Love is the answer.

Love will save us all.

Love is love.

We love who we love. It implies that it isn’t a choice.

But there are different kinds of love.

There are 164 words for wind in Icelandic. We have but one word for love and yet it can mean so many things.

The Ancient Greeks named 8 kinds of love.

Eros – the most popular and of the body

Philia – of the mind and friendship

Storge – familial and familiar

Ludus, playful and emotional love – between new lovers

Mania or obsessive love, triggering survival instinct and possession. This one is not love.

Pragma – enduring and based on mutual effort, equal on both parts, becomes unconscious

Philautia – the love of oneself, because if you don’t have love for yourself, how can you give love to anyone else.

Agape – selfless love, unconditional love, without desire or expectation, of the spirit

But we are talking about romantic and domestic love when we talk about the inequality and abuse that happens to women in the name of love.

Eros – obviously, we need this to get started. Then is Ludus, playful and emotional. This is the fun part. Hopefully there’s some Philia in there so that Pragma might develop through friendship, trust, equality and mutual effort between two partners.

How do we do equal? How does respect play into this? If you respect yourself, you would not hurt yourself, so then by extension, you cannot hurt another. This is where the Philautia comes in. We are all messy and complicated and imperfect. We cannot come to one another only when we are clean and clear and perfect. The damage done to us is not our fault. But it is our responsibility to heal ourselves from it.

So that we can meet one another. And see them for who they are. And be seen. For who we are. Be as you as you can be. Find your people. Create a love with equality and balance.

Choose to love. It’s a feeling and an action.

Love well.