Rather than definitions, I think of my declarations as how I use the words. A way to read them might be: I use the word……when I wish to speak of………… And, I can change! They are a temporary attempt to be clear.

When I use the word love, I like to be clear about the domain from which I am speaking. When I speak from the biological domain, I take love as given. It is inherent from birth in all mammals and is therefore a need. As humans become social beings, obstructions to the natural inclination for recurrent interaction emerge in the language. Suffocation, power, and dominance arise in a current language whose logic generates rigid and reward-oriented hierarchies. When I look at the history of human social relations from this domain, I find it is easy to become cynical.

When I speak of human experience from a non-biological domain (say, social), I cannot assume love; it requires some attention and anticipation. It gets enacted when we treat the desires of the other as though they were needs. I like to imagine a world where the obstacles to the natural inclination for recurrent interaction no longer exist; I don’t live in that world now, so a society in which love is pervasive becomes a desire. In order to live as though this was the case, I avoid distinctions between good and evil, right or wrong–only the desirable and undesirable; and, I claim rigid and reward-oriented hierarchies not to be desirable. Dostoyevsky’s poetry offers a temporary reprise.

The forms of interaction we have with infants is different from what we have with our friends which is different from what we have with our partners. The forms of interaction that humans have is different from that of other mammals, as humans interact with awareness in language. I use the word love when I wish to speak of a preference for recurrent interaction with the other in all these cases. As this use of the word in different domains creates problems of mixing/confusing logical types, I tend to reserve use of it for special occasions where the logic won’t interfere.

Of course, a composer can have hierarchical intentions–for example, the compositions commissioned for a dictator. However, by playing with language and dynamics and the dynamics of language, a composer with non-hierarchical intentions can disrupt the status quo, rock the boat, stir the pot. In doing so, a composition holds the hope of new alternatives, opportunities for new language. If we cannot eliminate hierarchical thinking in the current language, maybe we can make it fleeting or floating–undesirable, therefore as temporary as possible.

Need: a want that once satisfied will again become a want

Desire: a want that once satisfied will no longer be wanted
Desires:

would you define the kind of love that exists in parents for their children in the same way you did above?

My guess is, one would want to avoid that the one one loves “suffocates”, and isn’t their a principle intrinsic to love which prevents the “suffocation”?
or does responsibility needs to reside besides love to prevent suffocation

I give you the main source of my thought below. It is the potential (and I suspect it might be) intrinsic to a (certain) concept of love to break the spiral of dominance which interests me. There is a famous passage in which Dostoyevsky stages Christ against the Grand Inquisitor, which might explain better, what I refer to:

“But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him … That was all his answer.”
(Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, book V: Pro and Contra, Chapter 5: The Grand Inquisitor, New York: Plain Label Books, 2002, p. 676.)

However, love falls out of the desire category, I guess, yes.

Would you agree that the notion: ‘I want to be good (in contrast to evil)’ is a desire, and if so one that is probably known by most humans as basic to their (spiritual) survival?
And then, would you agree that most people act on the basis of ‘good intentions’? I look into the world and cannot help but thinking that there are for example wars started and continued etc.. on the basis of good intentions and a notion of responsibility. ‘Good intentions’ do not seem to prevent destruction.

I guess, your ‘to compose’ might be not very far from a definition that Hannah Arendt has made for ‘to speak’.
Can there be commanding compositions?
I would not want a world without composition or responsibility either.

A is better off when B is better off AND B is better off when A is better off. (a desire with desirable intentions)

Let’s live as if….[insert our desires]….

Love: a preference for recurrent interaction with the other.

Responsibility: awareness of our desires with respect to the consequences of our actions. (if so, responsibility involves intention)

Composition: that which would not happen without the composer and the composer’s intentions.

I don’t think I would want a world without responsibility or composition.

Expectations require two – any role does.

Desires one, desirable more than one? If yes:

Desires are cynical because there is no connection to the other?

Desirables are NOT cynical because there is a connection, a synchronicity of will?

Consider the second sentence as stating an intention that arises from the awareness of the desire mentioned in the first. Possible? Desirable?
(am not saying that the issue appears clear to me now — I think, perhaps I created a problem now that is maybe not helpful at all)