What is love? - discuss.

[huruf]

Love is not the same as subservience or blindeness. You can love unconditinally, that does not mean that you are going to lick the ground the loved one or ones treads. You may be even more severe with those you love, precisely because you do not exact conditions from them. Of course it may involve duty, just as it may involve beauty or joy or learning. Love is a channel for growth adn wisdom, the best one. There is nothing one learns better than what one learns motivated by love, any kind of love, romantic, or fraternal or universal, when the feeling ir real one would go through things that might otherwise not handle.

And all kinds of love, I think, are faces of the divine love, the longing for fusion and identifying with Being.

Salaam

[savage_carrot]

Love is not the same as subservience or blindeness. You can love unconditinally, that does not mean that you are going to lick the ground the loved one or ones treads. You may be even more severe with those you love, precisely because you do not exact conditions from them.

Of course, love even unconditional doesn't have to involve subservience and/or blindness. By unconditional I meant nothing another person does can change the love they feel for them. This I consider unrealistic mostly and/or applicable to a very small set of specific people in very peculiar circumstances. Severity with those you love is a different thing...one may have more at stake or feel/care more for those they love thus may be compelled to act a certain way with them and so on but I am confused as to why one may be more severe with those they love 'precisely because' they do not exact conditions from them? They obviously want them to do certain things, or there is no need for more severity with them as opposed to anyone else. There are still expectations, and those expectations are magnified in a sense because we love them so much.

E.g. Neighbours children and one's own children are playing in your house and there is a fight. One would tend to be more severe with one's own than the others because a) you can b) they are guests and your own should know better c) you want them to have better manners regardless of how others raise their kids...doesn't mean you show them severity precisely because you have no expectations/conditions on your love?

On from that, say your kid grows up to be a monster. Would you still love the kid the way you always did as he is now? Or would your love now take into account what he used to be or what you thought him as, rather than the reality? One can love kids when they are kids,it's kinda instinctive, when they grow up it becomes a different thing as one is dealing with an adult, albeit one we had a hand in nurturing. I know in what cases I've seen, that a child growing up to be jerk in varying shades is loved in ways that really have nothing to do with reality but with our memories or images of what we think of them as or what we want them to be. Is that love, sure it may well be. Are we fooling ourselves? Depends.

Change the kid into a betraying husband now, and the love we felt for the man is by the roadside, but there are a few women out there who will still claim to love the man without any changes regardless of what he did...fewer still who will say philandering is a part of him, it's endearing and I love all of him the way he is...would a mother say that? Maybe. Would his wife? Not particularly. Would this be subservient or blind? In many cases yes it might. In some cases however the possibility exists that the person knows and still genuinely loves. It may be rare but we can't strike that out. It's this type of love that I bring up in my previous post. I don't think it's healthy to love like that in my personal opinion, maybe because I can't imagine loving someone like that, but who am I to judge what another is capable of or not. If they feel unchanging love forever regardless of how screwed up someone is...it is possible, just rare. I don't find that an ideal/pure love however, it just is a form of love.

[huruf]

That is the challenge. To love without contitioning it to expectations. To trust that there every person is redeemable. Not to pprove of what they do, but to try to do your duty, precisely because you love them. If they are monsters, they must be damned difficult to love, but if for any reason anybody loves them, the challenge is to do whatever one can to bring them out of monsterhood, which may be feasible or not. But that is what faith is about and that is what love is about.

I am not saying that if you cannot unmonster somebody that you do not love that somebody or that somehow you are not being capable of love. I mean that it is a challenge, a very tall one. Fortunately there are not all that many monsters.

Other thn that I believe that love comes from God, from our destiny... That we are meant to love whoever we love and the way we do. I do not think we choose whom we love. We get those people that are meant for us, so much for "good" as gor "bad" and in between. We get the experiences we need. And there are loves that are forever and others that have a certain duration. Like with studies. You get trown on you a certain subject for a certain time. You cannot refuse, you must pass that subject.

That is why I also think that one must never think that falling in love is an error, or to have a friend who turns out bad is an error. Love is never an error. It is part of our life's "project" and we must honour the challenges it presents. Fail is not a dishonour, but running away is. It is like laying an egg.

As to being more severe with those you love, it is out of duty. You owe that to yourself, to the relationship you have with that person. You are not in his or her life for worse, but for better. At least I hope. Although there are people who anybody loves or hates, it is always for worse, but that is like the joke abour Jesus and man with cancer.

Salaam

[savage_carrot]

Interesting thoughts as usual, huruf. I suppose for me, it's difficult to understand the concept of redemption based on repeated actions that are destructive. Some part of it is asking why should it be a duty and/or why surround oneself with toxicity...For those that have no choice in loving someone (some might say of course you have a choice), it's something that they do regardless. If done with a higher purpose in mind, knowing full well what the person is and sticking to that all their lives, well, they have all my respect because it definitely is something that denotes a strength of character one usually just reads about in legends.

Duty, joy and learning etc are different aspects I think, that can be factors in whichever relationship one has with something. What I meant when I said that in a previous post was, one may feel beholden to love their family out of a sense of duty, but is that really love? Can one love something out of duty? Not sure, I think it would be difficult. Can one love something because of the joy it brings? Yes, more likely. Learning is across the board. Can you love something because it's beautiful? Yes, more likely, also vice versa, more you love something, the more beautiful it becomes. Then again, there are cases where we can't really pinpoint why we love someone, we just know that we do. Obviously, there must be something there, some underlying reasons why we feel the way we do, I can't be satisfied with well, it just is...but yeah, figuring what that something may be is interesting because it points to a process and gives it a more rational aspect than a mysterious emotion that can strike anyone at any time unaware and we are totally helpless in the face of it.

I kind of disagree regarding choosing who to love being fated, in that case, we might as well say everything is fated to be a certain way, which may or may not be true. I believe our choices are ours and of course, we are meant to learn from everything, even those we choose to love (even if it seems like we had no choice) whether or not it ends up being amazing or awful. Love definitely is a learning experience like other emotions, but it tends to overshadow a lot of the others probably because there is just so much built up around it making it an integral part of our lives as a driving force...disappointment too is just as important I'd say, but it's love's evil step sister and not as glamorous

[Jane]

If God is love;
and love is blind;
and Stevie Wonder is blind;
that means...Stevie Wonder is God.







Edit: Lol, unfortunately I did not come up with this quote myself, but I am not sure who it is attributed to...

Edit 2: I do not actually think Stevie Wonder is God, but I do think he is a tremendously all-round awesome person: 'I just called to say I love you' - Genius.

[Jane]

Peace,

Some men have neanderthal brains when it comes to romantic stuff. Our idea of love is coming home with a piece of meat. Ogg!! ;-)

God bless you

That is fine. Just as long as the 'piece of meat' is not your secretary

[huruf]

Interesting thoughts as usual, huruf. I suppose for me, it's difficult to understand the concept of redemption based on repeated actions that are destructive. Some part of it is asking why should it be a duty and/or why surround oneself with toxicity...For those that have no choice in loving someone (some might say of course you have a choice), it's something that they do regardless. If done with a higher purpose in mind, knowing full well what the person is and sticking to that all their lives, well, they have all my respect because it definitely is something that denotes a strength of character one usually just reads about in legends.

Duty, joy and learning etc are different aspects I think, that can be factors in whichever relationship one has with something. What I meant when I said that in a previous post was, one may feel beholden to love their family out of a sense of duty, but is that really love? Can one love something out of duty? Not sure, I think it would be difficult. Can one love something because of the joy it brings? Yes, more likely. Learning is across the board. Can you love something because it's beautiful? Yes, more likely, also vice versa, more you love something, the more beautiful it becomes. Then again, there are cases where we can't really pinpoint why we love someone, we just know that we do. Obviously, there must be something there, some underlying reasons why we feel the way we do, I can't be satisfied with well, it just is...but yeah, figuring what that something may be is interesting because it points to a process and gives it a more rational aspect than a mysterious emotion that can strike anyone at any time unaware and we are totally helpless in the face of it.

I kind of disagree regarding choosing who to love being fated, in that case, we might as well say everything is fated to be a certain way, which may or may not be true. I believe our choices are ours and of course, we are meant to learn from everything, even those we choose to love (even if it seems like we had no choice) whether or not it ends up being amazing or awful. Love definitely is a learning experience like other emotions, but it tends to overshadow a lot of the others probably because there is just so much built up around it making it an integral part of our lives as a driving force...disappointment too is just as important I'd say, but it's love's evil step sister and not as glamorous

Some people may choose who to love, the same way that they choose the home they want to live in. I do not see anything wrong with that. BUT that is some people not all people. Not by far all people. Many people may still marry and be married and have a "reasonable" family life. BUT some people, not all people.

There are all kinds of people. For some people to choose whom you love is to drive Destiny-God-Fate, or whatever out of their lives, and also impossible. The fall in love and that is it. Satistically I think that the marriages that succeed one way or other is not significant, be it out of chosen love or be it out of fated love (if you want to call it that) all marriages are liable to fail and also to work out well. I have seen many examples of both.

People are different and we do not need a rule that makes anybody feel guilty or idiot for being different. It is like people who have a lot of physical energy and never stop doing everything, spanking the house and everything. Some times they think they are better because the work so much, but the fact is that they are made that way. It is not their merit, but their need, and it is cheating to make out of their need a rule for virtue.

So people who want to choose whom they love, fine, people who fall in love likes tons of bricks, fine. Love of God is for all of them and they enjoy some of God's gifts, to each her or his gift. And never forget to be thankful, no gift of God is poisoned.

Salaam

[Jane]

Can you love something because it's beautiful? Yes, more likely, also vice versa, more you love something, the more beautiful it becomes.

Wow. So love is powerful then? Is not just some 'feeling'. It IS something and it DOES do things.

And if you don't love something it becomes weak or tired - or even ugly?

Hmmmm

[Jane]

Body heat from 'emotional states'...

Researchers from Aalto University in Finland have revealed how emotions are experienced in the body.



Whoever did it is at least trying to make a point about love being powerful anyway....

See more at: http://www.naturalblaze.com/2013/12/research-team-reveals-how-emotions-are.

[JavaLatte]

I think that "love" is also a sign of the existence of God (the Creator),

and I tend to agree with this quote:



"You will never find true love
until you first learn to love Allah"



I don't know whether that quote is right or not, but in my view, it seems to be right/true.