Love is a word often used lightly, or is it? If so, would it follow that it is an emotion also taken lightly, or just one not fully understood? The ancient Greeks divided love into four distinct categories with a vocabulary unique to each, whereas we seem to fit a wide range of very different emotions into one word — love.
With apologies in advance to any true scholars of ancient Greece, I did just enough research to probably get myself into trouble, but I explored the four distinct categories of love some of the great thinkers, so much wiser than me, came up with years ago.
First, there is agape. Do you remember that great old song by the Hollies, ” … and I’m strong, strong enough to carry him, he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”? Well, they mean “brother” in a large sense — fellow man or woman, cohabitant of the planet, those less fortunate and even those more privileged, in short, everybody. It’s interesting to note that you don’t even have to like a person to love him or her when agape is the kind of love you practice. You just have to love the shared humanity, regardless of how differently you might see the world. Now that’s a lot of love and perhaps the hardest kind.
Then there is phileo. The best I can gather, this boils down to friendship. It is more specific and directed than agape. It knows a person well, sees through to both the good and the limitations of an individual and loves in spite of, as well as because. Think about that old friend you might not talk to as often as you should, but when you call in the middle of the night, she or he will always be there. It’s about a shared sense of history and intuitive understanding.
Storge is the category I confess I had not heard of until now. It’s familial affection, and I think it’s appropriate for the love of families to be awarded a special category all its own. Who among us has not been loved by a parent at precisely the moment we deserved it least?
And finally, there is, of course, eros. It is the province of Valentine’s Day largely. It’s the passionate kind of love that Shakespeare writes about in his sonnets and artists as diverse as Melissa Etheridge and Nat King Cole sing about in songs old and new. It’s the love of belonging, a sense of choosing and being chosen by another person to tread the waters of life’s ocean together.
While I don’t have a thing against Cupid and his arrows, I wonder today if we might all commit to remembering and practicing the other forms of love, not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day. After all, who among us could not stand to give and to receive love more abundantly and in every possible form?
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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