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Are you a romantically challenged? Does your big toe know more about romantic gift giving than you??? This advice from Rafe Colburn can help even the most challenged!
When you have finished the romantic gift giving advice, check out the Happiness Quiz.
In honor of Valentine's Day and true lovers everywhere, the next few weeks I will be posting occasional comments, questions, suggestions about the concept of LOVE...or does thinking of love as a "concept" destroy it?
That is the first question: Can love be understood if considered as a concept? A mental process as opposed to an emotional one?
Some folks have love practically synonymous with sex. That is what this cartoon would seem to suggest. Other people believe the two are almost mutually exclusive.
What do you believe?
Have I got you thinking? Let's consider the intellect vs. emotional aspect of love. I think there are two components here. First, can we even talk about/understand love in intellectual terms? Second, what are the intellectual components (if any) of love and what are the emotional components?
The intellect we use to describe love, or try to. We use the intellect to try to understand the meaning of love. After all, what are we doing right now? Intellectually attempting to put definitions, parameters, boundaries, or descriptions on love.
On the other hand, it is possible to consider love from an emotional position...probably preferable to consider it from the emotional side. Face it! Love is an emotion; a feeling that most all of use like to have around. But then we try to use our intellect to verbalize our feelings. Maybe we should just "feel" and not try to intellectualize our feelings, but then how would we communicate to others? Is it possible to communicate without the use of words? Yes! But that is another topic. For now, we must discover what love is -- really!
Quotations regarding love:
From the Bible -- I Corinthians 13:4-8
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
From the Talmud
"Where love is, no room is too small."
"We love because it's the only true adventure." - Nikki Giovanni
"Love is friendship set on fire." - unknown
"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." - Goethe
"To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia." - H.L. Mencken
"Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale... Love loves; this is its nature." - Howard Thurman
"Loves makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place." - Zora Neale Hurston
"Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." - Mark Twain
"To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven." - Karen Sunde
"A love song is just a caress set to music." - Sigmund Romberg
"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit." - Peter Ustinov
"Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever." - unknown
"In the final analysis, love is the only reflection of man's worth." - Bill Wundram, Iowa Quad Cities Times
OK...so now you are thinking. Now you have had some quotations of famous persons or writings. Now it is your turn to expound! WHAT IS LOVE -- REALLY??!?!!
(My own thoughts will come along in a couple days.)
Did you see this story? A fifteen foot (five meters) Anaconda snake was wrapped around an eight year old boy intending upon using the boy for a meal. Along comes boy's grandpa: "You're not having my kid for dinner, you slithering bad boy!" Check out the heroic grandpa from Brazil. Word to the wise: Stay out of the streams when there are monsters lurking about...but then, that sounds like something my boy scouts would try.
OK...Here is my take on the subject. Simply put: Love is the eternal quality of deep, abiding, never ending care and concern for another. It warms the heart, fuels the passions, resonates with the loved one, brings a smile, illuminates the mind, fills the soul with hope, and inspires determination.
Love is a verb. We talk about love as a noun or 'state of being.' To me, love is an action verb. Love inspires and motivates states of being, e.g., confidence, trust, peace, kindness, safety, and happiness.
To be more concrete, read on...
Stymied looking for that perfect gift? Here it is. For the guy who has everything, here is The Perfect Gift! Can you feel the adrenalin pulsing yet??? :-)
One final posting for Valentine's Day. Excellent advice about how to romance your sweetheart. Those of us who are romantically challenged should read and learn.
Some thoughts upon what selection factor or factors make a difference in marital satisfaction. A recent psychological study suggests that some of the reasons most people use in the selection process of a spouse may not be the most important factor for happiness. Similarity in personality appeared in the study to be much more predictive of relationship satisfaction than similarity of attitudes, religion, and values.
Another study suggests that how "you respond to your partner’s good news may be more important to your relationship health than how you react to negative events." Having a "cheerleader" for a partner may greatly improve one's relationship.
Are you an optimist? Optimists appear to exhibit more relationship satisfaction than pessimists, both in themself and in their partner.
Nine Psychological Tasks for a Good Marriage/Relationship.
Have you been in psychotherapy or counseling? Have you ever wondered whether it was actually beneficial or good for you or whether it was not? Here are some thoughts.
One view of psychotherapy is that it is an essential part of life’s existence. A second view is that much psychotherapy, though well-intended, amounts to theft because the therapist is unable and/or unwilling to deal with your personal situation. Read on...
Dreams have been forever important in human thought. Religion is replete with stories illustrating the important of dreams. Psychology has developed mammoth theories about dreams and their importance. Maybe this is the real truth about the importance of dreams.
A Romanian Priest in the Orthodox Church has been given a 14 year jail sentence for causing the death of a nun while attempting to exercise the "devils" of which she was thought to be possessed.
"In 1999, when the Vatican issued its first new guidelines since 1614 for driving out devils, it urged priests to take modern psychiatry into account in deciding who should be exorcised," says the BBC news article. The Romanian Orthodox Church has promised reforms, including psychological tests for those seeking to enter monasteries.
Psychology and Psychiatry enlarge their borders.
A quote attributed to Emerson:
"It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself."
Author Stephanie Elizondo Griest has a new book 100 Places Every Woman Should Go describing destinations just wonderful for the ladies. This Yahoo article offers a small, tantalizing example. Go! Enjoy! Treat your femininity.
Here is an interesting bit of research. If you let your mind run wild thinking about this information, it is scary what might be conjured up. A reserach group at Uppsala University in Sweden has found that polutants can change frogs from males to females, at least during the tadpole stage. Do you have a pregnant spouse or partner? What kind of polutants is she receiving? Beware, my friend.
This page contains all entries posted to The Psychotic Doctor in February 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.
January 2007 is the previous archive.
March 2007 is the next archive.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.