Love is not a mere feeling or passion, for feelings are reactive to events or demand a satisfaction such as reacting to an event with anger, or demanding sustenance when hungry. Passions are fleeting impulses that inflame and captivate the soul and decay as fast as they are kindled, but love is a state of the soul. It is not feeling but a constant tendency upwards, to more lofty places and transcending all that is corruptible and dying. The confusion is when one conceives of it as desire or rather lust, which is indeed a passion.
Now love, when directed towards other living beings, should be the kind that contributes to their elevation and to unshackle them from the bondage of the corruptible passions, and not the one that drowns both of them in that - which is not love but the all-devouring lust.
And it is forgiveness, animated by charity and motivated by mercy, that is the means through which love is expressed in relationships between people. To be specific, it is forgiveness that heals all the wounds of the world. Its opposite, which is retribution and vengeance, are whips that one lashes himself with, even before striking the person who wronged him. It consumes the soul of the one that holds it and destroys everything around him also. It is this that isolates people, and by love that they are glued together as a unit which works in harmony.
It is the mark of an unhealthy and sick society that its attitude towards love is that of disdain or that sees it as a fantasy that is only told of in myths and stories, or that it is to be a taboo or something that we should be ashamed of. Or when the society divorces the sacred character from love, it falls into disarray and people begin to tear at each other like ravenous beasts that are thirsty for blood.
Love binds all, and without it the soil in which virtues grow is barren, and that soil would only bring forth the weeds of vice and destruction. It is the beginning and end of virtues, from which they spring from and towards which they strive, since one who despises love or is moved only by self-love has nothing moving him to be good to others and in fact sees it as a burden to be charitable to others without expecting a benefit for himself. When one is as such, which is a quite common thing in these times, he does not see himself as someone who has a responsibility to others but only that others have one towards him on how can they serve him, not how can he serve others, which is the only true way of serving both oneself and also others. For this kind of expression of love is not exhausted from one the more he gives it, but the more it is given the more it is gained.
The current reality is that the world operates, dysfunctionally so, on mutual self-interest and gain in a way as to replace the binding power of loving compassion which is seen as more demanding on the soul and more risky, this reliance on mutual benefit is the most spread disease that one is exposed to in dealing with the world, in that it strips human beings out of their humanity and make them into utilities and means to an end which one is forced to cooperate with out of inconvenience only when shared benefit can be gained.
This is why most people see civilized modern life as a dehumanizing and soul-destructing process of humiliation because instinctively all know that the world forces upon us the pragmatic approach for interacting with people and not the one founded on compassion and authentic self-sacrificial love, which is the only way to true fulfilling existence and which everyone yearns for and desires.
It is no wonder that most people have lost sight of their own souls and do not even think that they have one which they are responsible for, it is that this self-centeredness blinds one not only to others but also to himself, putting an end to the life of the spirit of his soul which is only energized and animated by extending outside of itself.
It is of course good to be practical and realistic but it should never come at the cost of dignity, which is what is so ubiquitous and what deserves correction, not that I expect anything to be solved but I believe that this is the way to have a healthy life in the small-scale and a healthier society on the larger-scale, this concerning the particular, but the principle is far more cosmic than what most recognize.