The paradox of love is that it is so simple that it has been described with great precision for thousands of years, but even today, being subjective, no one can really know what love is. A feeling, a truth, a way of life; valid reasons, but so are those that define it as a prison, anguish and impulse.
Perhaps the best way to begin to define it individually is by learning about what the great ancient philosophers had to say about such an important subject. Plato wrote the Socratic dialogues in which he exposes the teachings of his teacher and it is in “The Banquet” that Plato recalls a meal in honor of Agathon, who had won the last literary contest in the city. From there, we learn what can be confused with love (which is also valid) and what Socrates, the great teacher, thinks it really is.
love is not perfect
Agathon says that love is beautiful, good and that he yearned for beauty. How many times have we not fallen victim to someone’s beauty and idealized an image that does not exist? Socrates reminds that if Eros aspires to beauty, he cannot be beauty himself and therefore he cannot be a God. This lesson invites us to stop thinking of love as the culmination of everything, as a perfection that will solve our lives, because that is a fantasy.
love is bravery
After several eulogies among which love is spoken of as the search for your other half, the company of a pupil to educate and other things, Socrates says that love is something much more complex, since it is between the earthly, but also in the divine. According to him love is not only beauty, but what makes you want to live an honest life, what gives you a cause to risk your life and more.
love is virtuous
Socrates establishes different lines between love, from the most superficial, to the immortal beauty of the soul. He says that first we love the beautiful body, but that leads to disappointment, so we love not the beauty of the body, but of the soul. This leads to the beauty of ideas, which allows us to love correctly.
According to Socrates, although there will always be a kind of disappointment, love is what motivates us, what moves us and what is worth living for, because even for a man who lived for ideas, he knew that knowing only it was possible through love.