Love & Attachment

Torakx

Ok something I have been pondering on and off since I was 20 odd years old.
Is love selfish and is true love the act of accepting someone completely without any expectations or requirements for said acceptance?

I had read a book earlier this year written by a sort of guru/therapist/ex-Jesuit priest.
It was about self awareness and the chapter on attachment or detachment was the most interesting to me.
I felt this is something a majority of people could do with thinking about deeply. However all conversations on this topic or with most people tend to end with them thinking that if you detach from people you can't love them because feelings require attachments and love = feelings... or something like that, maybe the other way around haha
Well, people seem to just not enjoy this idea at all.

For me I am unsure and never came to any solid conclusions.
But I am leaning more toward the idea that if I love someone truly, I should not have requirements or a price for that love, even to be loved back to take it to another level.
Even a monogamous relationship when thinking about it, might be setting limits on peoples freedom and later cause resentment or attachments with requirements to perform a certain way and be outside of ourselves.

However I do not imagine I would want to share a partner with someone else, but still think logically and according to my thinking, I should consider it ok.
Is it a form of ownership to require another to be faithfull to you in a sexual manor, but not in a friendship manor.

Generally I am quite detached from everyone, while also having a lot of love for them too.
When people leave my life that are close I am fine with it. I want them to be happy and be free, not stick around me at their expense.

What do you think?
I'd be happy to hear what well known philosophers have to say on that topic too.

Baked.noodle

As far as I am concerned love it's the raw emotion we feel for another. Attachment and detachment are really just different ways of dealing with emotions. A person can behave with both attachment and detachment towards another at different times depending on the desired outcome. It's foolish to doggedly persist with one behavior out of some idealistic concept of true or perfect love. For example one can love a child unconditionally, yet strive to shape the child in positive ways with attachment. Both approaches are important for the relationship and the well-being of the parent and child. Accepting who somebody is requires both engaging your loved one about your relationships needs and desires, and accepting what is the essence of the person of which you have very little say.

Torakx

Sometimes I even question that unconditional love one would have for a child.
Although I question absolutely everything these days, despite my own beliefs and practices.

There is a whole lot going on under the surface of our minds/consciousness.
Apparently we are aware of around 20% of what is going on around us, the other 80% our unconscious mind is filtering out so we can function.
The ego is a similar process. Filtering out many things we would rather not think about consciously. Leaving us vunerable to advertising for example.

Are feelings just a chemical stimulus? Something to help us push forward, to work as a group instead of alone? an evolved function?

If so, surely the feelings of love are selfish(in the true meaning of the word), on an individual basis, in order to help us work as a group.

Regarding having children, isn't that a natural compulsion?
Personally I am not sure about having kids, because i ask myself why would i have them. I can't think of a good enough reason yet. The world is overpopulated or will be. And i don't feel the need right now anyway to have a legacy.
I hope this does not offend others with kids. I just lay things out as i think and hope to hear other perspectives that might sound logical and give me new ideas.

Un Croissant

I've attempted to write this a few times today but the poster above does a better job. Even with animals, humans create a reciprocal relationship that just doesn't exist. 'ah, he smiles when he sees me' would contribute to the selfish notion of Love. The idea that animals feel human emotions towards you fulfills a certain need in us.

Torakx

Oooohh, you hit on a good point there for me haha
I absolutely love animals and interacting with them.
And it's easy to see they "love" me quite a lot. Always happy to see me.
On another level I am aware I give them the best scratces behind the ears and supply food and water.
I often wonder about animals and emotions. i see the dogs get depressed when their master is away. Or one of them, the other is attached to me.

Baked.noodle

I suppose not all children are loved unconditionally

We could understand most phenomenological experiences as subjective yet communicable. There is a bridge constructed between us. Others respond to our chemical stimulus with chemical stimulus flowing from bonding through experiences. We respond to others and we build with others too. This implies a concious active aspect to emotions. Even though the dog may not understand the thought process I have in our relationship, it understand it in it own context, it's own way. The emotions the dog and I share are developed over time, through a natural unconscious process happing under the surface in each of us, reinforced and developed also in a concious active everyday "it's great to be with you" way. Love is indeed hard to pin down, but understood and valued by at least sufficiently sophisticated social animals.

Torakx

Interesting response.
If such experiences are subjective, it hints at the selfish aspect to me.
Comes from within and serves the hosts will.
Maybe I am thinking of a wholly objective love?
Is it possible such a thing can be called love? Or more a process or strategy. And again do we do anything at all that is not selfish?
Even martyrdom could be selfish. A martyre might offer themselves up becuase of the meaning the act has to their emotions.
Charity gives us a good feeling and so I see it as doing it as much for ourselves as for others.
I often joke about this with people. When i helpsomeone out with something and they are really thankfull i may joke and say, well don't thank me too much, I did it to feel good, so it's a win win.

Going back to my original post I think i might have asked a very relevant question regarding relationships, without realizing how important that question is at the time.

Is it a form of ownership to require another to be faithfull to you in a sexual manor, but not in a friendship manor.
By ownership I could also mean selfishness.

Consider that generally speaking a majority of couples are perfectly fine with their partners having friends.
People they talk to, share ideas with and enjoy their company.

But a majority are usually not ok with their partner putting their genitals into or against other people(sorry lol the word sex is overused and not hitting home enough).

So it is generally seen as ok to own each others genitals and lips, because we are very attached to them(our partners I mean ), but not so much the ability to share emotions, feelings,ideas, company with friends. we can't own that process.

So do you truly love someone if you must own them? Should we be the only ones with access to their physical parts and yet have not nearly as much concern for that which makes them who they are?

Is that not the greatest insult to our partners, to covet their body and not their soul? The very thing we preach about with these womens magazines making women focus on their looks. Well I think the foundations of marriage do this at the core.. or so these ideas seemed to have formed and make sense as I type this haha!

Better maybe not to covet at all and detach, accept all things of them, let them have their genitals and lips back for themselves again. Release the pressure on the relationship and possibly it would grow even stronger than first imagined.
Or maybe i am a little bit insane It's quite possible if the whole world appears to be insane to me, it is actually me who is insane.
In fact....if there are no such things are right and wrong(human ideologies) and the majority thinks a certain way is right, who am I to say the way is wrong ^^

Ok, I will stop typing, having too much fun thinking out loud. I should keep a diary and save you lot the confusing theories haha.

Joe1919

I think it can be useful to distinguish between 'loving a person/thing' or 'loving the qualities of a person/thing'. Speaking personally, I find that most of the time, it is not really the person/thing that I love but certain aspects or qualities that the person/thing has.
I think, in order to truly love a person/thing, we have to make 'a leap' from the outward qualities that I love (for my own selfish reasons) to loving the person/thing for 'its own sake'. (Cicero was a great believer in this). But in doing this, we presumes that there exists something beyond the qualities. We belief, for example, that the person has some type of inner core or soul.
But I think we do this. We do get attached to people/things/even ideas because they are initially pleasurable or useful, and often continue this attachment.

PS. 'Truth' is a good philosophical example. Many people have a strong attachment/love of the truth. i.e. They believe in the 'truth' for its own sake.

Torakx

Oh wow. I had written out partly a response, but half way through I had searched for Cicero and his thoughts on love and friendship. It really hit home with a lot of my thoughts and how I am and what I have always believed. And it put me in a state of dispair and loneliness! Which is awesome! A new area to evolve in and a new case study to examine. I wish I could meet him.
Imagine not having to explain the "simple" truths, but share a further breakdown of the already accepted ideals and philosophies you have.
Where do I find people like him, willing to discuss these things?
I am not one for college lectures and a linear discussion or ciriculum.

Anyway I will return later and give a proper response( and on topic) to your reply.
Thanks

EDIT: Very late in the discussion, but i just wanted to agree on your thoughts about truth.
People do put a lot of energy and attachment to truth. Because to feel we do not have the truth may be to feel completely lost and without an anchor to our perception of reality. Our reality is our truth, which changes constantly as our minds evolve, or devolve(de-evolve?).
I too search for truth. Would i be happy to have no solid answers? I can't sayfor sure. but i know that I don't really want to step off the fence I'm standing on with many topics. Maybe with everything. When I stop questioning, I may have reached my end.
Maybe my search for truth is that which keeps me going and not the moment of finding it. Although having some fairly solid ideas has set me free from my mental bonds.
Aha! It could be the act of disregarding former "truths" has really set me free.

Torakx

Someone directed me to Osho today and it has again helped to add new perspectives and maybe even break down this discussion of love and attachment even more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAXghwgkqFg

The idea being here, that love is not to be seen as a permanent thing, but more like a flower. Eventually this flower dies and you are left clinging to it.
Which describes many relationships when people may feel forced to stay together, despite moving in different directions later in life.

This is a fair bit like my life course so far. I did love the women I was with for the time I was with them, but when we changed paths or our priorities came into conflict to an extent it did not look to suit us both any longer, I would end the relationship and move on, spending a few years by myself until I found another. Albeit, I have not had loads of relationships either.

I do think that this way of thinking, that you can let someone go to find someone else to be happy with, was healthy for me and for the other.

But to let someone go, you must also detach.
In my perfect idealist world, we would all not attach so much in the first place, but just accept each other, enjoy the time we spend together and share interests.
It's not that I feel i can do this fully, but i do think and have thought this way makes sense for me.
EDIT: Actually, I think I have been like this my whole life. Due to moving to new places growing up i learned not to get to attached to my friends, my pets, my role models outside of family. And so I have always felt detached to a large degree from everyone on the planet, while also feeling attached to everyone on the planet(possibly via empathy)

One caveat with this idea for many people I believe, is the notion of death and loneliness.
Again my own personal life has possibly lead me to reach these conclusions very early, when I had a breakdown due to illness and mental stress. I had a spiritual death of sorts and had fully embraced the idea of not existing. Bit of a phoenix story there
Something I look back on and appreciate greatly. This combined with being an introvert(enjoying my alone time) has possibly made these ideas much easier to embrace.

To refer back to Joe1919's post.
You wrote about loving the qualities of a person and not the person.
So to merge it with the above and other posts. If we love the qualities about our partners, but in a way that has no requirements or conditions, we can probably say we love them and it be true.
If they change their qualities, the things we enjoy being around and experiencing, maybe it is ok to find another with qualities we enjoy and love them just as much. Maybe even them and all the previous ones.

Which takes me back to sex and monogamous relationships.
Is it the case that swingers have the right idea? Or people who just have multiple partners or whatever they want?

When their are children involved it may not be so simple..or is it?

Society as a majority might hold back such things, forcing conditions and judgements on those children and parents.
This guru Osho i believe lives in a sort of commune, probably where their small society can work as a healthy unit. Sharing the work for many tasks, including educating and bringing up children together socially.
I don't imagine there are "single mothers" in this group if you get my meaning.

Anyway a new addition to this overall idea of love and attachment.
Feel free to throw out any thoughts please. The more the merrier.

ps. I dont still have any solid beliefs on this yet(maybe on anything). See quote in my sig

pps. I think I still want to break down attachment/detachment more. It doesn't seem like it was covered fully.

Joe1919

Torakx wrote: »

If they change their qualities, the things we enjoy being around and experiencing, maybe it is ok to find another with qualities we enjoy and love them just as much.

But is this not a type of narcissistic/ erotic love. i.e. We may not love the person at all. It is only the qualities (e.g. beauty, sexuality) that we love as commodities.

I often thought it would be useful to do an analysis on the sentence 'I love you.'. The sentence has three word and all words are relevant.

Take for example the first word 'I'. When I say '"I' love you', what do I mean by 'I'? What part of me loves you? True love, I presume should be total. The person should be at one, a unity (e.g. head & heart, mind body & soul, etc.) in their love.

The second word 'love' can have different meanings. The Greeks had different words to express different types of love. (e.g. eros, philia, agape). When we use the word 'love' in English, it can mean many things. e.g. erotic desire, mutual affection, attachment (habit ?), unconditional love, loyalty, dutiful love, friendship, etc.

The third word 'you' can mean many things. What is this 'you' that you love. As already mentioned, it may not be the total you that I love but certain outward features/qualities/characteristics. There is a danger here that the love become idealistic. Like Plato, my love goes from the love of the individual object to the love of the 'idea' or 'form' of love/ beauty.
Idealistic love in my view is troublesome. When the other person inevitably falls short of this ideal, we are disappointed. We do not love the person as they are but rather as they 'should' be. I think people also often do this with their parents. We tend to idealize our parents when we are young and become disappointed when we realize that they are less than perfect.

Torakx

I have been thinking too, the word "love" is too broad a description.
Regarding having ideals and using them as a measuring stick. I think thats true, we could fall prey to dissapointment quite easy. It is a common thing for people to hold their own values to the ones closest to them, even moreso than to others.

I believe when I wrote qualities I may have had the meaning of goals and ideals in mind. The things I see as qualities to be mindful of personally.
Maybe I am being too subjective also. A lot of my thoughts came about from my experiences in life and not much so from reading others ideas objectively.

A partner you are with who decides they want to move to a new country on the other side of the world, when the other wants nothing more than to stay where they are.
I don't belive people should limit their one and only life experience for the sake of keeping others content. Because the others contentment is selfish if it has conditions on others.
And so it sounds sensible to me to just appreciate the time you do have with the people you love and let them go when the situation appears to be limiting them.

Since I corrected my statement on "qualities" I think I want to also consider if at the time I had truly ment qualities, like the ability to laugh at themselves as a random example.
Maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend loses this ability which we loved. And we start to more and more dislike their company, because they complain more and more as time goes by. If the two peoples lives become stale and there doesn't seem to be answers or any chance of it going back to being what we enjoy, is it not better for each person to move on?

A reason to say no is that there has been a strong attachment built up over time and separation anxiety might kick in. But what if there was no anxiety and only peace and love still. But with a knowlede that you just want them to be happy. If it's not with us, it should be with someone else I think. This was actually the reason I split up with my last girlfriend. She did not like my new direction regarding employment(which I respected) and I did my best to try and make her happy while searching for work(2008 crash times ).
So she became gradually more and more resentful and I could see she was not happy. Our ideals appeared to be different then. Mine was based on just being with her in any situation and enjoying time together, hers were that I work a job and bring in money(which is fair in the standard social view of things). So to allow her to be happy and also for me to be happy with myself, I let her go free..it was against her will, but I still strongly believe it was for the better.

So I guess even qualities(if that is what I have discussed in the latter example) is something I would consider too. But not just because of what I want, also because I want everyone to be free and do what they want as much as possible.
Losing the quality to laugh at our troubles could suddenly turn us into an unpleasant person to be around in hard times and like marriage, a person forcing themselves down a path that has changed direction from the map they originally followed, is in my view damaging to the journey. In efficient travel through life.
Now maybe you get the scenic route, think of Nietzsches " what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger".
So it may depend on what each of us want from life.

I may have just argued two opposing ideas haha
But I am a walking contradiction most of the time....

Edit: Actually because I am socontradictory I mayaswell add this thought I had after posting.
Why is it wrong to love someone for their physical qualities? I originally had said yes it is... But I should remember I also suspect there is no right or wrong.
If one covets the body and the other covets the soul, and both parties are content and feel free, is there a problem?
Remember the flower example from Osho. It eventually withers and dies and you must move on. if that is true, then our bodies are no different.
A widow should not have to stay in fidelity for a lost partner. And maybe an old man can love a young womans body and her love his mind. Is that love just an honest appreciation? More honest than those of us who say we cannot be with an older man or woman?
Societies disgust at these relationships may be based on some internal jealousy. ^^

Joe1919

Torakx wrote: »

I may have just argued two opposing ideas haha
But I am a walking contradiction most of the time....

...Why is it wrong to love someone for their physical qualities? ^^

There is a famous line in Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I agree with you that the physical aspect is important in some types of love. But I think there is a difference between love and lust. To lust after someone in the sense of only having a short term physical interest in the person is not really love.

There are also other elements to love. For example, I think our ego gets a boost when our love is reciprocated. We ourselves love to be loved.

Torakx

Ha! thats an interesting lyric.. It does make me feel better about being so contradictory all the time.
I tend to see all the sides of an arguement as valid and if I take a side I can't question any more or at least it becomes subjective and the ego starts to creep in to defend your beliefs.


Joe1919-
"To lust after someone in the sense of only having a short term physical interest in the person is not really love."

I think so to. ...I think.. haha
According to Osho and the flower metaphor, love does not last either and is a short term emotional interest.
Both interests being subjective and so selfish? For for ourselves? Covetous?
Or is lust a physical attachment and love an emotional attachment?
If so, both are more or less the same when it comes to the effects it can have on the subject who is experiencing these things.
And so I might think love and lust are equal. One cannot be good if the other is bad.


"There are also other elements to love. For example, I think our ego gets a boost when our love is reciprocated. We ourselves love to be loved."

Very true.
I am not a fan of the ego so far.
Not sure if I am repeating myself, but I think the ego is just there to maintain and protect our beliefs. A primitive way to secure an anchor to our reality, to validate ourselves. We should be evolved enough not to need this validation. Nietzsches "superman" in Thus Spake Zarathustra comes to mind.
I am trying to imagine now what that reciprocation could be or how it can be taken away to create more freedom from belief and attachment.

Recently and since starting this thread, I have been thinking I may not want to be loved back. It feels like greed for the ego(actually Joe1919, you also mentioned that)
I don't really want someone to attach to me. I don't need approval from them, I have it from myself and to me that is the ultimate freedom.
So their love to me, is an attachment, which is a dependancy and crutch for themselves. A loss of their freedom to reach their full potential.
In psychology a therapist might say that sounds like fear of commitment. And I have often said to people that is what I have.
And it sounds to be the case.
The fear so far seems valid though(if commitment entails all those issues), for all the reasons stated. It's for their own good, not mine. I am fine like I am single and a girlfriend would be a bonus, someone to share my life with.

What I do want, is acceptance without conditions or judgements.
Something I can't see myself having if they love me(attach).
And for that you need to find the right type of person for each of us, so both parties ideals are met.

so should we be defining love more clearly? Or do we need a new word to swap that out to make this ideology work?
Or possibly I have been not been thinking clear enough and there is a lot more I am missing.

Oh.. actually unconditional love apparantly is a thing..
Whats that all about?!

I have a feeling I will just break it down again to subjective thinking.
If subjective, I wonder will it always be selfish and warped by the ego and the beliefs it upholds.

Ugh sorry to digress and vere off... But if I think objectively for example, I see a ball drop to the ground.Therefore I say objectively that ball hit the ground. However, my interpretation of what the ball is, the ground and gravity etc comes from my perceptions and experiences, so it is subjective thinking in the end.
There seems to be no objectivity really. Although a handy label maybe?
Reminds me a little of Decartes. "I think, therefore I am" subjective..

So, say conditional love is subjective.
Unconditional(objective) love might not exist, because there is no such thing as objective thinking. Only a placeholder paradigm, an imagined framework to reference our experiences.

So no such thing as "true love"(unconditional) and love is a fallacy?
There is only acceptance and conditions?
So then what use have we humans in our evolution for love?
Some might say "but we need love to get along". I say we need acceptance. Or is that simply what true unconditional love is? And the world has a very skewed version of it going on?
All the romance movies should probably have the words " I love you", changed to, " I accept you"

Sorry for the great wall of text....
Introvert in life, extrovert on paper.

Joe1919

Just some side-notes.
I am going to give two quotes. The first is from the Roman poet Lucretius,(50 BC) a follower of Epicurus and is dedicated to Venus, the Goddess of Love.

Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
And fruitful lands- for all of living things
Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
Through thee are risen to visit the great sun-
Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,

The second is from St. Paul.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.....
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; .....

Both quotes are important (imo) from a historical point of view because they indicate a change of mind state that was slowly taking place around that time(2000 years ago). Prior to this, the Greeks were placing great emphasis on the intellect. Prudence, for example was the great virtue. But around this time we see praise for love as a great virtue, especially by the Romans and the later Christians, who would adopt love as a virtue.
It is interesting that both see love as a very wide and total experience, but in different ways. For Lucretius, love is everywhere e.g. The flowers love the sun. For Paul, Love is perhaps an ideal, a duty, something to strive for? We are commanded to love.

Some argue that there are pull forces (e.g. attraction) and push forces (duty/guilt/commitment) involved in love. Perhaps love is a trap.

On Raglan Road of an Autumn day
I saw her first and knew,
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might someday rue. (Patrick Kavanagh)

Kierkegaard wrote a very witty criticism of romantic love, which he thought had no lasting power.
http://www.ccel.org/k/kierkegaard/selections/veritas.htm

Torakx

I like poetry Even more fun to write it.
Also I have heard a great lecture on youtube about the life and main philosophy of Epicurius. I really liked his ideas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCBfWeJkrs8
For anyone else interested, well worth a listen.
Awesome lecturer! Very funny.

That's a nice poem you posted.
It is a little difficult to decipher, but I am slowly getting most of it.

Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
-- Love, the delight of gods and men, dear love, that beneath the stars, makes the world and its many cultures boil and thrive.--

And fruitful lands- for all of living things
Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
Through thee are risen to visit the great sun-
Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,

-- In this boiling pot, all living things through love alone are forever and always concieved,
For all living things through love have risen to reach their peak of enlightenment,
Through love these things come about.--

That's roughly what I took from that, I would love to have it translated though. My interpretation is probably very subjective. I don't have the same contexts as that writer back then.

I like it. I am not sure if I agree with him yet. It depends on what we mean by love and the next quote of yours by St. Paul may delve into that

According to Paul love is, Patience, kindness, not jealousy(self acceptance), Modesty and humility.
It does not seek it's own(selfishness? attachment?), is not provoked(non reactive, but proactive),
forgiving, etc etc A nice list qualities.
Love never fails... hmm thats a big statement to make If I wanted to get pedantic haha It is poetry and emotions he is using and activating in others though.

If half of those things are true then does it not seem that most people do not love each other?
And when we say I love you we are being extremely general.
That seems like a bad habit then to use the word love somuch. It should be used sparingly and all those other words should be expressed more commonly.
Otherwise we dilute the meaning of love and forget its parts. Defiling it and abusing it.
Is this what has happened to society in general? To me? to us all? Through language.

I will say some of those qualities may be self defeating. An example, he says love does not seek it's own.
As an introvert i am very independant and need to seek my own more than those who require social contact and support. St Paul could have been coming from an extrovert point of view, a social philosophy of love.
What of those who are the opposite of this. Without a need for clinging to things. We may need to seek our own, as to not do so is to betray ourselves and compromise our freedoms.
Do we want to be free or to love? (if St Pauls version of love is a full description).


"Some argue that there are pull forces (e.g. attraction) and push forces (duty/guilt/commitment) involved in love. Perhaps love is a trap."
That makes a lot of sense to me. I enjoy thinking of things in life, based on dualities.
The ying and yangs of life.
And i have often thought too, that perhaps indeed, love is a trap. A cage of pleasure and pain we wallow in lol
And maybe living is to experience both parts. Or maybe not.. I agree with that and also I disagree..it doesn't seem so simple in reality.

Thats a great poem by kavanagh! I really like that one. I have not really read much poetry at all. Left school at 16, so just basic English. At best a little portion of Hamlet.

His poem there reminds me again of the attachments and separation anxiety people feel.
I have had my first love break my heart, and I have lost contact with almost all of my friends from my past.
My main reason for all this question i think, is due to not having these kind of attachments or only to a small degree compared to others. Yet I have an abundance of feeling and joy for others as well. So something is not right with what i am hearing of the traditional views.
I seem to have both..and apparently that is not possible.
My only conclusion is that letting go of all belief and expectations in others, allows us to see them for who they are truly and accept them fully. My empathy could be my love and my logical mind protacts me from the attachments that hurt.
I don't see why I need to hurt to love. But I see so many who do.
Maybe everyone needs to "die" to be able to be reborn anew and without their past prejudices.


I started reading Kerkegaards piece, but it will take a lot of time to read through it.
I got 1/8 of the way but after hearing the character descriptions i am thinking it's metaphorical and they each represent parts of us. I connected with all of the characters and especially the young person, at least from what I read at the start.
I will try to make time to read the rest. If it is indeed metaphorical ,it is genius!
It seems so obvious it is, that I doubt myself on that so much haha, he wrote it well. Lived the scene.

Joe1919

Torakx wrote: »

.....I enjoy thinking of things in life, based on dualities.
The ying and yangs of life.

It may be useful then to look at love from the point of view of its opposite. What is the opposite of love? Some may say ‘hate’ but (imo) this is wrong because hate is similar to love in that hate can also be a very powerful attachment. I am in agreement with some (e.g Hegel) that see ‘alienation’ as both the opposite to love and mans greatest affliction.

Man sees himself as standing alone in the world, alienated from the world (or religious people would say God), alienated from his fellow human beings and possibly worst of all, alienated from himself. (self hate). Mans self consciousness ( and knowledge) is blamed for this. Knowledge is always about the differences between things. i.e. knowledge creates seperation/alienation/anxiety.

Alienation can only be overcome by unity. Love is a form of unity. i.e. The person becomes one (absorbs/ is absorbed into) with the other/world/infinate. Interestingly, wisdom can also be seen as a form of unity. i.e. All the bits of knowledge fit together and harmonise with the person. Some philosophers would see cultures/arts/ religious rituals as attempts to overcome mans alienation.

Torakx

Joe1919 wrote: »

It may be useful then to look at love from the point of view of its opposite. What is the opposite of love? Some may say ‘hate’ but (imo) this is wrong because hate is similar to love in that hate can also be a very powerful attachment. I am in agreement with some (e.g Hegel) that see ‘alienation’ as both the opposite to love and mans greatest affliction.

Man sees himself as standing alone in the world, alienated from the world (or religious people would say God), alienated from his fellow human beings and possibly worst of all, alienated from himself. (self hate). Mans self consciousness ( and knowledge) is blamed for this. Knowledge is always about the differences between things. i.e. knowledge creates seperation/alienation/anxiety.

Alienation can only be overcome by unity. Love is a form of unity. i.e. The person becomes one (absorbs/ is absorbed into) with the other/world/infinate. Interestingly, wisdom can also be seen as a form of unity. i.e. All the bits of knowledge fit together and harmonise with the person. Some philosophers would see cultures/arts/ religious rituals as attempts to overcome mans alienation.

I tend to look at dogs when thinking about loves opposites.
I have been watching the dogs I share the house with for a good while now.
I think their base instincts are good measurment for mans primitive root feelings, that branch out as we got more advanced.
At the base it looks like dogs have love and fear.
I have always thought people are most likely the same and the fear aspect is expressed in many ways. Sometimes seemingly so far removed it looks like anger or hate.

You mentioned alienation and anxiety together, that is something a dog shows clear signs of.
So taking your idea of duality, maybe I should look at fear first and find it's proper opposite.

What is non fear?! I want to say acceptance...
Contentment?

Hmmm.. actually if I was trying to create a philosophy for life or a path to aim for.
Maybe the dogs are the best teachers.

What if we based everything on fear and contentment?

How do relationships, sex, attachment etc stand up to scrutiny?

Personally I sometimes think I am more like the animals than humans :P

Can we be content with attachments to people? I dont think so unless you always have them and they dont change to far from your ideals.
Can we be content if we have no attachments? I can or it seems mostly so. Of course I must have many attachments still and I do.


Can we be in fear with attachments to people, I think obviously yes, if you are afraid to lose them.
With no attachments to people , we maynot be afraid of losing them. And i am not sure if fear of being alone is in the same range.

What do you think? maybe my direction here is too broad or just not usefull...

Joe1919

Torakx wrote: »

So taking your idea of duality, maybe I should look at fear first and find it's proper opposite.
What is non fear?! I want to say acceptance...
Contentment?

'Hope' has traditionally been considered the opposite to fear.
'a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen.'

Its interesting that you consider fear as a sort of opposite to love. I am inclined to think that a case can only be made that fear is a sort of opposite to desire (as that what is feared is undesirable).

I think there is still a problem in differentiating love from desire. I see this related to the problem of psychological egoism, the view that 'humans are always motivated by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism'.
wiki has some good introductory stuff on this to trigger some ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism

Torakx

Thanks for that link to psychological egoism.
That sounds like what I have been talking about earlier about love being selfish. I wish I had been introduced tophilosophy when I was in my late teens. I would have been so much further ahead by now. Although we need to suffer to learn and maybe my great suffering in the past, has been my saving grace there

Hope seems to be future based. I can't hope into the past.
and the present goes by so fast it does not exist in a way.
There is only before and after. What is the now when it has already past lol

Anyway if hope is future based and fear is based on the past, is love just a living in the now?
The more we love someone the less we base our perceptions of them in the past(our judgements).
The more we love them the less we base our perceptions of them in the future(conditions/expectations).

And if the presence is so fleeting and true love(acceptance) is based on the present, then love is fleeting?
And also with the above ideas, this shows me why animals are so loving while also being sofearfull and agressive.
They remember the past through conditioning and live in the now(loving). But do not have much expectations(future).
And so I am startign to wonder about all my other thoughts on time and space, when looking at physics regarding multiple dimensions, times relation to dark matter and entropy. What i mean is maybe there are fundamental things going on in the universe that we have evolved around and do not yet comprehend or have discovered.
Because it's easier to theorize than test, it may stay undiscovered

If that is all true, then I think the key to being loving and finding contentment is shedding the past, living in the now and thinking about the future critically.
Osho mentioned that our dreams are actually our unlived lives, the things we want to do and have not. And this is why he does not dream.
So following our dreams is just a form of achieving the present we wish to be in and is a very good thing to do.
Plan your dreams, imagine them and then live them like they are true. It will come about with passion.

I made a Facebook post the other day that comes to mind and makes more sense to me now.
According to personality test I am 75% intuition.
This is why i know things intuitively, but only later discover why!
Intuitive people should probably question their intuitions critically to find the answers more clearly and explain them later.
Otherwise people tend to think i am just making stuff up based on no evidence or thought.

Random thought...

Shakespeare "To be or not to be? That is the question"

Decartes " I think, therefore I am"

To think is to be, as much as doing.

The question is .. " to think or not to think?"

The answer is Yes

Torakx

I've let that settle on me for a while.

I believe now that true love is simply complete acceptance.
Something that is very hard to grasp, because we lose this acceptance when we project into the future or look back to the past.
Then we lose reality and the now. We should see the living person(now) and not the reflection of our perspective of that person(past/future).

To lose the past, I can only think of dropping all beliefs.
Without those beliefs we have nothign to judge people on and can take them as they are no matter what.

And to lose the future I can only think of accepting that the future is not real, but a dream.
Sometimes dreams don't come true and an acceptance of this in relation to others may help to rmemeber not to attach ideas so conretely to them, thus settng them free.

The result might be as close as we can get to true love.
A challenge for life.

MaxWig

Torakx wrote: »

What is non fear?! I want to say acceptance...
Contentment?

Non fear is delusion!

The ability to forget, look away etc...

Torakx

MaxWig wrote: »

Non fear is delusion!

The ability to forget, look away etc...

Hence ignorance is bliss

Or somehow living more in the now.