Love and Don´t Suffer

By Lucian Simon Ionesco

You suffer too much for love; that's the truth. Even those who pride themselves on being perfectly coupled to their partner, in the depths of their being, sometimes harbor doubts, insecurities, or small anticipatory fears regarding their emotional future. You never know... Who hasn't suffered from being with the wrong person, from feeling a drop in desire, or simply from the caress that never came? Nothing is more hypersensitive than love, nothing more captivating, nothing more vital. To renounce it is to live less or not to live.

 

Love is multiple. The affective experience is made up of a set of variables that are intertwined in a complex way. Undoubtedly, feeling love is easier than explaining it because no one has educated us to love and be loved, at least explicitly. Affection, in almost all its forms, assaults us and transcends us. I will be told that love is not to "understand" but to feel and enjoy it and that romanticism does not support any logic: nothing more wrong. In addition to being naive, the sentimental attitude is dangerous since one of the main causes of "lovesickness" stems precisely from the irrational and unrealistic beliefs that we have developed about affection throughout our lives. Misconceptions of love are one of the main sources of affective suffering.

 

Rationalize love?: That's right, not too much, just what is necessary so as not to intoxicate ourselves. Desired love (pleasure principle) and thought love (reality principle), one and the other, reason and emotion in adequate quantities. Love must not only be tasted but incorporated into our system of beliefs and values. It is about increasing the "love quotient" and linking the heart to the mind so that we can healthily channel the feeling. In other words: you have to order and regulate love to make it friendlier and closer to the neurons. I'm not talking about restricting or clipping his wings but teaching him to fly.

 

What do we mean when we talk about love or say that we are in love? We use countless words that do not mean the same thing as synonyms for love: passion, tenderness, friendship, eroticism, attachment, infatuation, sympathy, affection, compassion, desire, and similar expressions. We have not been able to specify what love is or unify its terminology. For some, to love is to feel passion; for others, love and friendship are the same thing, and not a few associate love with compassion or total and selfless dedication. But who is right? Those who defend sex, those who prefer companionship, or those who think true love is a spiritual fact?

 

When you are done reading this book, you will have gained a lifetime of experience in just a few short hours. The stories are interesting to follow, and the challenging concepts have been made easy to understand. So get ready to broaden your horizons and adjust your expectations because you are in for one hell of a ride!

 

Are you ready?

 

If you are,

 

Click Buy Now With 1-Click or Buy Now to get started!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Editorial Atelerix Creative Quill
• Release date: Apr 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201408862

Lucian Simon Ionesco

I'm 51-year-old; I have a degree in psychology, specializing in motivation and mental disorders.I'm a Brazilian Christian, and I define myself as straight, and I'm a vegetarian. I grew up in an upper-class neighborhood. I was raised by my father and my mother, having left when I was young. I'm currently single. My most recent romance was with an artist called Ophelia Dana Phillips, who was 12 years older than me. We broke up because Ophelia felt Lucian was too busy for the relationship. My best friend is a chorus actor called Keira Morales. We get on well most of the time. I also hang around with Glenn Rees and Arran Davis. We enjoy worship together. I have decided to start my work writing since currently, due to the pandemic, I require an additional income. With the support of the Atelerix publishing house, I want to start giving my general knowledge about everything I have studied in my city to swim all this time. I hope that you fully recognize my writing and support me, especially if you have a loved one you can support with my knowledge; I will be more than happy to support me with a review of my book.

Book preview

Introduction

You suffer too much for love, that's the truth. Even those who pride themselves on being perfectly coupled to their partner, in the depths of their being sometimes harbor doubts, insecurities or small anticipatory fears regarding their emotional future. You never know... Who hasn't suffered from being with the wrong person, from feeling a drop in desire or simply from the caress that never came? There is nothing more hypersensitive than love, nothing more captivating, nothing more vital. To renounce it is to live less or not to live.

Love is multiple. The affective experience is made up of a set of variables that are intertwined in a complex way. Undoubtedly, feeling love is easier than explaining it because no one has educated us to love and be loved, at least explicitly. Affection, in almost all its forms, assaults us and transcends us. I will be told that love is not to understand but to feel and enjoy it and that romanticism does not support any type of logic: nothing more wrong. The sentimental attitude, in addition to being naive, is dangerous, since one of the main causes of lovesickness stems precisely from the irrational and unrealistic beliefs that we have developed about affection throughout our lives. Misconceptions of love are one of the main sources of affective suffering.

Rationalize love?: That's right, not too much, just what is necessary so as not to intoxicate ourselves. Desired love (pleasure principle) and thought love (reality principle), one and the other, reason and emotion in adequate quantities. Love must not only be tasted but incorporated into our system of beliefs and values. It is about increasing the love quotient and linking the heart to the mind in such a way that we can channel the feeling in a healthy way. In other words: you have to order and regulate love to make it friendlier and closer to the neurons. I'm not talking about restricting or clipping his wings, but about teaching him to fly.

What do we mean when we talk about love or when we say that we are in love? We use countless words that do not mean the same thing as synonyms for love: passion, tenderness, friendship, eroticism, attachment, infatuation, sympathy, affection, compassion, desire, and similar expressions. We have not been able to specify what love is or unify its terminology. For some, to love is to feel passion, for others, love and friendship are the same thing, and not a few associate love with compassion or total and selfless dedication. But who is right? Those who defend sex, those who prefer companionship or those who think that true love is a spiritual fact?

In agreement with the philosophers Comte-Sponville and Gution, among others, I think that love could be better studied from three basic dimensions. When these elements manage to fit together properly, we say that we are in the presence of a unified and functional love. According to their Greek roots, the names that these three loves receive are: eros (the love that takes and is satisfied), philia (the love that shares and rejoices) and agape (the love that gives and is compassionate) .

Some years ago, in another publication, I proposed a similar tripartite structure of love: Type I love (more emotional) related to infatuation, Type II (more cognitive/rational) related to conjugal love, and Type III (more biological) related to love. maternal. However, the new classification proposed above is more complete and rich in concepts, more applicable to practical life and more sustained.

A complete, healthy and gratifying love, which brings us closer to tranquility than to suffering, requires the weighted union of the three factors mentioned: desire (eros), friendship (philia) and tenderness (agape). The triple condition of love that renews itself, over and over again, inevitably.

A functional couple does not need to have sex five times a day (quality is better than

amount), agree on everything (slight discrepancies reaffirm individuality) or live in an eternal romance (a lot of tenderness is cloying). Intelligent love is a menu that is activated according to needs: everything at the right time, tailored and harmonious.

Although throughout the text I will delve into each of the three elements mentioned, I will make a small conceptual sketch here to facilitate later reading.

Eros

It is sexual desire , possession, infatuation, passionate love. The most important thing is the SELF that yearns, that desires, that demands. The other person, YOU. it is not enough to be a subject. It is the selfish and concupiscent facet of love: I want to possess you. I want you to be mine, I want you for me, Eros is conflictual and dual by nature, it raises us to heaven and lowers us to hell in an instant. It is the love that hurts, the one that is related to madness and the inability to control oneself. But we cannot do without eros, desire is the vital energy of any relationship, whether as pure sex or as eroticism. The well-managed eros not only evolves towards the family of the couple (friendship with desire), but also usually manifests itself in a kind way as two egoisms that meet, they share and enjoy each other while making and unmaking love. Eros is not enough by himself to configure a complete love, because he always lives in lack, he always lacks something. It is Plato's idea of ​​love.

Philia

It is friendship, in our case couple friendship, the so-called conjugal love or marital friendship. The family transcends the ME to integrate the other as a subject: ME and YOU, although the ME is still ahead. Despite the progress, in family, benevolence is not total because friendship is still a way of loving oneself through friends. The central emotion is not pleasure as an overwhelming desire, but the joy of those who share: reciprocity, having a good time, being calm. Philia does not require a total coupling (we never have it with anyone, not even with the best friends), it is enough that there is a certain complicity of interests, an outline of a community of two in coexistence. While eros decays and rises from time to time, philia deepens over the years, if all goes well. But in no way does the family exclude eros: it calms him down, places him in a less concupiscent, less rapacious context, but it does not annihilate him. In more or less stable relationships we make more use of philia than of eros, but both are essential to form a stable bond. When eros attacks, we become libidinous and unrestrained beings and we are thing and subject at the same time: thing, insofar as they devour us, subjects, insofar as we devour. Family and eros together: nice and pleasant lust, making love with the best friend or the best friend. Philia is the friendship of Aristotle and Cicero, among others, brought to the couple. but both are essential to form a stable bond. When eros attacks, we become libidinous and unrestrained beings and we are thing and subject at the same time: thing, insofar as they devour us, subjects, insofar as we devour. Family and eros together: nice and pleasant lust, making love with the best friend or the best friend. Philia is the friendship of Aristotle and Cicero, among others, brought to the couple. but both are essential to form a stable bond. When eros attacks, we become libidinous and unrestrained beings and we are thing and subject at the same time: thing, insofar as they devour us, subjects, insofar as we devour. Family and eros together: nice and pleasant lust, making love with the best friend or the best friend. Philia is the friendship of Aristotle and Cicero, among others, brought to the couple.

Agape

It is selfless love , tenderness, delicacy, non-violence. It is not the erotic ME that destroys everything, nor the ME AND YOU of friendly love, but the love: of surrender: the pure and stark YOU. It is the cleanest dimension of love, it is benevolence without selfish contamination. Obviously, I am not referring to an unrealistic and idealized love, because even agape has conditions, what I am talking about is the ability to give up one's own strength in order to adapt to the weakness of the loved one. It is not about erotic pleasure or friendly joy, but about pure compassion: the pain that binds us to the loved one when he suffers, when he needs us or calls us, is the discipline of love that requires no effort. Although not necessarily, agape is usually the last stage in the evolution of love, but neither does its appearance displace or suppress its two predecessors: once again, it includes and completes them. As will be seen throughout the text, there can be agapic sex (eros and agape) and disinterested friendship (philia and agape). In short: agape is the love of Jesus, Buddha, Simone Weil and Krishnamurti.

So there is no love of a couple, there are at least three loves gathered around two people, and the alteration of any of them will cause the vital balance of affection to be lost and suffering to surface. The affective alteration can come from eros (for example, when we feel that we are not wanted or that we no longer want our partner), from philia (for example, when boredom becomes more and more evident and joy languishes), from agape (for example, when disrespect and selfishness start to become prevalent) or any combination of these that is dysfunctional.

Some people try to resign themselves to an unfinished love, but sooner or later, the deficit ends up altering the relationship and personal tranquility. Love with a partner without desire?: I doubt it, or is it something else?

Coexist with the enemy?: unsustainable Don't worry

for the well-being of the loved one?: too cruel.

I insist: only in the active and interrelated presence of desire, friendship and compassion, love is realized. Incomplete love hurts and sick.

I know people who have dissociated the three loves to form a kind of affective Frankenstein. Eros: once or twice a week with the lover. Family: at home, with the wife or husband. And agape: on Sundays at mass. The more disintegrated the components of love are, the greater the feeling of emptiness and lack of love will be. "

In other cases, the needs and expectations of the members of the couple do not coincide and the components of love are lost in a tangle of confusion and misunderstandings. If we do not have a cognitive (mental) scheme to interpret the facts, it will be impossible to solve them.

Adriana and Mario had been married for eleven years. Their marriage had been apparently satisfactory, at least that was the image they projected before the people, however, slowly and covertly, the love had begun to fragment. Mario felt that his sexual life was no longer as rewarding (she needed more frequency and better quality) and Adriana complained of emotional loneliness (she needed a partner with whom she could share and communicate). They were both trapped in a vicious circle of which they were not very aware: she was not capable of opening the doors to eros, without the prerequisite of friendship, and he refused any friendly approach (philia) without eros. The psychological trap was also extended to agape, since being frustrated and hurt by the lack they felt, Neither cared about the other's well-being. In conclusion: neither eros, nor philia, nor agape.

The solution was not easy because it implied that both put their obstinacy aside and think about the well-being of the other, that is, agape had to be activated to make sexuality and friendship meet inside and outside of bed. More specifically: Mario was to improve his family, regardless of Adriana putting her eros to work, and Adriana was to improve her eros, regardless of Mario becoming more talkative and friendly.

Like a song from the sixties that said: There is half the world waiting / with a flower in hand / and the other half of the world / waiting for that flower. Pride immobilizes. Only with professional help were they able to restructure and integrate (balance, harmonize) each of

Each chapter is completed with a section (To avoid suffering) where the content of the chapter is colloquially related to affective suffering and suggestions are given to avoid it as much as possible.

Finally, this book aims to link the contributions of various disciplines, such as psychology; anthropology, sociology and philosophy, to the study of love, in an accessible way for the reader and trying to maintain the scientific level and the depth that the theme requires.