Essays:

[drofdar]

In life there is a very complex and complicated emotion called love. Love is a very sentimental and meaningful emotion, which can change a person's life forever. There are many ways to define love, and there are false beliefs about love also. Some of the ways to define love are: love in a family, love for a close special friend, love in the work you do, or a true love with a special someone. All of those are different types of love.

In a family, you love your siblings and your parents, and you trust them with your life, in most cases. YOu go through terrible family ordeals, and are able to work them out; or go on happy, fun vacations, and share the joy and happiness with each other. In this kind of love, there is no bodily love, unless you count hugs and kisses. There is only a heartfelt bond, nonetheless, it is still a type of love. The next type of love is for a close, special friend; be it an object, plant, or animal. This type of love is portrayed in journals, diaries, dogs, cats, plants of any kind, just an important friend in your life that you can share anything and everything with. This type of friend accepts you as you are, and you share a part of your soul with them. In diaries, you write down all of your troubles and joys, it listens silently and doesn't hurt your feelings as people can. Animals and plants you can love and take care of. They exist for you to love them and for them to love you back. Another type of love that you can have is love for the things you do and accomplish. You take pride in what you do, and enjoy doing it. You share your imagination with the work you do, it is your mind's desires, and you love to take the time out of your day to do your loving tasks.

Now this next love here, is a complicated love to explain. The love between two special someones, whether it be male/female or two males/two females. This type of love is a much deeper and comitting love. This love requires you to give up your whole self to the other: heart, mind, soul, and body. There is no other way to have this kind of love. This is not to be confused with lust however, which is just a physical intimacy caused by a natural attraction between two who fit together chemically. Lust has nothing to do with love. It is just a sexual desire which is caused by certain hormones when the person feeling this way can't control themselves. There is no compassion at all, and sometimes as in the case of rapes, no attraction either, besides a sexual longing. With true love comes certain requirements: you have to be able to trust them with anything, to honor them, to support them in what they do, to have faith in them, to stay loyal to them, to make a commitment to become a perfect 'one' with them. When you become one, it is not just with the body, as lust is, it is also with mind, heart, and soul. There is no lust in love, there can be, and usually is a physical intimacy though. This is the difference though, lust is just a physical intimacy, involving no commitments, there is actually no sharing either; you take from them and they take from you, but you aren't genuinely giving them anything. In love, you give yourself to them and they give themselves to you. It's not a 'give me sexual pleasures and I'll give you some too.' It's more of an 'accept this bodily togetherness to symbolize my commitment to you, and you alone, to show my loyalty and trust to you, so that we may never part, even in death,' kind of thing.

In conclusion the difference between love and lust is very distuinguishable. Being lusty is being an animal and following animal instincts. Portaying any kind of love, whether it be with family, friends, objects, or that one special someone requires some kind of a sharing process. That is what love is, the ability to share a part of yourself. It can be from mind, heart, soul, body, or all of the above. You must be sharing at least one of those in order to portray any kind of love. If you think it's love and it doesn't include sharing of any of the above, it can only be lust. You can't 'make love,' it has already been created, it can only be shared with others.

[drofdar]

Okay....before anyone says anything...i need to explain this.
First off: I wrote this last year when i was 18.
Secondly it was somewhat for school...so it has no mention of a divine in it. Or love for one thereof.
Thirdly: It is very liberal...therfore the stuffed linked to homosexuality is put there for a reason...also when i said chemically fits together...it's supposed to be that way cause two guys/two girls cannot fit together physically. It's not naturally possible.
Fourthly: Enjoy!!

[erikestabrook]

pretty good ed,
I thought there were some complexities to this,
in essay format it was opinionated,
and did good explaining the differences love and lust etc.
really good analysis

[sage]

the subject of love, and what it means to different people is really the query...people love in different ways, example, there are a varied type of marriages, open, devoted, and more. In other words love demands different from each of us, it all depends on what we want to derive from a relationship...

this was provocative and thought-provoking; great topic for discussion, thanks for sharing

write on,
sage