When you love someone, you feel safe and secure, and your relationship will thrive regardless of life’s ups and downs. You can also face problems together, as these may draw you closer together. Couples who share the same values as you are more likely to share difficult details and be vulnerable to one another. You will feel the strength of love when you can trust someone deeply enough to be vulnerable with them. In a true love relationship, trust, respect, and honesty are all part of the foundation of a strong bond.
The study of love is relatively new. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, said that love was something worthy of scientific inquiry. While thousands of years of artistic treatment and creative writing have been used to study love, scientists have only recently taken this subject seriously. Early explorations into love were met with some criticism, and U.S. senator William Proxmire called them a waste of taxpayer dollars. However, this criticism is not the end of research into love.
While romantic love has been portrayed in a positive light, there are also many darker sides to love. Romantic love is a common representation of youthful infatuation, which is usually one’s first love. Although this first love may be beautiful, it must also be tempered with hardships and disappointments in order to stay strong in the relationship. Love is a natural human emotion, and it persists throughout the world. Whether you are young or old, you can be sure that you will encounter hardships and difficulties while you are in love.
When you are in love, your brain fires its reward centers. In a TED talk, Helen Fisher describes the neurobiological basis of love. This is the same brain regions that fire during drug and alcohol use. The science of love and attraction shows how the brain responds to romantic love. It also shows that a romantic love is rooted in biology and evolutionary development. That is why people experience increased brain activity during romantic love. And it’s not surprising that a person who is in love may stammer or sweat when speaking to a loved one.
There are many different types of theories that explain love. Although there is some overlap between the four major categories, many of these theories have some ideas in common and overlap. This makes it difficult to categorize them. Some theories are quasi-reductionistic, meaning that they view love as a matter of recognizing and appreciating value. Others try to understand love as a response to an antecedent value. This approach tends to miss the most fundamental facets of love.
While the word ahabah is used in the Old Testament to describe friend or family love, it is not a direct synonym of agape. The Hebrew word chesed is related to agape, and its equivalent in Greek is chesed, meaning lovingkindness. In Numbers 14:18, chesed means love. So, while the word ahabah has a broad meaning in the Old Testament, the Greek word storge and agape is used only in the New Testament.