It's an emotion. Being someone with Asperger's who has trouble interpreting emotions, and sometimes expressing them, I've spent a lot of time (probably more than most, probably more than I should) thinking about it.
From a decidedly clinical standpoint it, like any other emotion, is a product of evolution and serves a logical purpose (
fuck you Star Trek). Love bonds people together to create close knit units for mutual protection. This, essentially, helps the propagation of the species since there is safety in numbers, and this also creates a support structure for raising children, giving them a better chance to survive and prosper. This also explains much of what surrounds love. Jealousy exists to protect that unit and help ward off any potential mating competition. The tendency toward protectiveness, especially among males, is there to make sure that the mate will survive and be more likely to bear young. Really, it's all very instinctual. It's one of the basest parts of our nature, and one of our most primal needs since it fulfills such a vital function in helping to continue the species.
From a functional standpoint, as it says in the song "Tear Drop" by Massive Attack, "Love, love is a verb, love is a
doing word." Love is decidedly
not passive. Ultimately love is work. People have been raised on fairy tales to believe that it's some type of self-sustaining thing that is won through romance, then everyone gets to relax and live happily ever after without bothering to invest any time or effort into keeping things passionate, intimate and interesting. Fact seems to be though that when the romance dies, or really any other part of the relationship, the love will too. As a result love is a very reciprocal thing. Both parties need to be invested in it, and working at it, or it will tend to wither. Each person must try to make the other happy, to please them, to sympathize with them, to understand them, listen to them, to make them feel wanted and desired. Which isn't to say that it's
hard work, or at least not always. When both parties are emotionally invested and, as said, it's reciprocal, then time invested in the relationship is time well spent. Making someone you care about smile, or laugh, or cry (in the good way) in turn makes you feel better about yourself even beyond the reciprocity. So it's work, but in a healthy relationship (which is perhaps the minority) it's work you should like to do.
From a practical standpoint, love is greater than the sum of it's parts. In practice it's often overwhelming. It can be disruptive, distracting, destructive, selfish, and petty. Love has made good people do shitty things. Love has led to pain, betrayal, murder, suicide even wars. If there is a terrible thing then chances are that someone, somewhere has done it for love. Which isn't to say that love is bad, merely that is can be
powerful, and anything that powerful can corrupt. Love can also soothe, give meaning to life, mend broken hearts, conquer petty hates and bigotries, inspire passion and creativity and valor, be immensely humbling, selfless, self-sacrificing. It can make you do things you never thought yourself capable, both good and bad. It can make you a better person or a worse one. It can fill you with so much hope and joy that it makes you cry and your heart ache, and it can smash you to pieces.
It's kind of important.
