Question 6B

Even though loving a person in the end can hurt, it is not the paine that a person feels that measures if what that person actually felt was love or how significant that love was. The amount of emotional pain that people feel is a result of love and not the other way around. People feel emotional pain after a realationship ends because they put themselfs out there on the line for the sake of love and for the person that they really cared for. They create this fantasy of what love is or could be even if they are a gernerally realistic person. Then when the loving realationship ends, unlike in all of those romantic comedy's they have seen so many times before, they feel the emotional pain. It is not the act of loving a person that ends up hurting them but, the emotions and time that you put into the realationship that ended up just being a waste of time and effort. Overall love can cause much pain but, its the love and feelings that cause this not the paine measuring the amount of love.

6B

Is pain from the significance of love? Or is the significance of love because of pain? Both are true in different ways. Let's start with the first question. Pain can some from love in many different things. Love is a strong commitment and it puts out feelings, thoughts, and desires in the open for two people to share. By doing that it instills a lot of trust in the other person, who can easily betray the other's trust by using that against them in a painful argument or betraying those feelings by lying or cheating on the spouse. So basically, pain can stem by what your spouse can do to betray the other's trust and feelings that have been instilled in the relationship. However, pain from love doesn't always come from spouses cheating, lying, and betraying each other. It can also come from the opposite, like significantly caring for him or her and constantly worrying about him or her. It also comes from caring more about the spouse than he or she cares about you and even unrequited love. There are many different ways like that where pain stems from the signifiacnce of love. However, the significance of love can come from pain too. If a couple goes through a really hard time with lots of loss and lies and get through it together while remaining strong, that makes love really significant and it's stemming from pain. Also, losing a spouse is another reason why the significance of love comes from pain. Grief can overwhelm someone, but also help them realize how important the spouse was to their lives. And as I mentioned before, if a spouse betrays the other by cheating, lying, or fighting him or her, that not only agrees with how pain can come from the significance of love, but how the significance of love is from pain. So both sayings go either way because love is pain. You put in a lot of trust, hard work, and commitment to keep the love going. Even if the spouse does nothing wrong to betray the other, it is still pain because the spouse is always worrying and caring for the other, and in fear of the pain that would occur if something bad were to happen to the other. Despite that both sides of the argument are true, I think I agree more with that pain comes from the significance of love because it seems that with so much effort put into a committing relationship, there is bound to have a lot more pain that comes with the effort.

B - "Caught in a Bad Romance"

Pain and love always go hand-in-hand, but the bigger question is whether our love is significant because of the pain we feel, or do we feel pain because the love was significant? That sentence, however, sounds very awkward and confusing, so here is an example. Lets say your married and your wife leaves for 6 months for a trip to Florida and you're left alone in your house. You will probably miss her a lot. You could feel that your pain of missing her is because your love for each other is so strong and significant OR you could feel that your love is sufficiently great because of the pain you feel when she leaves.

Love requires you to open your soul to another person, which in turn gives them the ability to hurt you, by say, leaving you or cheating on you. And if you do experience this let down, you will obviously feel pain. Some people may say that the reason you are feeling this pain is because your love was significant. In a serious relationship or marriage, each person puts a lot of effort into the relationship. The relationship also brings you happiness and you experience great things with your loved one. Other people may say that your love was so significant because you are feeling pain now that it is gone. Once the person has hurt you, you feel pain because the love and experiences you shared with each other have disappeared. This suffering that you go through is supposed to illustrate the significance of your relationship.

It is hard for me to decide which side I agree with because of the complexity of love itself, but I would say that I think we feel pain because the love was significant. Love is an extremely powerful emotion, with the ability to consume your thoughts and actions. It can even change your entire mind-set and way of thinking. When you are in love, you also share many special and significant experiences with your partner. Once that feeling and those experiences are ripped from you, you will most definitely feel extreme pain. And if your love had no significance in your life, wouldn't you not feel any pain once it ended? I also feel that if pain makes your love significant, that means pain is always a part of love, and that is untrue for those couples that "live happily ever after."

Question B

Emotional pain and suffering is and will always be a part of love. It truthfully makes no difference whether that love be a lifetime, head-over-heels commitment or a seventh grade crush; emotional pain will always be part of the package. The interesting part is that it makes perfect sense; when you care about someone and put forth energy and emotions into your love for them, pain is inevitable because so much risk is involved. There will always be the chance that your lover does not feel as strongly for you as you do for them. There will always be the chance that they will fall in love with another person instead. They might not be attracted to you or they might not share the same goals in terms of relationships as you. It is possible that they may have ulterior motives for the relationship or they may take advantage of you in some way. The risks involved are countless, however we all seem to take them when falling in love. This is a universal statement that most of us can agree on, what we can't seem to figure out is whether this pain exists due to the significance of love or if the love is significant because of this pain.

If love is significant because of the pain it induces, that means all events that are painful are significant. I can't seem to fully accept this theory. Being stung by a bee is hardly a significant event during the summer, however it can certainly induce pain. Failing a spanish quiz is painful, but not significant. This list could continue on for some time. These casual, small events that caused pain were not miraculously made significant because they happened to cause pain, so why should love work the same way? Love is painful and love is significant, but this significance is not caused by the pain, I feel quite the opposite actually.

I believe that the pain we feel exists because of the significance of love. When someone has found love, it is an incredible emotion for them that can hardly be expressed. These overwhelming feelings of affection and passion are very significant in a person's life. Their behavior changes as well as their attitude and general outlook on life. There is a lot that changes once love is found because it is such a significant emotion. This incredible emotion has such a large size and significance that pain is inevitable. As discussed, before this pain is caused by the risks one takes when loving. In The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus, it is suggested that pain often occurs because of the fear that those in love have that their love is not returned. This fear is painful and more so is the actual feeling of unrequited love. The pain resulted from these situations would not exist if these situations weren't of high significance.

Although the two sides to this question are separated by a very fine line, I am confident that the significance of love causes pain, not the other way around. If love was not significant, pain would not be an issue, however we all know that love is significant therefore pain is felt.

6B

Do we find love important and therefore feel its intrinsic pain, or does that very same pain cause us to value love so highly?

Firstly, this whole question is based off of the belief that pain is in fact a part of love, inseparable and constant. That's not to say that love is only pain; few people would say that when they kiss the one they love they do not experience some happiness. There may be, though, those who say that their love only causes them happiness. However, do they not experience some fear that they may lose their loved one? Even if they don't, by virtue of being utterly secure in their relationship, fear their beloved leaving them, they must fear some external force separating them: Death, for example. Therefore, at the very least love leads to fear, which is a type of pain.

However, does love only lead to pain? Does pain itself not lead to love? If a person feels love, they want the object of their affection. In fact, they act towards their loved one very much like another may act towards a cherished or sought after material good. Perhaps, then, people feel pain when wanting another person, and seek requited love as a relief for that pain.

But, why do people feel pain, why do they want that person? In the tale of the Lady of Astolat, the lady dies from the pain she feels, from the love she feels for Lancelot. Where did this pain come from? It could not have appeared for no reason, from no cause, with the only relief coming from Lancelot's affection. No, the Lady of Astolat's pain must have come from her regard for and love of Lancelot.

Still, that doesn't answer the question of if pain causes love to be valued, or if the high value of love causes pain. If we take the Lady of Astolat's tale to hold truth in its core, then we must conclude that the intensity of her love, the importance it held for her, caused her to feel pain when it was unrequited. Somehow, though, that answer feels incomplete. Why did the Lady of Astolat need so badly for Lancelot to requite her love?

Perhaps it is because the answer is that the value and pain of love both cause each other; neither one is the first of the cycle as they are, in fact, the same. Loving someone doesn't just cause pain. Loving someone *is* pain; love is the need to have them by you, and that need is a need because you fear losing that person or being deemed not good enough by a person whom you hold in the highest esteem. And yet, you so fear because you need. Pain comes from the importance we place on love, but that very importance comes from the pain and intensity that is inseparable from loving another person.

6b

b. Just because experience of loving someone can hurt us emotionally, is the emotional pain itself just a matter of coincidence or is it a special sign that the experience is more vital in some way? Perhaps another way of looking at the question: is the experience significant because we feel pain or do we feel pain because the experience is significant?

I believe that we feel pain because the experience is significant, not that the experience is significant because we feel pain. In every relationship, youre going to feel some kind of pain. Whether it's when it ends or something that happens during the relationship, youre going to feel pain at some point. I could see how people would think this though because in some relationships, you feel more pain then others. This is probably an indication that the relationship was special or something but I think that the other way is more indicative of a special experience.

The better experience you have in a relationship, the more painful it will be. If you love someone, youre emotions involving that person become a lot greater. When something happens that can cause pain and its more painful then normal, then thats when you know that the relationship that youre in is significant.

Ouch... That Was Significant

Is a relationship significant because it hurts us, or are we hurt because our relationship was so significant?

It depends on who you're asking. A man who recently got dumped by his girlfriend for his best friend (whom she had been cheating with) will probably say that the relationship played a significant role in his life because he got hurt so bad by it. In other words, he would claim that the relationship would not be significant at all because it was hardly a "relationship". However, if you ask a man who had a wife that loved him as much as he loved her after she tragically dies in a car accident what he thinks, he would probably say that he is hurt because their relationship meant the world to him.

According to Andreas Capellanus' The Art of Courtly Love, suffering can result from love in another situation. This situation is when a man devotes his time going after a woman who doesn't love him back. He says that this is the most painful situation (similar to the first example i proposed) because "his efforts are accomplishing nothing". If nothing is accomplished, then obviously no real relationship is ever established. Because the experience ends in "nothing", how can the experience be significant. By this it seems evident that Andreas Capellanus feels that an experience with love is significant because it hurts us because, ultimately, he thinks that love will always bring somebody pain at some point.

I, however, do not have much experience with love. The only real relationship I ever had though left me very hurt, and I ended up with a similar mindset that that portion of my life was significant only because it hurt me so much, and i could learn from it. From that experience, I convinced myself that investing too much emotional attachment to once person just sets you up for greater suffering when that person goes away. So, I decided to put off love for a while. Maybe in the future though, I will meet somebody that can change my ideas of this.