Everybody wants to be loved, don’t they?

A while ago, I was pondering what might be the essential thing needed to live. First, I thought of money (obviously), and then I thought it was having a roof over your head (Dublin has a significant housing crisis, so that you know), and then it occurred to me that it's probably food (considering that I am a big-time foodie). So it somehow took me a while to realise that maybe it is Love that I need to live a pleasant life.

Now, what is this 'Love' all about? As some philosophers and psychologists may argue, is it an emotion or a syndrome? Love is usually considered something that occurs between two entities. For example, it may be the Love between two people or a person's Love towards an object or animal. In addition, people often love themselves (as they should). But the real question is, what is this Love?

• What is this insight that people have that makes them realise they are in Love?
• Why do they say people do crazy things when they are in Love?
• How do people fall in and out of Love so quickly, or why is it so hard for someone to be in Love?
• Can Love be measured?
• Can Love be understood or analysed?
• Can Love be borrowed?
• Can Love be lent?
• Can Love destroy lives?
• Why does Love feel different for different people?
• Most of all, why does Love hurt sometimes?

Well, there are a lot of unanswered questions relating to Love, and from what I can tell, they will always remain unanswered because Love is as relative as it can be. When I fell in 'Love' or something that I had considered to be Love at that time, I thought that I wouldn't be able to live without this person. Guess what? That person and the Love for that person just disappeared from my life, and somehow, I can live a happy and peaceful life despite the lack of that Love. At the same time, I have come across a form of Love that is still new, refreshing, and unexpected, to say the least.

This has somehow made me contemplate that Love is probably a relative phenomenon. Today you may love entity 'A' more than entity 'B', but tomorrow it may be the other way around.

In some ways, it makes me feel that each person probably has a large capsule of Love within themselves and each day, they give out a different portion of their Love to other people. It is just a matter of giving and sharing and receiving (a pun from the sitcom 'Friends')

Nevertheless, it does boil down to the fact that the world would be a happier place to live in if more people expressed their Love because, as my mom said to me one day (on a completely different but relatable note), 'Everybody wants to be loved, don't they?'