I'm reading about love philosophically. Because people keep using words like love, and attraction, and romance. It's hard for me, to separate them? Because why shouldn't my love for a friend be as loyal as romantic love? Why would I love my family differently from my neighbor?
Under the classical model model my love resembles Agape. I feel love for our whole wondrous existence. But we've socially made that a very dangerous proposition. So we have to narrow our love in a world like this? Shrink our love to protect it and our hearts?
It feels wrong. Like love is a scarce resource to be rationed, instead of the absolute core of our identity as sapient beings. Without our bonding and attachment we wouldn't be able to form a society or even have meaningful lives... So why are people so afraid to Love?
because they've all been hurt and taken advantage of, and they close off because that's their only known way to address it. I still love freely, and I think it makes me naive, and it sets me up for harm, but I somehow think it's worth it.
I think you're right! That willingness to get back up and keep trying to share love, even if it feels naive, is really precious and a key component here. Ppl need to find ways to overcome past hurts and be brave against their fears,and Love Boldly again and again.
while it's something i do, it is indeed grueling and the accelerated rate at which i experience cruelty isn't something i can readily reccommend and to be totally honest I really feel like everyone is at least 10 times easier to drive into despair than myself...
that's not to say i think it's bad-- in fact i think that if it was globally adopted it would kind of overnight fix a huge chunk of mankind's problems probably. I just REALLY struggle telling anyone else to "walk it off" the way I do....
Gonna be honest and say I admire your remarkable resilience in this matter, and life in general <3 I think the corollary to being willing to love is everyone being open to accepting love? People let the distrust cut both ways and perhaps stop trusting themselves along with others.
I suppose that's part of the solution. It's hard to find the right way to tell ppl to keep being open when they've been hurt. I guess it's easy to forget how many good people are out there. And eat to forget that pain is part of life like any other.
i think the way that love is regarded is an indicator of where society is currently at (but, yes, *all* love is important [and not inherently lesser, for not being the romantic kind])
It's funny you say that 'cause a secondary thought in writing this was "oh do I understand the hippie movement now?" And you're right about social norms. I think we're shaking off western closed-monogamy as the standard and its sort of... Metaphorical default hoarding of love as a scare resource.