Need To Know

It begins with a glance. A casual conversation. A burst of laughter shared over a private joke. Suddenly, what once was ordinary seems transformed. A girl notices the way a boy’s eyes light up when he talks about music. A boy finds himself daydreaming about someone he’s only known for two weeks. For adolescents—really, for anyone—the first experiences of affection can feel like something between magic and madness. But what is this thing we call love? And how can we tell whether it is true?

Our culture offers plenty of answers, most of them driven by emotion and desire: Love is a spark. Love is chemistry. Love is passion. In films, songs, and social media, love is often portrayed as something that sweeps us off our feet—a mysterious force we can’t control. While these feelings are real and often beautiful, they do not, by themselves, tell us whether our love is genuine or good.

That question—what makes love true—demands deeper reflection. And it leads us to consider something that modern culture often overlooks: intention. What do I mean when I say I love someone? What am I hoping for? What am I giving—or expecting to receive?

The philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe once wrote that intention is not just a psychological state but a window into the moral meaning of our actions. To love well, we must mean well—not in the sense of vague goodwill, but through deliberate choices aimed at another person’s good. Franz Brentano, another philosopher, described love not simply as emotion but as a kind of value-recognition—a way of acknowledging the real worth of another person. And Marie-Henri Beyle, better known by his pen name Stendhal, described the wild intensity of love through a process he called crystallization—the idealizing transformation of someone ordinary into someone magnificent in the lover’s eyes.

These thinkers challenge us to look beneath the thrill of affection and ask: Is what I’m feeling leading me toward truth, beauty, and goodness—or away from it? Is my love helping me become more of who I’m meant to be, or is it clouding my judgment, even my conscience?

This essay is an invitation to take love seriously—not in a heavy or fearful way, but as something worthy of our full attention. It’s about learning to love not only deeply, but truly.

What To Do

Let’s imagine a scenario. You’ve developed feelings for a close friend. You think about them constantly. You try to be around them more often. One evening, you consider confessing your feelings. But before you do, a question stirs: Why? Are you hoping to start a relationship based on mutual respect and care? Or are you looking to satisfy a longing inside you—perhaps for validation, comfort, or belonging?

This moment of pause—this questioning of motive—is the beginning of wisdom.

Anscombe would remind us that the moral quality of love depends not only on what we do and outcomes, but why we do it. If we say “I love you” while treating the other person as an object of our desires, then our action, however kind it seems, may lack integrity. Intentions matter. They shape the soul.

Brentano pushes us even further. He insists that love, to be correct, must be directed toward something truly valuable. This doesn’t mean our beloved must be flawless, but that we must love them for their actual worth—not for illusions we’ve created. Love becomes disordered when we cling to our fantasies rather than seeing the other as s/he really is.

Here’s where Stendhal enters. His idea of “crystallization”—where we perceive ordinary traits as extraordinary—can be enchanting but also misleading. The danger is not in admiration, but in mistaking projection for truth. We might fall in love with an image we’ve created, rather than a person who exists. That’s why it’s essential to stay grounded in reality and self-honesty.

So, what should you do?

Examine your motives. Before acting on feelings of love, ask: Am I loving this person for their good, or for how they make me feel? What do I hope will happen? Would I still care for them if they didn’t return my affection?

Be attentive to the other’s value. Practice seeing people as they truly are, not as we want them to be. Love grows in clarity, not confusion.

Let love be generous. Real love wants the good of the other—even when it costs something. It may mean stepping back, being patient, or letting go.

Cultivate your soul. Love doesn’t grow well in a cluttered heart. Spend time in silence, in prayer, or in journaling. Ask for the strength to love wisely and well.

Talk to trusted mentors. Don’t try to figure everything out alone. Seek the wisdom of people who live with integrity—parents, mentors, spiritual guides.

To love with intention is to love with depth. It is to act not from impulse but from clarity and care.

Key Points

Feelings are real but not always reliable. Love that lasts is grounded in reciprocal intentions, not just emotion.

Intention matters. Why you love shapes how you love—and whether your love is good.

Value-recognition is key. See the person, not just the fantasy. Correct love honors the real worth of another.

Love is a moral and spiritual act. It’s not just about connection, but about formation—of character and conscience.

True love is generous. It seeks the good of the other, even when it costs something.

Learn More

The idea that true love is something you choose—besides something you feel—is both liberating and demanding. It means you are not at the mercy of your emotions. You can love well. You can learn to mean it.

This doesn’t mean denying your feelings. Love often begins in desire, in admiration, in longing. But for love to grow into something noble, something enduring, it must be nurtured with intention and guided by truth.

In spiritual traditions, love is often seen as the highest virtue—an echo of the divine. Whether it’s the biblical call to love your neighbor as yourself, or the mystical longing for union with God, true love is always directed outward and upward. It is a movement of the soul toward what is most real and yet ultimate.

Anscombe challenges us to think of love as a matter of ethical seriousness. Brentano invites us to purify our love by aligning it with value. Stendhal reminds us to be aware of how love can enchant—and mislead. Together, they offer a vision of love that is at once amorous, reflective, satisfying, and responsible.

If you want to grow in love, don’t just follow your heart. Form it. Educate it. Open it to the wisdom that comes from within—and beyond.

Links & Books

Still curious?

If you would like to know even more about the topic of this post, I suggest running intelligent prompts in a few leading Generative AI chatbots (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Llama, xAI, Copilot, etc.).

You may also visit Aeon, a magazine of quality essays that helps curious folks make sense of themselves and the world, and Psyche, a magazine with a psychological focus, at https://aeon.co and https://psyche.co, respectively. Search the sites’ content via a category, tag, or phrase reflecting your interest.

Here is a good essay regarding love…

https://psyche.co/ideas/its-possible-to-become-wiser-in-who-you-entrust-with-your-love

There is always Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_love

By the Featured Thinkers:

• On Love by Stendhal — A classic meditation on the phases of love, including the idea of crystallization.
• Intention by Elizabeth Anscombe — A foundational philosophical text on the role of intention in human action.
• The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong by Franz Brentano — An exploration of value-recognition and moral experience.

Complementary Spiritual and Philosophical Works:

• Confessions by Saint Augustine — Especially Book X, where Augustine explores love, desire, and memory.
• Works of Love by Søren Kierkegaard — A Christian existentialist take on love as duty and spiritual act.
• No Man Is an Island by Thomas Merton — Reflections on the inner life and the call to love as self-giving.
• The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis — An accessible discussion of affection, friendship, eros, and charity.

I also recommend visiting the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which publishes college-level articles, at https://iep.utm.edu/. Search the site’s essays via a phrase reflecting your interest.