I love this and I had a similar realisation about love as the song the fire in the house I was staying at last month 🥰😘 I wish you could make it to the love celebration and share some of your poetry :)
Hi Camille! I loved reading your comments this morning, and Roger's. To @roger I want to say Thankyou so much for your comment, I always love reading your thoughts For me it is actually important to reclaim "lost" meanings like "love" or "sustainability" "power" or "feminism", these are concepts with a history, and with meaning and the more we experiment with redefining their meanings, the more we create a language that we resonate with. I want to reclaim words and meanings because I think somehow it is revolutionary to do so. The fact that words have been co-opted does not mean they have no meaning, although I do fully agree that at different times and for different people they mean different things. But this is also why I love to write, it is my way to inscribe something and make it somehow lasting. Anyways I'm rambling here, I love that the post sparked this beautiful conversation.
And to @Camille please let me know what this love celebration is! Much love to both!
Your inspirational thought about 'love', taken from the functional act of lighting a fire, is valuable and creative and certainly characteristic of your presence of mind and thoughtful consideration of the nature of relationships and social interactions.
Although I no longer believe in 'love', I found this an interesting list in relation to what I consider to be the more significant need / feeling / emotion for humanity: *empathy.*
Many, if not most, I know will consider my distrust or negation of the value of the ubiquitous apparent belief in 'love.' I understand that.
My problem with the concept is not a suggestion that strong emotion, caring, attachment and etc. do not exist. Rather, my view is that the concept expressed as 'love' has been debased such that in many, if not most cases, when the term is used it is hollow, superficial, too carelessly used or considered and often dishonest, whether intentionally so or not.
Indeed, how I feel is, paradoxically, well expressed by your "ten things" by what I suggest is their absence from consideration or recognition even in most instances where 'love' is expressed.
Empathy, on the other hand, simply cannot exist without all these elements and more, in particular the essential need to be able to metaphorically stand in the other's shoes.
Of course, one may argue that this is simply semantics. I think not. Language is extremely powerful and yet understood and used less and less intelligently or correctly. Even many of those for whom their very tool of trade is language, show little competence in its use, let alone eloquence and nuance. It is very common today to see the opposite of what is intended because the author misuses a word, the definition of which is actually the opposite of what was meant.
There are many more issues that debase the concept of love, I feel. However, as this is a comment, not an article, here and now is probably not the place to explore them.
I’d love to respond to this and I agree in the important of semantics. I d believe love is rightly used here because love isn’t a emotion as it has often been depicted. Love is a state of awareness and our natural state of being. It’s perceiving the world including ourselves and any other fully embracing how it is. At our essence is love, when we are born we are pure love. Behind every action there is either someone going from love or someone going for love. (Ok this is not an argument I will give you that I am getting carried away by my own love of love :)
Thanks Camille. Whilst I disagree with your notion of what constitutes "our essence", you will get no argument from me. My view is that we are all unique and that we hold myriad views and perspectives which, at any particular time. in one's life, may differ to those held at another, in fact, almost certainly will.
So, I can respect your understanding, just as I respect that of Virginia, and I welcome the opportunity to hear how others perceive concepts that although universal in their existence are often composed, interpreted or understood differently, as well as enacted and/or experienced in as varied a number of ways as there are individuals affected by them.
I love this and I had a similar realisation about love as the song the fire in the house I was staying at last month 🥰😘 I wish you could make it to the love celebration and share some of your poetry :)
Hi Camille! I loved reading your comments this morning, and Roger's. To @roger I want to say Thankyou so much for your comment, I always love reading your thoughts For me it is actually important to reclaim "lost" meanings like "love" or "sustainability" "power" or "feminism", these are concepts with a history, and with meaning and the more we experiment with redefining their meanings, the more we create a language that we resonate with. I want to reclaim words and meanings because I think somehow it is revolutionary to do so. The fact that words have been co-opted does not mean they have no meaning, although I do fully agree that at different times and for different people they mean different things. But this is also why I love to write, it is my way to inscribe something and make it somehow lasting. Anyways I'm rambling here, I love that the post sparked this beautiful conversation.
And to @Camille please let me know what this love celebration is! Much love to both!
Your inspirational thought about 'love', taken from the functional act of lighting a fire, is valuable and creative and certainly characteristic of your presence of mind and thoughtful consideration of the nature of relationships and social interactions.
Although I no longer believe in 'love', I found this an interesting list in relation to what I consider to be the more significant need / feeling / emotion for humanity: *empathy.*
Many, if not most, I know will consider my distrust or negation of the value of the ubiquitous apparent belief in 'love.' I understand that.
My problem with the concept is not a suggestion that strong emotion, caring, attachment and etc. do not exist. Rather, my view is that the concept expressed as 'love' has been debased such that in many, if not most cases, when the term is used it is hollow, superficial, too carelessly used or considered and often dishonest, whether intentionally so or not.
Indeed, how I feel is, paradoxically, well expressed by your "ten things" by what I suggest is their absence from consideration or recognition even in most instances where 'love' is expressed.
Empathy, on the other hand, simply cannot exist without all these elements and more, in particular the essential need to be able to metaphorically stand in the other's shoes.
Of course, one may argue that this is simply semantics. I think not. Language is extremely powerful and yet understood and used less and less intelligently or correctly. Even many of those for whom their very tool of trade is language, show little competence in its use, let alone eloquence and nuance. It is very common today to see the opposite of what is intended because the author misuses a word, the definition of which is actually the opposite of what was meant.
There are many more issues that debase the concept of love, I feel. However, as this is a comment, not an article, here and now is probably not the place to explore them.
I’d love to respond to this and I agree in the important of semantics. I d believe love is rightly used here because love isn’t a emotion as it has often been depicted. Love is a state of awareness and our natural state of being. It’s perceiving the world including ourselves and any other fully embracing how it is. At our essence is love, when we are born we are pure love. Behind every action there is either someone going from love or someone going for love. (Ok this is not an argument I will give you that I am getting carried away by my own love of love :)
Thanks Camille. Whilst I disagree with your notion of what constitutes "our essence", you will get no argument from me. My view is that we are all unique and that we hold myriad views and perspectives which, at any particular time. in one's life, may differ to those held at another, in fact, almost certainly will.
So, I can respect your understanding, just as I respect that of Virginia, and I welcome the opportunity to hear how others perceive concepts that although universal in their existence are often composed, interpreted or understood differently, as well as enacted and/or experienced in as varied a number of ways as there are individuals affected by them.
Take care. Stay safe. ☮️
Love love 🔥
❤️🔥
Thank you, again, and again. Lots of love to you amore!
So much wisdom here ☀️
Thankyou Florence ❤️