It is interesting isn’t it? That we often feel we love our dog or cat more than we love humans. We humans are, after all, prone to extremes of cruelty, that most animals, outside the absolute necessity for survival, would disdain. We also possess a few characteristics we can be really proud of.

Suppose then, that you are in a situation were the life of your beloved animal is put up against the life of a previously unknown human being. Who’s life would you save?

I once heard of a person who, supposedly, dearly loved their servant, but in fact put the welfare of strangers from their own class, way above the welfare of the “beloved” retainer.

Love is not the same thing, as want or need or feeling the most comfortable with. Love is about extending the interests of the self into the interests of another, it is the reproductive principle of motherhood; though it also exists in ancient species, such as birds and frogs, in fatherhood. If this emotion originally developed to promote the welfare of offspring, so that species could successfully cross oceans of time, it has now evolved quite a few secondary and beneficial purposes.

I am sick of this most evolved, intelligent and productive of emotions being called, stupid, mushy, silly…. by men who would never have got raised without it.

I am not talking about romantic love: that usually involves someone of a lower status wanting attention and protection from someone of a higher status: men may try and conceal it, but they are much more romantic about powerful versions of each other, than we ever are about them. Romantic love probably has it’s roots in an infants love for it’s all powerful, all providing; and if anything should go wrong, all failing mother.

I don’t believe in sexual love, I think sex in men is mainly urged based and that emotions are more evolved versions of urges; which tend to be short, intense and compulsive. Conversely, emotions seem to have developed as long distance strategies for traversing life: they contain qualities such as assessment, forgiveness, perseverance, attentiveness, intimacy, the desire for empathy and understanding and the ability to make personal sacrifice.

What do we really mean when we use the word love?