Essay Sample: Unveiling the Meaning of Love, the Greatest Virtue of All

Love is a virtue that has existed in the world for so many years yet fewer people can describe what exactly it means. Love was instigated by God right from the creation period when he created Adam and Eve. From this very period, love kept these two first human beings inseparable since they did everything together. Love is the greatest god yet many poets and authors have failed to acknowledge it in their writings as they do to other gods like salt. Many authors do not even know the meaning of love itself. To derive the deep thought of love, one needs to first know what it is, what it is like and then what its works are. According to Diotima, love is neither beautiful nor ugly as people put it since not every that is not beautiful is ugly. Love is a spirit that exists as either mortal or immortal and needs to be reproduced in beauty.

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Naturally, love is not mortal nor is it immortal. It is never comprehensive minus possessions and is not rich either. Love is in the center of wisdom and ignorance. No god adores wisdom or desires to be wise since all that is wise does not crave for wisdom. Conversely, nothing which is ignorant would like to be wise, for ignorance makes oneself content although s/he is never beautiful or good. Therefore if one thought that s/he wanted something, then they would not desire what they think they do not require. Those who adore wisdom and are neither wise nor ignorant are placed in between these two dissipations and among them is love, for love cherishes things that are beautiful and wisdom is beautiful. Such is the beauty of being a lover and not just being loved. The idea of adorning gorgeous stuff is that the paramour of attractive pieces of stuff wants to own such stuff forever. The same way the lover of good things would wish to own these things to eternity since they bring happiness.

Love is not common to everyone and that why we do not say that everyone is in love. People love what makes them happy, and love does exactly that, yet not everyone is in love. People coin love for all those that seem to practice anything close to it, even though they are not exactly in love. Just the same way people who are creative in writing are referred to as poets even though what they practice is not poetry as such. This is because people have divided out a distinct type of adoration that they denote by a term that signifies the unabridged (Nehamas & Woodruff, pg. 51), which is love. The chief point here is that each craving designed for virtuous stuff or contentment stays the ultimate and traitorous adoration in everybody. However, "those who pursue this along any of its many ways-through making money or through the love of sports, or philosophy..." are neither said to be enamored nor to be courtesans. Such words are only used when people are dedicated to a single type of love (Nehamas & Woodruff, pg. 51).

Lovers are said to be seeking for their complimentary half but that is not exactly the point that Diotoma believes. Diotima trusts that this can only remain so only if the half "turns out to be good as well" (Nehamas & Woodruff, pg. 52). People are always ready to amputate there body parts that become deceased since they do not want what belongs to them to be theirs unless it is good. Everyone desires that all that is good to belong to them and that which is bad belongs to someone else since everybody always loves the good things. Therefore, love can be referred to as the craving to own the virtuous incessantly.

According to Diotima symposium, there are two kinds of love with one being coined around body desires. This one is referred to as the common or vulgar love and is usually condemned since it aims to only satisfy the lust of the body after which it flees away. The other type of love is the one called the heavenly love which involves a connection between both the body and soul. This type of love is said to exist beyond death and can make lovers even die for their loved ones. This is what is referred to as true love. Diotima believes that people or even animals choose their partners based on beauty. This is so because they both want to bring forth children who are beautiful and admirable since they retain the memory of the parents forever. With beauty, it does not mean that the lover should only focus on bodily appearance but also the beauty of the soul and ideas for these are the vital types of beauties to be admired by everyone (Nehamas & Woodruff, pg. 58). There is much in the beauty that should be considered than just looks, there are virtues that are beautiful and should be embraced in all spheres of life.

Love does not require splendor but facsimile and delivery in magnificence. It needs reproduction since it has the desire to exist forever. A lover should, therefore, crave for immortality and goodness at the same time since love wants to own the virtuous endlessly. Love is implicated in animals just the same way in humans and they too would do anything for the sake of what they love. They are ready to endure whichever pain that comes just to make sure that they remain immortal by siring new progenies in place of the old.

Love occurs in between mortality and immortality and desires to be reproduced in beauty. All creatures on earth crave to preserve themselves in existence forever and that is why they strain very hard to protect their loved ones. Love is always drawn towards beauty, which involves that physical looks. People always want to be associated with good things and that is why they will always consider beauty when choosing who their partners will be. Love is unique to everyone sink, not all things that are linked are said to be in love. Diotima's place in the symposium is to bring out the rightful meaning of love and the actual drivers for this love. Socrates' friends had clues to what love was but did not understand it and that is why Diotoma was brought in to depict the true picture of love and its association with beauty and immortality.

Work Cited

Nehamas Alexander, and Paul Woodruff. Plato, Symposium. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 1989. Print.