The Perfect Eros Series - Part 1 - Definition

Eros is one of the four words in Ancient Greek which can be rendered into English as “love”. Eros refers to “intimate love” or romantic love; storge to “affection” or fondness. In this sence, I are using Eros as the love between husband and wife or love between a boy and a girl in a relationship.

What is love?

Love as defined in 1 Corinthians : "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. "

What is the difference between love and desire?

There are complex mixtures between love and desire. For example, when you say you love someone, does it means that you need to own someone? This is a complex mixture of love and desire. Normally, when you want to live with someone forever and own this person for yourself, it is not love in particular, it's more to desire. Then should a pair of lovers get together? Yes. A person is willing to get together with the person who he/she loves is because he/she knows that the other person has a desire to be with him/her. He/she wants to be together with that person should not be because of the desire to do so, it should be because he/she believes that only he/she is able to give the most happiness to that person.

In this sence, when you say you love someone and that person does not love you, then you should not force that person to be with you. The way you should think is that, what makes that person happy? What can i do for it to be best for that person? This is love. If you want that person so hard and try all kinds of ways in order to get that person, this will not be love, this is desire.

In simple terms, love is to give, desire is to take.

We can see this through one very important person - Jesus. He sacrifised himself for us on the cross and never ask anything in return. This is what it means by love. Love cannot be in feelings only but also include actions to prove. When your actions only shows desire, then you cannot say you love someone.

If what you get is more than what you give in a relationship, it may cause problems in that relationship. The perfect way for a husband and wife to understand this is that, the husband should try his best to understand the needs of his wife so that he will do his best to fulfil all her desires. The wife should also try her best to understand the needs of her husband so that she will do her best to fulfil all his desires. In this way, it would cause an existance of mutual understandings, mutual respect and mutual fulfulment. In this manner, even though you do not try to gain anything from your spouse, your spouse will still give you the best. Thus, you are never lack of anything. This is true love between husband and wife.

However, most of the person are not trained to do so in this eras. In this era, most people are influenced by the thought that what i have is more important and what i want is more important. When this is brought into a relationship, it would be a total desire relationship and not a love relationship. The husband will try to ask more from the wife and the wife will also try to ask more from the husband. When one party is not willing to give, problems come.

Of course it is not easy to retain a relationship. We can see from past events especially from the asians' family background. Normally, wives will try their best to give, so to maintain the marriage even though the husband may not seem to give so much. That is why asians have a lower rate of divorce. But the asians nowadays has also being influenced by the culture that i am more important and what i get is more important than what i give. This can be shown in the incresing rate of divorce among asians.

However, it is not possible for one person to keep giving and the other keep on receiveing. This will require sacrificial love like love given by Jesus. For relationships where one person keeps on giving and the other keeps on receiving, he/she will need to accpet the sacrificial love given by Jesus in order to give such love to his/her spouse. It is not easy to influence him/her in short period of time, but your love will change him/her in the long run. Thus, from the definition, love is patient.

In conclusion, love is to give and desire is to get.