Is love best when it is fresh? For many, the answer is a resounding โyes.โ The intense experiences that characterize new love are impossible to replicate, leading to wistful reflection and even a repeated pursuit of such ecstatic beginnings.
Aaron Ben-Zeโev takes these experiences seriously, but heโs also here to remind us of the benefits of profound loveโan emotion that can only develop with time. In The Arc of Love, he provides an in-depth, philosophical account of the experiences that arise in early, intense loveโsexual passion, novelty, changeโas well as the benefits of cultivating long-term, profound loveโstability, development, calmness. Ben-Zeโev analyzes the core of emotions many experience in early love and the challenges they encounter, and he offers pointers for weathering these challenges. Deploying the rigorous analysis of a philosopher, but writing clearly and in an often humorous style with an eye to lived experience, he takes on topics like compromise, commitment, polyamory, choosing a partner, online dating, and when to say โI love you.โ Ultimately, Ben-Zeโev assures us, while love is indeed best when fresh, if we tend to it carefully, it can become more delicious and nourishing even as time marches on.ย