on. The real value of a Valentine’s
heart is determined by how we treat the ones we love the other 364 days of the
year and throughout the years of a lifetime.
Resources:
https://lonerwolf.com/different-types-of-love/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201606/the-7-types-love
Copyright © February 2017 by L.S.
Fisher
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