Shades of Eros

Even the ancient Greeks understood that love can be manifested in different forms depending on how it is invoked and how intense it is. However the layers of love can be attempted to be generalized into different categories based on how they came to manifest.

Beauty/Appearance- Most individuals are capable of having a crush with either something or someone. Whenever it's with people it's usually due to their features and when it's with an object it's usually due to its aesthetic. It is a truism that for the common man their societal outlook on certain characteristics may influence the way they judge other people's levels of attractiveness. It is the appearance that ignites a certain spark in the individual that creates the desire of getting to know the other. This can range from their clothes/aesthetic or even facial features that remind the viewer of somebody in the past they used to love and vice versa. There is a difference in finding someone interesting and beautiful rather than seeing them through lustful eyes. Seeing someone as beautiful gauges your interest in a way that may lead to something valuable, whereas being driven by lust is only done so to gratify a sexual desire which is shallow and not commonly considered valuable. The beauty in someone's appearance is also not always prevalent based on first sight. For others (And me personally) one becomes beautiful only when you get to know them. While one may be able to compare someone's attractiveness with societal beauty standards, some may not find any appeal in the standards themselves or any features for that matter without actually getting to know them. While this may have the pros of forming deep relationships that extend a lovely appearance, it also serves in preventing oneself from being both vulnerable and open to making connections. One should not judge or critique how they fall in love or what standards govern it unless it crosses truly ethical concerns. It is okay for love to develop slowly or fast or even not at all despite you wishing it to do so. Everyone is different and while there are grounds of commonality within the sphere of love, that doesn’t mean it ‘normalities’ applies universally.

Connection- Given the provided system, this is the second shade of love. Connection involves surface levels of vulnerability combined with the intuitive gauging on how you should continue to love someone. People who were first found to be beautiful may lose their attractiveness during this stage or increase its intensity depending on the individual. Connection cannot be one sided either, for then the value that comes with love will never find fruition, or only in its temporary illusion. Love which is one sided is not mutual love no matter who declares it to be so. It is also important in this stage to not apply any guise of a personality that you believe would be loved by another. What love is there to be found in guise?

Acceptance/Beauty- This is inextricable from the connective stage. In this phase one finds beauty in their connection, it does not have to be as deep as complete vulnerability. However it serves as a criteria for gauging if one is worthy of being vulnerable to.  I cannot elaborate further on how someone considers another to be beautiful or worthy for that is subjective across the human experience.

Metaphysical Vulnerability- This is when you show everything you’ve buried inside you to the other person. Tearing out your vulnerable heart and presenting it with innocent hands to your partner. Pray that they treat such a gift kindly, for deception up to this stage is unforgivable. This is the stage right before devotion because your interests are slowly alchemized into something greater and worthy of value. Your love for another and the constellations that brought you together feels like a fever dream. It transcends the boundaries of language and is something that could only be felt swirling in the untranslatable heart. If you’ve reached this stage then my prophecy will resonate; heaven is found in another human being. The stars shine a righteous sky in their eyes. 

Devotion- The last stage in this system is where the soul finds true value outside the self. It brings a love that extends greater than all you’ve ever known, including yourself. Here one finds a reason to live, a world in which they can ground themselves in. This stage is also the one that's most heartbreaking if every problem that arises during the other stages is not figured out. If there are no foreseeable problems, then believe me when I say that if this love is mutual it is unbreakable. In this stage one would give the world and themselves up for the other. There is no failure and the couple's connection is divinely inseparable. Their brain may cause disassociation with the vehement heart, but during such devotion, logic doesn’t falter the hearts beating.

Love is associated with connection but based on personal belief they may be extricable. Absolute devotion to another person is not necessary to live a life that is fulfilled. As stated previously, what is valued is subjective. Connection however is necessary for most people if not all people. During the development of the soul, if connection is not fostered between a parental figure or a group that facilitates its similar guidance then the individual may face problems in socializing later on. While people with schizoid personality disorder (for example) may not need or desire as much human connection as others, it still can remain important in their developing stages. Even a connection that is solely based on the premise of business instead of psychological happiness can be considered valuable. 

Various religious teachings entail that the ultimate fulfillment in one's life is dissolving the self and making one's way back to God through his prophetic philosophy. There may be a kernel of truth to this when one considers the equal devotion of oneself and other into a loving relationship as dissolving the body and becoming found in each other. Do not be mistaken, this is not necessarily done through sex, but rather the merging of the psyche. When two people love one another they become more of themselves in each other, they feel more fulfilled as well as more of themselves when adapting each other's mannerisms. Mannerisms themselves may manifest in small things like certain phrases or tics that were passed on through connection. Achieving union, not through God, but through the connection of another person may be considered valuable to another. In love you can also find love or fulfillment for yourself through the eyes of another individual. Through them you are able to find an acceptance that transcends condition. 

Love should not manifest so easily in a person that it only serves to solve the preceding loneliness and desperation in the lonely individual. It is understandable for one to value a love that they currently cannot grasp, however to grovel and subject yourself to anyone who comes your way is regressive. That is not truly what is valuable, it is only a trickster shade of value. The heart may tell the mind that what they're doing is rational if it serves to manifest even the slightest bit of love in the individual. While this may be true to some extent, many end up even more hollow and less fulfilled than when they began their desperate search.