Science vs. Romance (2)

In my previous post, I claimed that love is not an entity in itself but rather a label given to a set of emotions, thoughts, and experiences. A dear friend of mine responded by saying that love is in the action, in the doing. While I do not totally disagree, I still find the need to reconcile our points of view, and this post is my attempt to do so.

I agree that action is an important and essential aspect of love, and it is what makes love beautiful. (Remember my first post and "I'd find a match" vs. "I'd have a match"?) Yes, it is true that I cannot be loving someone if I am not expressing it.

But if action is the definition, not a result, of love, then several questions emerge.

There have been times in my life where I have had strong feelings and emotions for another, but I was not able to do something about it (e.g. didn't like me back, no opportunity, already in a relationship, not looking for a relationship, etc.--hell, most of the time, it was my own hesitation and fear that has held me back).

Does that mean that I wasn't experiencing love? Were my feelings any less real because they weren't manifested to the other?

These are the same questions I ask myself whenever I remember that nothing changes when I don't act on my feelings. It's as if I didn't have the feelings in the first place...as if they were irrelevant and didn't matter. And that's a thought that drives me to tears, thinking that my emotions just aren't valid.

So I will maintain that love is a label because I know what I have felt regardless of whether or not I acted on these feelings.

But to reconcile these perspectives and incorporate the importance of action, I think that it is necessary to distinguish feeling love from loving. To use another basketball analogy, if loving is a jump shot, then feeling love is, well, a good look. When you get a good look, you feel it all over and you know it...whether or not you take the shot is another thing.