Let me put it this way. I have a theory, that love is egoistic, and you are doing all beautiful things for your love just because you have interest, not because you want this person to be happy, or you just want this person to be happy, because that's good for your interest.
If you had two buttons, pressing first one would make your love the most happy woman in the world, but at the same time, you can never be with her. But pressing the second one would make your love become your girlfriend, but you'd knew for sure, that she'll never be as happy as she could be if you've pressed the first button.
When person is in love, I think that 99% of people would press button 2, and those 1% who would press button 1, I think they'd do it just because they had a false belief, that because they were "good non-egoistic" persons, maybe they'll get a reward later.
So, I'm questioning now, does pure love between man and a woman exists? A pure love without interest, just love for the sake of love. Because I think it doesn't, and that' kind of boring shit. It's kind of unfair in a sense. Because I'm searching for real love, but can't find it because of the upper paradox.
Does real LOVE exist?
Well I really don’t want to be that guy that quotes Rick and Morty, but what people calls “love” is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, then it slowly fades
You're that guy, but to be fair OP is that guy too.
Pure love like in the movies does not exist, that's infatuation. If you really love someone you'll stick to them even when you're not so lovey dovey with each other. Ultimately I think that kind of love is better, it's not so shallow that way. Now get over yourself you fucking idiot
I guess us anons who grew up in broken homes are SOL when it comes to love then.
Pure love as you state it:
>Willing to lose that person and your own satisfaction for their sake
Is false to me. Maybe I'm just selfish, but if pure love existed and everyone pressed button 1, no one would be happy. But that's the point why we press button 2.
Love is journey and an experience, not a reward. Love is two ways. You both give, you both get and together, that's love.
I just wanted to add this too: if you press button 1, the person you loved is at 100 and you're at 0.
Assuming both of you would be at 75 if button 2 was pressed the sum total to me is worth it.
Unless option #1 also damns *you* to a life of no love (or rather, you yourself do) it doesn’t make sense.
This whole chain is a fallacy, an attempt to compare happiness (which is completely subjective) while measuring it as zero-sum
Basically you have two wishes, make a person really happy or alluring a somehow less-happy waifu. Do you imply that loving the person somehow detracts from their happiness? Why not both and make people as happy as possible while having a gf
Also I feel like at least some order of magnitude is required to compare that 99% 1% scenario, since minute difference in the levels of happiness could be seen as trivial for a happy life’s outcome. Not to mention that a looming guilt at “stealing” happiness might affect the guy’s happiness which could result in net happiness loss.
But you are describing one sided love.
Two people in love would have option 3. If you knew they would be happier with you than without and you feel the same then you will choose to be together.
This is real love and it is rare.
Because it is a love based in friendship.
Most people don't have this or the conditions change that makes one unhappy.
Everything you are as a person is a chemical reaction in your brain.
From pain, to your desire to take a shit or drink water, to your thoughts or your feelings, to your memories.
It doesn't help the argument.
>Because I'm searching for real love, but can't find it because of the upper paradox.
No you can't find it because you have a negative preconceived notion towards love.
>what people calls “love” is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, then it slowly fades
You just described lust. Lust hits hard and fades. Love starts slow and grows.
You take your pessimism too far. If a broken home was all it took to eliminate the possibility of love in the next generation, love would have gone extinct long ago.
I really love my husband, and he really loves me. We'd both rather be miserable together than immensely happy but without each other. We'd both press the button 2. And I think that this is what love is about.
My husband and I met each other in horrible times of our lives, and went through hell together, but there wasn't a single day where I would have wanted anything but to wake up next to him, to fight with him, and to love him.
True love isn't complete selflessness, true love is mindless dedication. True love is picking your fight every day.
Humans are basically beings of ego, so yeah, this idea of qualification exactly exists.
If you want Disney love I suggest psychedelics and a qt hippy gf.
Anybody who lets singular things define them will, by that definition, never be defined through love, because love is basically the label you and another person give "all this shit we have and made."
People like you, who live in singular definitions and this black and white kind of thinking, cannot get love because, and this is gonna sting, even if it came up to your face you'd have no idea what it was and would mentally box it into your singular way.
Even now, having suffered in my life I see no reason it should stop me, in fact I seek to use my suffering to ease the suffering of people in similar places. I don't need romance, all I want is people in general around me to be on the same wavelength.
Romantically you’d be hard to find one
But there’s plenty of unconditional love out there eg a mom to a child.
Everything we do is based on self-benefit. The only way it can be called “true love” or “selfless love” is if you are blind to the benefits that you receive from your love. If you are not conscious of how exactly you benefit by sacrificing yourself or giving to others, then that is practically the same as being a selfless person.
>TLDR
True love is blind
1) Love is like a candle. It never goes out by being shared. Love isn’t less because you feel it’s benefits or out are aware or even want it. It feels good.
2) love can be given freely, with full awareness. Without benefit to he giver.
Doing anything that has no chance of benefiting you is nonsensical. When you care for others, you gain a good reputation and someday people will probably care for you. We may not think this way, but it’s why we are so motivated to care for others.
>Doing anything that has no chance of benefiting you is nonsensical
It is also very hard, as almost anything could be framed in a way that makes you appear as if it benefit you or harmed someone else.
For example:
Father, mother and son go to the lake. Mother is drowning. Father jumps into the lake to save her. They both die.
You might say it's selfless because he took the biggest sacrifice, his life, for the sake of the woman he loved.
But you can say he did so to appear to be a good person, or you can say that by doing so he ruined the life of his son.
Eh there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence of people who sacrifice a lot for little or no return.
For some giving love in and of itself is already worthwhile. The internal benefits need not be quantified or realized for it to be less of a love.
And if one derived pleasure from giving love does it actually diminish the value of the given love ?
Since the other is also a self, there is no selfless love between people. Indeed, you should practise on your self, before jumping into the chaotic environment of others.
I know, mom to a child is the purest love. That's why I emphasized "love between man and a woman".
As some people above said, we all do good things for self benefit. If you help granny cross the road, you do it, because you feel good after it, so you can jerk off on yourself saying "I'm such a good person".
But if you do help others, and you suffer because of that, for example, if you decide to donate your kidney, you again don't do it because you really want to help that particular person, but because you help the whole society with such deed, and good society is also good for you, and it can pay off in the future.
So my theory is, that nobody does anything if he does not benefit from it, and there is no way to disprove this statement.
Exactly right that we don't do anything that doesn't benefit us. But the "in love" you're talking about is a feeling and it loses its intensity over time. What does last is the attraction. And if you stick it out long enough you develop a bond that's so powerful that what's best for me becomes what's best for us and that's actually better than those first 2 years.