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The way you describe 'love' there seems romanticized, and it seems odd that you suggest that there is a 'proper' way to love. That seems to me like suggesting there's a "proper" way to be angry. It's an emotion. You might suggest that anger needs to be well-managed to avoid destructiveness, but you wouldn't speak of 'the proper way' to be angry.

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Of course there is a proper way to love - to put the interest and development of the loved person in perspective always. That becomes complex as you learn to love every other person in whose life you're invested, and to love humanity in general. The complexity increases as you factor yourself into the whole picture by loving yourself. However, the 'activity of loving' does not occur in those distinct parts sequentially but simultaneously: they all form the activity. Love is not so much an emotion as it is a decision, an activity. It is work in itself, not a feeling. Really, love starts when the feeling diminishes in the face of reality.

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