Distinguishing Between Love and Passion

At times, it is difficult to distinguish between love and passion and while there can be love without passion, love with passion, is far more desirable. A comparison of love and passion with respect to their meaning and inter-relationship will help to answer this question.

Note that there are many different kinds of love and just as many different kinds of passion. In other words, love is not necessarily passion and passion is not necessarily love, even though there are times, when they may seem to be the same thing. 

Love has many different levels, including divine and human love. The same is also true with respect to passion, as it can also be divine or human.

Place love on a continuum from one to ten. Perhaps you might suggest that love without passion, is one out of ten. Love with passion, could be considered in terms of a higher intensity of love and thus be rated as a ten out of ten. By placing passion on a similar continuum, it might become apparent that it is the same kind of situation. Passion without love, would be a one out of ten and passion with love would be a ten out of ten.  

There are always going to be those who consider love and passion as the same thing, but are they really?

The answer to this question is no. Love implies the emotional attachment or feeling that one has for someone or something. Passion more accurately depicts the level of the intensity of a feeling like love, for someone or something.

Note that both love and passion can have negative connotations, or opposites, as well, but even then, they are not the same thing. It is important to understand them within their own contexts.

Let us look at some examples of love, for a moment. A child can love his or her parents and express that love in many different ways. A child can also love an animal, but that love will be a different expression of love. A child can also love his or her toys.

Compare that to passion. A child can be passionate and demonstrate intense feelings with respect to his or her parents, animals or toys. In other words, the degree of intensity simply varies.

Both love and passion in a negative light can also be on a continuum from one to ten, as well. Love, in a negative context would be non-love or even hate, depending upon the degree of intensity. Passion, in a negative context, would essentially be non-passion, or lack of feeling or emotional involvement. That level can also vary.

Both love and passion are typically used in very broad contexts, as well as inter-changeably, but they are definitely different and there can be love without passion and passion without love.