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Jul. 26th, 2005 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikFor various random reasons it the Heinleinian definition of love came to my mind, recently. The one about it being the state in which another person's happiness is essential to your own.
And it occurred to me, that by that definition, I probably don't love anyone. I think this mostly points to the limitations of the definition. Because I have loved people who aren't happy, and who I can't make happy. And this saddens me... but for an hour, or perhaps a day. It doesn't make it an unhappy person in a general sense.
I don't think having the sort of relationship in which someone else's happiness is essential to my own would be particularly good for me, either. (Hell, it would make having a depressed partner pretty awful for both of us, I think.) It seems a strange kind of dependency...
And it occurred to me, that by that definition, I probably don't love anyone. I think this mostly points to the limitations of the definition. Because I have loved people who aren't happy, and who I can't make happy. And this saddens me... but for an hour, or perhaps a day. It doesn't make it an unhappy person in a general sense.
I don't think having the sort of relationship in which someone else's happiness is essential to my own would be particularly good for me, either. (Hell, it would make having a depressed partner pretty awful for both of us, I think.) It seems a strange kind of dependency...
