While listening to NPR on the way home from work yesterday, I heard a great commentary on love by a philosopher named Alain de Botton. There aren’t transcripts available but you can listen to it on the NPR web site:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4498778
I’m not going to try and paraphrase it, but I thought it was a great article and worth sharing so here it is.
Cheers,
-Marc
I heard it too, and listened intently. Basically, he pointed out that Valentine’s day celebrates the modern (last 200 years +/-), immature western ideal of the beginning of love, or as I understood it, the infatuation stage, with focus on the current American “we are all worthy of love just because we exist” mode.
He contrasted this with the Greek idea that because we are both good and bad, worthy and unworthy, love actually has to be earned, and is not a birthright. He went on to talk about the responsibility of actually having to earn love on a daily basis, through our actions and practices of rising above our darker tendencies.
But don’t take my word for it, listen to the link 