Vox et Praeterea Nihil

Love: Companionship in which a shared respect is had between two people. The two "in love" enjoy the other's company not because of a need to gain the other's respect through sacrifice of self but because of a mutual approval of the other's self. That approval brings about a desire not to act in a manner to prove that appreciation but to observe and admire the other. In observing and admiring the other, it betters the life of the observer/admirer. It's not need that inspires love. It's admiration. It's not filling an empty space. It's recognizing another person who has no empty spaces. I'm not as articulate as I want to be , but this is something I'm trying to define to myself. Please add your perspective on the concept of love.

I was raised in a very Christian home... in a weird way. My mom never talked too much about it unless asked while my dad would always want me to pray with him and always talked about how Jesus was the answer to everything, etc, etc. When it came to going to church, we all went as a family religiously (pun intended) until I was about 13-14. My parents said there just wasn't a good church around when we moved to Texas. We moved back to Colorado, but my family didn't start going to church like I assumed they would. I did. At that time, I had so many questions that I knew didn't have answers in Christianity, but I thought I'd drown them out with the soothing voice of a fat, old pastor who took my offerings to God and bought himself three vehicles in one year. If it's not apparent by the last sentence, I grew bitter. The church became more and more obvious in its holy ignorance to my eyes. I then started (quite frantically) searching for a different moral base. Ideas were forming in the back of my head (the front of it was reluctant because they seemed to be... selfish) as to what my life should be and, more importantly, whose it should be. I picked up one thing after another from Buddhism to Existentialism and whatever else until I found The Fountainhead