Love behaves like several different things at once. It’s a feeling shaped by neurochemistry (oxytocin, dopamine, attachment systems), a philosophical commitment (as Fromm, Plato, and Buddhist metta describe), and a daily practice.
Most useful working definition: sustained care for another person’s flourishing, with or without the rush of feeling.
That definition does three things a simpler one doesn’t:
- It separates love from infatuation (which is intense but not necessarily about the other person’s flourishing)
- It allows for love that continues through conflict, boredom, and the years when chemistry has quieted
- It makes love something you do as much as something you feel
None of this means the feeling is unimportant. The feeling is what draws you in, what makes the commitment feel meaningful, what you’re mourning when it goes quiet. But if you build on feeling alone, you’ve built on something designed by evolution to fade.