You have heard it said that the Ancient Greeks had a dozen words for love, capturing all of its subtle dimensions—the implicit contrast being that we intellectually impoverished modern English speakers lack the linguistic and philosophical nuance of the Ancient Greeks.  In truth, we have all the same words they have, or at least phrases equivalent to each of their words.  It’s just that the average modern English speakers don’t use all of their words, and use the very few words they do use incorrectly.  The average Ancient Greek was likely just as simple-minded as the average modern American, and therefore left behind just as many records of his brilliance as the average modern American.  We can speak of erotic attraction and infatuation (éros), filial affection (philia), devotion (storge), egotism (philautia), and charity (agape).  If you use the word “love” to mean all of these and more, that’s a reflection on you, not on the language.

There is a reason, though, that you tend to use the word love when trying to describe most of these disparate phenomena.  There is a common thread between them which begs for a single, unified name, and it is to that thread which the word “love” rightly refers.

To love is to focus on something other than the self.

First, note that “love” is properly a verb.  Most of the time, you get this right.  “I love you.”  “I love chocolate.”  You’ll never hear, “I feel love for her,” because love is not a feeling, it’s an action.  You might say, “I’m in love with her,” but what you mean is that you feel erotic attraction toward her.  (You think it’s more than that, but it’s not.  Those instincts are designed to be that powerful, but instincts are all they are.)

You love a person or a thing to the extent that you focus on that thing to the exclusion of yourself.  You may be encouraged by your erotic attraction or your familial devotion to do that, but your erotic attraction or familial devotion are not your love; they are precursors to love, and they carry a very strong danger of distraction.  It is easy, when feeling powerful emotions of attraction, to focus on your emotions of attraction, rather than on the object of your attraction.  To love is to forget about yourself, including your feelings.

So, love is an act, specifically the act of focusing on the other to the exclusion of the self.  If you have performed this act, you likely did not notice it at the time, by definition.  You can’t notice yourself not noticing yourself.  You can think back to it, though, and remember.  The best example you’ll be able to pull from your memory is not of your favorite person but of your favorite hobby.  Whether you are a musician or a fisherman or a videogamer, when you were so engrossed in this activity, so focused on doing it well, and on what you were creating that you forgot about your own existence—forgot even to notice whether or not you were enjoying yourself—that was you engaged in an act of love.

Again, this is wholly separate from your emotions, which often claim the name but are not, in fact, “love.”  They’re feelings, emotions, and emotions are a reaction to a stimulus.  They may encourage you to love, and they may come about as a result of love, but it is the act of focusing, of working to the benefit of some other to the disregard of self, which is the love.

As such, we only love very transiently.  The moment you notice yourself playing your instrument, it becomes difficult to keep playing it.  The moment you reflect on your attention to the loved object, you have distracted yourself and turned your focus to yourself, which is the opposite of love.  Only for that brief moment when you forgot yourself were you truly loving, and such moments are fleeting, which is unfortunate, because only during these moments are you truly alive, and only during these moments does your life have any real value.  The rest of the time, we are each roiling soups of egocentrism.  Egocentrism and all of those emotions which claim the name and for which you congratulate so thoroughly.

To love does not imply any particular feeling, nor any particular action.  I can be warm and affectionate toward that which I love, but usually that is a distraction.  The more I feel, the more likely I am to notice that feeling and then to focus on it, and thus to lose focus on the thing I meant to be loving and, even worse, to congratulate myself for loving so much.  At that point, loving has entirely ceased, and I am only serving myself, doing what I am doing because it is giving me an endorphin high.  I can be angry toward that which I love, or cold, and these too tend to be distractions, but they are not contradictions.  I can kill that which I love, if it is necessary, but killing is not loving, any more than nurturing or giving alms is loving.  Any action taken in the name of love has the potential in truth to be self-serving, and killing is particularly dangerous because it cannot be taken back.  It is final.