DEFINITIONS:
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Amy and Robert have a very special way of approaching their lives. The philosophy that they live by affirms a life filled with rational values and exultant rewards. Their definition of romantic love is just as grand. |
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| As Edith Packer, an Objectivist
psychologist, has written,
"Human beings have a need to be perceived as valuable by those they value. Such reciprocal valuing leads to various degrees of love. And the highest form of love, between two soul-mates who are also lovers, is romantic love. An ideal romantic relationship is a thoroughly unique type of relationship. Unlike any other, it involves in its full expression the reciprocal response of the total being of one individual to the total being of another individual. It is an emotional, intellectual, and sexual union, a total union of two souls who recognized each other as mates and who became committed to each other in order to share their innermost values, hopes, and desires. When such a union exists, it becomes an oasis in which the two soul-mates can reveal to each other the deepest and most intimate aspects of their being. It becomes a private place where mutual encouragement and support permit each of them to recharge in order to cope with the sometimes difficult demands of life. It becomes a union in which one lives more fully for oneself by also living for another." |
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Further, as Ayn Rand found,
"One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love." "It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person."
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