What is love?

all-encompasing self love, I suppose.

 

There's nothing wrong with self-love. Haven't you seen those T-shirts skaters wear?

But yeah, I'd say it's easy to love others if you think of them as yourself, and I would define that as empathy. To me, real love is loving others without having to see them as yourself, see yourself in them, etc. To love them as they are, not as they are like you.

 

Is there the "other"? Is this really true??

 

Yes that's what I mean by love of the other - someone or something different.
And actually, it's easy perhaps to think one sees oneself in another, until their will clashes with your own. Often, that leads to behaviour which isn't exactly loving.

On the topic of seeing oneself in others, I think it all depends on what is meant by the term 'self'. If it means the individual ego, then I don't think you can see that in others.
From the vedantic point of view, the essence of what we are is sometimes called the 'Self' - and since that is universal, if one sees it, one can see it in others - in animals, plants etc.

Self love is IMO a good and necessary thing. You can't really love another unless you love yourself. Of course, by self-love I don't mean we should be blind to our own faults and weaknesses, but really if you don't like yourself you can't do anything to create harmony.

 

I think I just answered that in my post above.

 

Well yeah, it's basically tolerating someone rather than loving them!

It's like, if I have to think "a black guy is just the same as a white guy underneath", I'm still a racist, just a tolerant one; I don't love black people, I just love white people, even those with black skin.

Not a great analogy, but it's how I've often felt. A lot of people seem to need to imagine that everyone is basically the same in order to like them.

Yeah, same kind of thing: if you have to ignore parts of yourself to love the whole, there's something wrong. We should want to be better rather than perfect; better keeps you vital, perfect gives you an excuse to stagnate.

 

Although a lot of these responses are good, they seem to explain the 'cultural' aspect of love, which can also sometimes be misleading..

Love is as critical for your mind and body as oxygen. It's not negotiable. The more connected you are, the healthier you will be both physically and emotionally. The less connected you are, the more you are at risk. It is also true that the less love you have, the more depression you are likely to experience in your life. Love is probably the best antidepressant there is because one of the most common sources of depression is feeling unloved. Most depressed people don't love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also are very self-focused, making them less attractive to others and depriving them of opportunities to learn the skills of love.

There is a mythology in our culture that love just happens. As a result, the depressed often sit around passively waiting for someone to love them. But love doesn't work that way. To get love and keep love you have to go out and be active and learn a variety of specific skills.

Most of us get our ideas of love from popular culture. We come to believe that love is something that sweeps us off our feet. But the pop-culture ideal of love consists of unrealistic images created for entertainment, which is one reason so many of us are set up to be depressed. It's part of our national vulnerability, like eating junk food, constantly stimulated by images of instant gratification. We think it is love when it's simply distraction and infatuation.

• Recognize the difference between limerance and love. Limerance is the psychological state of deep infatuation. It feels good but rarely lasts. Limerance is that first stage of mad attraction whereby all the hormones are flowing and things feel so right. Limerance lasts, on average, six months. It can progress to love. Love mostly starts out as limerance, but limerance doesn't always evolve into love.
• Know that love is a learned skill, not something that comes from hormones or emotion particularly. Erich Fromm called it "an act of will." If you don't learn the skills of love you virtually guarantee that you will be depressed, not only because you will not be connected enough but because you will have many failure experiences.
• Learn good communication skills. They are a means by which you develop trust and intensify connection. The more you can communicate the less depressed you will be because you will feel known and understood.

There are always core differences between two people, no matter how good or close you are, and if the relationship is going right those differences surface. The issue then is to identify the differences and negotiate them so that they don't distance you or kill the relationship.


You do that by understanding where the other person is coming from, who that person is, and by being able to represent yourself. When the differences are known you must be able to negotiate and compromise on them until you find a common ground that works for both.

Peace

 

Sorry snocbor... I disagree with this pretty much in its entirety.

 

Care to explain maybe a little more?

 

accept each others thoughts on how they come out of each others mouth (the mind)

your going to have to try and work with each others brains

or else you will have some sort of lop sided party


where only one of the two persons thoughts are coming out in agreement

 

I always thought of love as a spiritual yet tangible connection of souls....I hope that makes sense cause I cant explain it better

 

Love is what is there beneath everything that is false. So to know love we must be able to recognize what is NOT love, what is NOT true. In the recognition of this we are able to look beyond the false and see the true. I will not attempt to define love here, it's really undefinable, as are WE.

But I will point out that everything we think we know about love and about ourselves, all the typical patterns and behaviors that we've come to associate with love, all this is FALSE.

We think we are... (insert description). We think the other person is... (insert description). We think there is a separation between the two. Here I am and here you are. These differences, these distinctions of "me" and "you" are then encased with an image, a perception. And what we call relationship is the daily negotiation of these images with one another. There's no REAL relating going on.

Each image has as its main goal... survival. And each other image (that we call another person) is then assessed as adding to or detracting from what we think we need to survive. And so "love" becomes the pleasure and affection we feel when this NEED is met, when the "other" is playing their proper part in doing what we want or need them to do.

And "love" quickly turns to hate, resentment, pain, suffering, or indifference, if the "other" doesn't act according to our idea of how they should be.

There could be NO LOVE in the space of need, want, or expectation. Without complete and unconditional ACCEPTANCE of the "other" without any accompanying REACTION to WHATEVER they may or may not do, there CANNOT be love present.

Without SELFLESSNESS in its entirety, there cannot be love. It is ALL or NOTHING. Present or Absent.

If we look closely, if we observe carefully, the workings of the mind in its daily activity, we can notice the constant getting mechanism at play. And if we're truly honest with ourselves, we can see how this is NOT love, how it CANNOT be. But only if we're honest.

The mind, the "self" that we think we are, will be quick to defend against everything I just wrote. It wants to protect its identity. That is understandable.

But for those who are curious... not with the typical mind kind of curiosity that is merely interested as an intellectual pastime, but truly CURIOUS deep within, to know love as IT IS, not as we have made it out to be, then he or she will be willing to look deep within and see the truth of it, for themselves.

 

Nah, that's not love, that's romance. It's vile and it poisons people's minds.

 

This kind of absolutism is great for selling self-help books. If you haven't written one yet you might want to start.

 

the self-help movement is misguided.

 

"Throughout these 400 gloriously illustrated pages, learn exactly how misguided the self-help movement is, and how YOU can find the key to true happiness."

I don't think the self-help movement is doing anything substantially different from what you're doing here. The only difference is they've got the sense to charge for it. If anything, I'd say you're misguided for not cashing in.

I'm not just being glib here. Your philosophy is totally marketable, unfalsifiable, and practically has legal disclaimers built into it in case someone doesn't get the results they want. If all you are doing is presenting "objects", stimuli for interpretation and meditation, then how could you be accused of doing anything wrong by charging a viewing fee?

 

then I suggest you don't read anything I write.

 

Unfortunately, it's free. No rights reserved, Barthes' death of the author, etc. <3

I have no problem with self-help as a tool. I don't think it offers what it promises, but then I don't think most people who buy self-help books immediately want what they promise, even if they think they do. So I hope you don't think I'm suggesting that you could write a self-help book as a means to disparage your posts. Of course, if you hold a different view, then it might be understandable that you would taken offense to the comparison. I could apologise for that, but it wouldn't have been within my power to prevent, so I won't.

 

Nah I'm not offended in the least. That's one of the reasons why I love hipforums... anyone can say what they want, within the few reasonable limits they have here. I totally respect your right to whatever view you have, could care less if it differs from mine. You're welcome to share whatever you see, suggest whatever you like, disagree for eternity. It's all good. As it happens, I promise you NOTHING. I have nothing to sell, nothing I need from you, nothing I want from you. If what I have to give doesn't resonate for you then dismiss it. I don't consider any of it to be self-help oriented, in fact quite the opposite. But, whatever. See it how you want. There's no problem with any of it. Ain't it grand??

 

Meh. Way I see it: a few paltry material gains versus very little to lose. Whether you intend your posts as self-help is, as Barthes would argue, irrelevant to the reading. That's why we flock to forums; we realised that publication is no more of a guarantee of verity or insight than a few pints of Guinness. But as a writer, I know that, for me, interpretations that I would consider misinterpretations are still annoying, even if I am aware that they are also inevitable. As you have said, we are forced to use language to think and express. I think the difference is that you see that as something that we must overcome. I see it as something that we are, and that our achievements can only bend this rule beyond recognition, never actually break it.