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You guys. The debate is over. Centuries of philosophical arguments are settled. I have figured out the definitive answer to the question "What is love?" One that applies to "I love ice cream" and to "God is Love" and EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN.
Love is "I value your vibrant, healthy existence. I celebrate your very Being." Everything else is just extra stuff. Anything to which you can say "You ARE, and I'M GLAD," you love it! (Note examples above: "I HAVE ICE CREAM YUM!" and "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.") Can anyone really think of any exceptions?
I'm just trying to figure out where the "42" fits in.*
Seriously, though, I've always been kind of confused when people say "It's hard to say I love you," or "How do I know that I REALLY LOVE him?" Why is this hard? Why is love such a Super Rare thing?
Is it because our society is so apt to conflate the word "love" with "being in romantic love with?" As if that was the only, or at least the strongest, type of love that exists? Well guess what. It's not. I was thinking a while back that, hey, I've finally figured out my sexuality: I'm physically heterosexual, emotionally pansexual. I fall in love easily, with anything and anyone. And you know what? The person on this earth I am MOST OVERWHELMINGLY IN LOVE WITH at this moment is a) female, b) a very young minor, and c) closely related to me. At the moment. Sometimes her brother wins me over more. OKAY, THEY'RE TIED. I DON'T HAVE FAVORITES. MY POINT IS, no one has ever taken my breath away more by the miracle of their very existence than my children. Romance, PAH, you've got nothing on maternal feels.
But if you want to narrow your definition, make Love something EXCLUSIVE, then you're talking about something else. Are you faithful? Are you devoted? Are you physically attracted? Those are different questions. Do you LOVE me? That means Are you glad I AM? Do you want what's best for me, which isn't necessarily the same as What I think I want?
Maybe the emphasis is on the wrong word. Instead of "Do you LOVE me?" maybe what people really mean to ask is "Do you love ME?" -- ME, not some Ideal-you-have-of-me-who-isn't-actually-me? Not what-you-think-you-can-get-out-of-me? ME.
Love, though-- why question love? Love is the energy that endues things with MEANING. We need MORE of it. It doesn't need to be exclusive! It needs to SPREAD. We need more of us to look at each other and at our works and at the universe and say, "I am GLAD YOU EXIST."
Where love gets tricky is in Loving Your Enemies. Even in Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself. Even in Loving Yourself. CAN you look at a truly reprehensible person and say "I'm glad you exist, too?" You might have to say, "I'm glad you exist because your mother is glad you exist," to make it palatable, but you're feeling in the right direction now. So that when you see someone who seems like a jerk, you remember that they may have family or friends who love them despite their faults. That's loving your neighbor-- the one who double-parked on a busy day, the one going OH SO SLOWLY in front of you in the shopping line or WAY TOO QUICKLY around you on the highway, the one who smells funny, the one who thinks he's Casanova, the one who won't stop telling you all her problems even though you don't even know her, the one... well, fill in the blank. They've got a place in their lives. Maybe they're not at their healthiest and most vibrant right now, but they still have INHERENT WORTH. And I'm glad.
And Loving Yourself-- can you look at YOURSELF and say, "I AM, and I'm GLAD?" Sometimes it's hard. But it's vital. BASE that energy of gratitude toward all of Creation IN YOURSELF. Then let it spread.
By the way, I love you. YES, YOU. PERSON READING THIS. Even if I don't know who you are, I am so GLAD you're reading this and I DO hope it's brought a bit of positivity into your life because YOUR LIFE IS WORTH IT.
I love you, my Internet friends I've never met and maybe you're really aliases for completely different people and I've been deceived but DANG, I love the You I THINK I know. You ARE at least in my HEAD, and I'm GLAD.
I love you, my real friends and family, even if I'm socially awkward and forget all the niceties and seem like a lazy ineffectual sloth, because I CAN be, but I'm HERE for you nonetheless, call on me, because I want what's best for you!
I love you, strawberry ice cream. Wherever you are.
---
*If I am Fenchurch, that means I get to hook up with Arthur Dent, right? Just one particular one. I'm picky that way.
Love is "I value your vibrant, healthy existence. I celebrate your very Being." Everything else is just extra stuff. Anything to which you can say "You ARE, and I'M GLAD," you love it! (Note examples above: "I HAVE ICE CREAM YUM!" and "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.") Can anyone really think of any exceptions?
I'm just trying to figure out where the "42" fits in.*
Seriously, though, I've always been kind of confused when people say "It's hard to say I love you," or "How do I know that I REALLY LOVE him?" Why is this hard? Why is love such a Super Rare thing?
Is it because our society is so apt to conflate the word "love" with "being in romantic love with?" As if that was the only, or at least the strongest, type of love that exists? Well guess what. It's not. I was thinking a while back that, hey, I've finally figured out my sexuality: I'm physically heterosexual, emotionally pansexual. I fall in love easily, with anything and anyone. And you know what? The person on this earth I am MOST OVERWHELMINGLY IN LOVE WITH at this moment is a) female, b) a very young minor, and c) closely related to me. At the moment. Sometimes her brother wins me over more. OKAY, THEY'RE TIED. I DON'T HAVE FAVORITES. MY POINT IS, no one has ever taken my breath away more by the miracle of their very existence than my children. Romance, PAH, you've got nothing on maternal feels.
But if you want to narrow your definition, make Love something EXCLUSIVE, then you're talking about something else. Are you faithful? Are you devoted? Are you physically attracted? Those are different questions. Do you LOVE me? That means Are you glad I AM? Do you want what's best for me, which isn't necessarily the same as What I think I want?
Maybe the emphasis is on the wrong word. Instead of "Do you LOVE me?" maybe what people really mean to ask is "Do you love ME?" -- ME, not some Ideal-you-have-of-me-who-isn't-actually-me? Not what-you-think-you-can-get-out-of-me? ME.
Love, though-- why question love? Love is the energy that endues things with MEANING. We need MORE of it. It doesn't need to be exclusive! It needs to SPREAD. We need more of us to look at each other and at our works and at the universe and say, "I am GLAD YOU EXIST."
Where love gets tricky is in Loving Your Enemies. Even in Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself. Even in Loving Yourself. CAN you look at a truly reprehensible person and say "I'm glad you exist, too?" You might have to say, "I'm glad you exist because your mother is glad you exist," to make it palatable, but you're feeling in the right direction now. So that when you see someone who seems like a jerk, you remember that they may have family or friends who love them despite their faults. That's loving your neighbor-- the one who double-parked on a busy day, the one going OH SO SLOWLY in front of you in the shopping line or WAY TOO QUICKLY around you on the highway, the one who smells funny, the one who thinks he's Casanova, the one who won't stop telling you all her problems even though you don't even know her, the one... well, fill in the blank. They've got a place in their lives. Maybe they're not at their healthiest and most vibrant right now, but they still have INHERENT WORTH. And I'm glad.
And Loving Yourself-- can you look at YOURSELF and say, "I AM, and I'm GLAD?" Sometimes it's hard. But it's vital. BASE that energy of gratitude toward all of Creation IN YOURSELF. Then let it spread.
By the way, I love you. YES, YOU. PERSON READING THIS. Even if I don't know who you are, I am so GLAD you're reading this and I DO hope it's brought a bit of positivity into your life because YOUR LIFE IS WORTH IT.
I love you, my Internet friends I've never met and maybe you're really aliases for completely different people and I've been deceived but DANG, I love the You I THINK I know. You ARE at least in my HEAD, and I'm GLAD.
I love you, my real friends and family, even if I'm socially awkward and forget all the niceties and seem like a lazy ineffectual sloth, because I CAN be, but I'm HERE for you nonetheless, call on me, because I want what's best for you!
I love you, strawberry ice cream. Wherever you are.
---
*If I am Fenchurch, that means I get to hook up with Arthur Dent, right? Just one particular one. I'm picky that way.
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Date: 2013-07-15 08:13 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2013-07-15 01:14 pm (UTC)From: