Why do we love

Romantic love is beautiful, seductive, tragic, and soul-crushing, often all at once. Why subject ourselves to its emotional toll? Does love enrich our lives or do we use it to avoid loneliness and suffering? Is love a cover for sexual desire or a biological trick to procreate? Is it sufficient? Do we need it? No science or psychology has found the goal of passionate love. Over time, several of our most esteemed philosophers have proposed intriguing views. Love restores wholeness.

Plato argued that we love to complete ourselves. In "Symposium", he describes a dinner party where comedic playwright Aristophanes tells the guests that humans formerly had four arms, four legs, and two faces. When they upset the gods, Zeus cut them in half. Everyone has lost half of themselves since then. Plato thought a drunken comic at a party would declare love is the desire to find a soulmate who will make us whole again. Love traps us into procreation.

Many years later, German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer believed sexual love was a sensuous delusion. He said we love because we want to be happy with someone else, but we're wrong. Nature tricked us into procreating, and our children are the loving synthesis we sought. After satisfying our sexual cravings, we are forced back into our miserable lives and just sustain the species and human drudgery. Someone needs a hug. Love is loneliness relief

. Bertrand Russell, a Nobel Prize-winning British philosopher, said we love to satisfy our physical and psychological needs. Humans are meant to reproduce, yet sex is unsatisfying without intense love. Fear of the cold, unforgiving world tempts us to construct hard shells and isolate ourselves. Love's joy, connection, and warmth help us conquer our worldly fears, escape our loneliness, and live more fully. Loving enriches us and is the nicest thing in life. The disease of love is deceptive. Siddhārtha Gautama, also known as the Buddha, and Russell likely had some intriguing discussions.

Buddha said we love to satisfy our fundamental desires. Our emotional needs are faults, and attachments—even romantic love—cause much suffering. Luckily, Buddha discovered the eight-fold path, a method to eradicate desire and reach Nirvana, a state of calm, clarity, wisdom, and compassion. Classical Chinese tale "Dream of the Red Chamber." by Cao Xueqin illustrated this Buddhist view that passionate love is foolish. Jia Rui falls for Xi-feng, who deceives and humiliates him. He is torn between love and hate, so a Taoist gives him a magic mirror that can heal him if he doesn't look at it. Of course, he looks ahead. He sees Xi-feng. He is dragged to death in iron chains after his spirit enters the mirror.

Though not all Buddhists believe this, romantic and sensual love is tragic and should be avoided, along with magic mirrors. We can transcend ourselves via love. To conclude, let's be optimistic. The French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir believed that love is the urge to merge with another and gives our lives significance. She wanted to know how to love better, not why. She realized that traditional romantic love can be so alluring that we may make it our main purpose.

However, relying on others for survival leads to boredom and power struggles. Beauvoir advocated loving truly, like a wonderful friendship, to avoid this trap. Lovers help each other explore, expand, and improve their lives and the world. We may never know why we fell in love, but it will be an emotional rollercoaster. It's thrilling and scary. It hurts and lifts us. Possibly we lose ourselves. Maybe we find ourselves. It might be sad or life's best. Dare you find out?