What is Love? NOT!

"Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command."
- Alan Watts

Do you believe this quote to be true? Is love not ours to command? I've pondered. Follow down this road with me...

If love is not ours to command, whose is it? If love is not something taken but something given as many people believe it to be, who gives it if its not ours to command? What is love after all?

Love in a simplistic definition is truly simple to understand: self-sacrificition. Love in a broader and more indepth definition is a bit harder for it is the rightful choosing of laying our wants, desires and even needs down at another person's feet and saying to him/her "I'm done with me and all I have is yours. It is you and your joyfulness that I live for and no one else." Can anyone really say this defintion is not true? Apparently Alan Watts can...

Love from this definition cannot be an emotion either. How can "self-sacrifice" be considered an emotion? Anger can manifest itself but also be felt throughout the body. I really dont think love can. Can we get butterflies? Yes. But how many times have you gotten those flitter-flutters and ended up not sacrificing yourself for the other person or vice versa? Plus, aren't those little buggers a sign of what someone else does for you, thereby implying selfishness?

Don't get me wrong, I completely believe that love is reciprical. It's give and take because we can only give out what's been given to us without Divine intervention (which is why so many non-Christians have a problems with achieving peace and understanding self-sacrifce). But what I'm driving at here is simply that many people have lost this definition. I mean goodness sakes, brith control devices are being given out to 11 year olds in Maine so that they can have sex "safer." Amazing. That's the only word I can think to describe it.

How can anyone love without self-sacrificition? I truly dont think that's even possible. Anything other than self-sacrifiition is lust of the flesh and the desires of a horribly wicked heart full of pride. I don't know how to describe it any other way. Any comments from you? If not, just think this through.