Love and Likeness: twins still mixed up till this very day

The term “I love you” today is a very simple yet confusing statement because it has different meanings from different points of view. If you were a fun mathematician or statistician, you would have a laugh when someone says the number of possible interpretations from “I love you” is 7 permutation 7 billion. That’s for crazy mathematicians or statisticians by the way. So, in the end, all I am trying to say is that unlike other terms in deep human interaction, love doesn’t come clear with everyone and I think I know why and I will share. So, I recommend the first thing is to look at the earliest person to love someone, why? Look at it like this, we could debate and propose arguments about Toyota cars from now till tomorrow but if anyone would give clarity or truth on the matter, it would be the company: Toyota. I was in one of our confirmation classes. For non-Catholics, conformation is a sacrament in the catholic church like baptism and holy communion where the participants are taught the Christian faith as well as the catholic faith(doctrine) in details so as to elevate the mind and spirit of these participants who must have received his/her first holy communion so that they can be workers and soldiers of the church. Now In one of our classes, our teacher: Monsignor Gabriel told us his last car which I had seen and was in good condition was 19 years old and he told us the secrete to the long-life span of the car: he read the manual of the car for weeks before he ever touched the car. He understood the car from the manufacturers mind. He was teaching on love and charity and was saying that wars and disputes that have caused great damage to humanity and the world at large were birthed from lack of understanding of the world from the creator’s point of view, so in this case, God is the manufacturer. This, he used to open our minds to seeing things from the point of view of the one who made it whether it was inventions or laws, etc.

So back to our discussion on love, the teaching and examples of the priest brought me to a thought: who made love? And hence why? Now like in philosophy where some questions only lead to more questions I had two questions from one but the answer was clearer to me specifically because of some major believes, which were:

Love was made by God as he was the first person to practice or show it as believed by a typical Christian. Please note that I state my religion as clarity to how I arrived at this ideologies and not to assume anything in where I don’t have significant knowledge.
Love wasn’t a feeling because from my findings, in the bible, love was almost always accompanied by an act so I came to another conclusion that love is an act and not a feeling you have for someone.
Love is doing something whether physical, mental or spiritual for the sake of somebody whether you, or someone’s (including God).
You can feel loved by someone showing you love but it doesn’t equate to the love shown by whoever showed it.
Love is not as measurable as we think.

All these brought me to the believe that many people just use the word love for things they should have used ‘like’ for.

I got more clarity: many people that say they love someone actually just like the person but that undermines the word like. Because to like something is a big deal but because some people feel that the level at which they like something or someone is so much that they use a bigger, stronger word, which ends up being ‘love’. Think about it, how can someone love you and ice cream? Doesn’t make so much sense once you turn on the critical part of your brain does it? Exactly

So nowadays I try my best to use the words in a way that clarifies my position in someone’s life or something’s hence I will rather say ‘I like chicken’ than say ‘I love chicken’ so, my use of the word ‘love’, has more meaning/weight when i use it.

if you ask me, that’s the reason people say they love each other, then wake up one day and say they aren’t feeling that ‘it factor’ anymore. If you ask me, I will tell you they liked each other at some point but out grew that likeness just like my father who is clocking 75 doesn’t like sweet things like he used to but still loves me and my mom who used to like coke doesn’t like it as much but still loves me and I who used to like power rangers now likes marvel movies but still love my parents and siblings.

So, I encourage anybody reading this to let this essay sink in and start something today: look at people or things you say you love and ask yourself these questions:

do I love this person or do I just like something about them and is there a possibility that I can outgrow this likeness?
this thing(chocolate) I said I love; can it feel loved and can it be cared for?
If i love something, is it for me or for the thing. Like wise with people. If I love them, is it their gain or my gain or both our gains.
What does it really mean to love myself?
Finally, what does it mean to love others as a Christian and why not only my family and friends?

Ask yourself these questions, meditate on them and see whether in your mediation, clarity comes to you like it has to me. I really wish you the best after you have read this and I hope you get you own clarity like I have gotten mine which brings me peace of mind on love matters.