Do you NEED to love others?

Thank you for sharing those thoughts. They made me realize something about myself that I knew subconsciously.

Yes, I think that I need to love to survive. Love is the ultimate expression of who I am and the only thing that makes me feel alive.

 

Maybe the reason you feel that way is because you are LOVE.

 

Now I like this topic. Do we need love? On a scientific level this is just a chemical reaction in our brain based on outside stimulate. Need, perhaps not, but we are ingrained with it and for what reason? As babies we rely purely on the ideal of winning our parents over in order to be nurtured and grow. Babies have the appeal of "cuteness" in order to achieve the attention and survive. Its there as a form of community, a way of survival, love in my opinion is trust, we begin to trust others in order to rely on them and therefore to know that we can survive in this world. This is why we became civilizations, we did need one another in order to survive. In that element it is ingrained in us as an instinct.

Now need it, on a personal level this hits me hard because I grew up with a family that was very disconnected and love wasn't much of an element or foundation in my life. I struggled with the concept of need for a very long time and at moments still fall into this ideal. Do we need it to survive, well we need a level of trust in order to be able to live in society, and we need the connection of human touch, as science has proven that premature babies that were not touched struggled to get well a lot longer than those which the nurses touched. I think in all honesty we need connection, that is something important to survive.

Hermits seem to make it OK without human connection, but I tend to wonder what their mindset is, to live your live completely isolated and not be able to share human thought. When we are without some form of human connection we tend to develop what I like to call circular thinking, its unending thinking that cannot be reinforced by others if we are alone and cannot be corrected if it is incorrect. To be able to interact with others and develop ideals and concepts that we didn't have prior to our interaction can be harmful. But than again could a good book replace this human interaction?

 

I need to love others, it animates the world and adds a vividness to it. Gives a reason and a purpose to existence and makes me feel like I am alive. Without loving others I would very much be like a ship adrift at sea, I wouldn't die or anything but I wouldn't be very happy about it..just drifting without purpose. Love is a core part of myself and the 'me' as I know it doesn't exist in the absence of it.

 

I used to think that I would live on through the positive influences I had on others. Loving them was important to that goal. I then realized all humanity will be gone some day and it would all end and all my work and theirs will be for nothing. Even after recognizing this I still found purpose in loving others and this time I realized it was not because of a some endless line of humanity and my role in their success but because I valued something as finite and simple as the human experience and I wanted that experience to be a positive one for myself and as many other people as possible.

 

I think that, without loving or being loved, I would die.

 

Need, not in terms of physical survival,
but in terms of purposeful existence, yes.

On the other hand this is not really a 'need' in the sense that,
"do stars 'need' to give light?" No, they just do.
In the same way, do we 'need' to love? No, we just do.
Only in questioning this, does it start to become like a 'need'.

 

^

 

yep, but as you said, it's not easy to understand especially when the belief is that you don't need anything but yourself to be happy. I went through mild depression recently, and I realized that it's partly because I didn't have a consistent love in my life. I was just going through the motions. Yes, I have an amazing family but work and social life was not cutting it, and often felt something was missing. Feelings of love would make me feel alive in ways nothing else could, the emotional aspects. It wasn't about receiving love as much as it was about giving it, and embracing all those feelings. It felt fed by it, sustained by the feeling in ways other things couldn't be It's not about needing a person as it is about having an impetus to express who you are in a way that allows you to feel and experience the best and unique aspects of yourself through that special experience with someone or something. This could apply to family, children, community, partners, etc. For some, it's being a parent, that does it.

 

This ^^^^^^

We ARE love....and that's why we have an inherent need to express it....to feel it...to give it....to create with it.

I especially wish to create with love.

When we allow ourselves to let Love flow from us....our heart....outward into our world....it sets the energetic flow of Love into motion. It has power of it's own and as it flows out into your world it also encourages love to flow in to you from the world. Whether it be for/from plants, animals, children, people, and the planet herself....these things all express in the various forms of Love.

Love is the Universal quality.

Let it flow out from you....so it can flow in to you....breathing in new life and abundant energy in to you. :love:

 

Loving; loving others, loving ourselves and learning to give and receive love is pretty much everything. It is the underlying motivation of all relationships; with ourselves and with others and it is definitely a NEED on many levels. But the issue is there is many illusions that prevent love from taking form and being expressed and most of us are caught in this illusion. It is hard to seperate fear from love and vice versa and almost everything in our lives is a dance between these two energies.

 

this is interesting and i came to the same conclusion. Almost the same way we NEED love; we also NEED others.

 

I do need to love others. Seems to be a major part of me. (The more dangerous need is to be NEEDED by others... that, if left unchecked can make me do foolish things. It gives a sense of validation, which can be powerful.)

 

I love how you moved it towards the fear factor. This is something I have struggled with as well. The fear that a lot of people carry. The moment that some people hear the words "love" they panic, as if some sort of expectation now falls on them, but so much more, to give way to love is also to give way to potential hurt. Being willing to take a risk and give way to the beautiful emotion means that you have the capacity to withstand the potential of the opposite emotion. Being that I haven't yet found a good relationship I wouldn't know what it is like, but I do know from seeing some of the more beautiful relationships, that these people don't allow their fears to override their feelings of vulnerability to give that part of themselves...

 

Kudos to that statement, very real and honest!