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    Love is our highest value, what we all crave
    and what we believe makes us fundamentally
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    human, but it is also the source of considerable
    anxiety. Chiefly, we worry whether we are
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    entirely normal because it frequently feels
    as if we are not experiencing love the way
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    we should be. Society is subtly highly prescriptive
    in this regard. It suggests that to be a decent
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    person, we should all be within sexual relationships
    and furthermore, that within these, we should
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    ‘love’ in a very particular way: we should
    be constantly thrilled by our partner’s
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    presence, we should long to see them after
    every absence, we should crave to hold them
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    in our arms, to kiss and be kissed by them
    and – most of all – want to have sex with
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    them every day or so. In other words, we should
    follow the script of Romantic ecstasy throughout
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    our lives. This is beautiful in theory and
    hugely punitive in practice. If we’re going
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    to define love like this and peg the idea
    of normality accordingly, then most of us
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    will have to admit to ourselves (with considerable
    embarrassment) that we don’t know much about
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    love – and therefore don’t qualify as
    decent, sane, or normal people. We’ve created
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    a cult of love radically out of line with
    most of our real experiences of relationships.
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    This is where the Ancient Greeks can help.
    They realised early on that there are many
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    kinds of love, each with their respective
    virtues and seasons – and that a good society
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    requires us to append a correct vocabulary
    to these different states of the heart, lending
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    each one legitimacy in the process. The Greeks
    anointed the powerful physical feelings we
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    often experience at the start of a relationship
    with the word ‘eros’ (ἔρως) . But
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    they knew that love is not necessarily over
    when this sexual intensity wanes, as it almost
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    always does after a year or so in a relationship.
    Our feelings can then evolve into another
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    sort of love they captured with the word ‘philia’
    (φιλία) normally translated as ‘friendship’
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    though the Greek word is far warmer, more
    loyal and more touching than its English counterpart;
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    one might be willing to die for ‘philia’.
    Aristotle recommended that we outgrow eros
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    in youth, and then base our relationships
    – especially our marriages – on a philosophy
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    of philia. The word adds an important nuance
    to our understanding of a viable union. It
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    allows us to see that we may still love even
    when we are in a phase that our own, more
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    one-sided vocabulary fails to value. The Greeks
    had a third word for love: agape (ἀγάπη).
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    This can be best translated as a charitable
    love. It’s what we might feel towards someone
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    who has behaved rather badly or come to grief
    through flaws of character – but for whom
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    we still feel compassion. It’s what a God
    might feel for his or her people, or what
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    an audience might feel for a tragic character
    in a play. It’s the kind of love that we
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    experience in relation to someone’s weakness
    rather than their strength. It reminds us
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    that love isn’t just about admiration for
    virtues, it’s also about sympathy and generosity
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    towards what is fragile and imperfect in us.
    Having these three words to hand – eros,
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    philia and agape – powerfully extends our
    sense of what love really is. The Ancient
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    Greeks were wise in dividing the blinding
    monolith of love into its constituent parts.
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    Under their tutelage, we can see that we probably
    have far more love in our lives than our current
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    vocabulary knows how to recognise.
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    did you know that The School Of Life is actually a place?
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    Ten places in fact. Campus' all over the world from Melbourne to London, Taipie to Istanbul.
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    With classes and books and much more. Please click on the link below to explore more.
Title:
Sandbox
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Captions Requested
Duration:
01:46:39
mahdi CH edited Cherokee subtitles for Sandbox
mahdi CH edited Cherokee subtitles for Sandbox
mahdi CH edited Cherokee subtitles for Sandbox

Cherokee subtitles

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