During my freefal from absolutisms down into chaos, I kept scraping my soul oon the sides of the abyss with razors that flashed discomforting terms such as, "nothing is real" and "stop thinking".

Today I find more solice in a Twinkie than in all the wisdom of every tradition ever fabricated. The last rung I recall was engraved with "experience".

It came out of the shoddy wallboard and I've been falling ever since.

Today I grope for answers in rescuing a single mom who was betrayed by every authority figure in her life.

I take comfort in the possibility that she is less stupid than me, and so, if I love her enough, we just might conquer this innumerable army called reality.

Am I afraid?

No. In this day of digital miracles, our socks make soup, or so I've been prompted.

Horns still honk. People the world over still enter gridlock. The lie of progress seems to be as intact as ever. Best friends don't repay loans, parents are too deleriously lost in deafness and stark destitution, so what is there to worry about, really?

There can be no such thing as love if there be no God.

And with no love, there can be no sacrifice. Life ceases the moment the void blacker that black becomes apparent more ea,ch passing day.

Thankfully, stores are filled with pure nutrition. Life remains affordable. Big Pharma stands rea,dy to save us.

All is well. All is well.

You need more Camus in your life.

Between Camus and Sartre - I forget which one wrote L'Etranger - that book gave more - and worse - nightmares than anything Stephen King ever wrote.

I went through an existentialist period. I studied this sculptor with an Italian name which I have forgotten. His sculptures looked like tall candles that had been terribly ravaged by raptors.

Then I got over my young-adult angst.

Yes, love exists. I have been living in a sea of it for nearly 30 years. I'm hoping for 34, because that would be symbolic - twice as long as I spent in Hell with the ex.

And Ron, you're in my thoughts too. Hugs from catnip.

Here is a quote from Mr. Rogers that was meaningful to me this week --

“Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”

― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

People are not perfect. But if they are loyal to you over time, and generally caring of you, that should count for a lot.

I could tell you about my class. I have a lovely group of children this year, which is unusual (I teach urban kids who quite often could test the patience of a saint.) I was sometimes very cranky with my class today because I was very tired, which I explained to them. But they loved me anyway. They came up to me for hugs repeatedly today. There is love in the world -- sometimes more than we deserve at any given moment.

--from Summer, who started her winter break this afternoon. :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2018 06:55PM by summer.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was sometimes very cranky
> with my class today because I was very tired,
> which I explained to them. But they loved me
> anyway. They came up to me for hugs repeatedly
> today.

I love this! (It made me smile.)


> --from Summer, who started her winter break this
> afternoon. :)

I wish you the best possible winter break, summer!

Thanks so much, Tevai! To have so much time off feels positively luxurious. I am looking forward to curling up on the sofa tomorrow morning with a hot cup of coffee, and watching my favorite Premier League soccer (oops! "football") matches. Bliss!

You sure know when it's missing.

Love both Makes & Breaks relationships.

Wait; loyalty to ChurchCo breaks relationships also.

Cult @ 100%

It’s the only thing that exists.

Rent “The Game”, staring Michael Douglas. You have just fallen into the airbag. Don’t move sir, there could be broken glass.

Love is an emotion which is a mental construct. It's the christian gotcha question because we know that love exists but we cannot prove it, just like they know their god exists without evidence.

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Love is an emotion which is a mental construct.
> It's the christian gotcha question because we know
> that love exists but we cannot prove it, just like
> they know their god exists without evidence.


Love without evidence is ... stalking?

we can examine the brain state and the chemicals that trigger that state, oxcytocin. So there is evidence.

Yes...

I love a tight female butt !

Yes.

Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes.


I am thinking of you Ron.

Thanks Tevai. I'm doing OK. Grandkids will be here and my home will be joyful for a few days.

Less navel gazing. More hikes.

5 cents, please.

O_o ¿wha
twinkies?

As I mentioned elsewhere, love is about getting something from someone.

I thought my wife loved me, until I had career trouble, and then she threatened divorce.

Which made me question the whole concept.

When someone loves someone, they generally are getting something. When that something goes away, the love stops.

Most of us can sail along in life, thinking people really love us. But if we change, the love ends.

For example, when you leave the church, somehow you get less love from members. Guys losing their jobs get less love.

It is funny seeing guys making big money who really think their wife loves them. They are a few paychecks away from reality.

Do mothers love their children? You would think so, but perhaps they just satisfy the mothers craving to nurture, or to gain status by showing off her kids. Or some I see spending countless hours on their cell phones while handing their kids Ipads. What is that about?

So yes, people can like what you have to offer - you could call that love. You can live in fantasy and think it is unconditional, but if we liked fantasy, we would be in church.

Sometimes I wonder if there is much we would do if we understood reality.

BTW, I'm thinking we should actually offer something to others in order to be loved. We shouldn't be slobs and expect love, or gain 200 pounds or stink or whatever.

The idea of unconditional love we were sold, makes us lazy. Generally, you should earn love, except for young children, of course.

Which again, is why marriage should only be an exchange of benefits, and promise to be responsible for raising kids.

Mormon Nomore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There can be no such thing as love if there be no
> God.

lolwut?

Love is real enough. And unlike the mortal world, it survives after we've left this planet. It is eternal.

Until you've experienced love for yourself, you aren't going to understand. If you are capable of loving another human being, a pet, an animal, an idea, a place, a thing. Only then are you living life at its fullest IMHO.

The old adage, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," is still true.

Love never dies. According to scripture and theologists, love is the highest law. Without love, where would any one of us be?

Love begins by being loved. Learning to love is to learn self-love first, before you can really love someone else.

We learn from imitation. Which is why it's so important to emulate those things you desire to pass on to those you love and cherish.

That's why selfishness is also a virtue, in the right context and measure. To be altruistic requires as much.

I see love as the spiritual counterpart to physical heat. Both are active activities (sorry for the redundancy!).

Heat is active. Its opposite is cold, which is passive--the absence of heat. Unless heat is maintained it dissipates and dies, and becomes its opposite--cold. This principle applies to us, whether we are around a campfire or cozy in our insulated homes. We see this also at the cosmic level with stars and galaxies.

Love is also active. Its opposite is not hate, but indifference, which is passive and cold. Like heat, love must be instigated ("kindled"), and maintained (nurtured). Lacking fuel, it dies, and becomes cold.

What is the fuel? There are all sorts of combustible things, both internal and external: what we have learned, incorporated, and utilized from our upbringing, from our family of origin and cultural environment. Hopefully these have been positive; increasingly not, as family relationships deteriorate and family concepts "evolve" into strange new norms (thanks, deconstructionists!).

Love must be fed. Institutions such as marriage, government, law, charity, and even etiquette provide structure and a means for us to maintain, transmit, and feed love to people in our immediate or distant circles of association.

Just as the Sun is the source of heat on our Earth, God is the ultimate source of love. Heat and love may be diffused, redirected, experienced through multiple stages of transmission,* misdirected, shaded and blocked, distorted and wasted, but the Sun is the source of life-giving heat just as "God is love" (I John 4:7-12). A person may be living indoors all his life, but he is still, however indirectly, dependent on the Sun for his life's heat, just as the atheist benefits from God's love, even as he spurns it. The more we approach and relate to God, the closer we are to the source.

Last thought: Feelings and love are not equivalent. They are both valid, and overlap, but they are not the same, nor do feelings "prove" love, just as love may not be recognized in feelings.

*Example: Sun-photosynthesis-plant food-animal protein-animal excrement-soil microbes-plant & animal decomposition

Just a thought.

I don't know but I don't leave my cave each day looking.
Moreover, I wouldn't even know what it looks like.
It must not be separate from life or language.
Transmutable, metaphysical, morphing & changeable.

The factors ALWAYS change. The environment too.
So does the thing feeling/ making/ being "love".

We make love. We are love. Love is love.
What are we? Who are we? Who cares?
We aren't defined or confined by it.
But it might refine or re-shine me.

I hope it finds me because I ain't going ashore or hunting it!
It might already have. It's probably why I'm infected by it.
I wish it would leave me alone, the way it found me.
I think I found it! It's YOU and ME and we are FREE.

No longer bothered by love or what it is,
Or how or where to find - or BE - it.

M@t

P.S.
Happy Hunting
Merry Christmas
Happy Days
Good Luck
Wish Me Luck
Write Sometime
I Love You
Me
:)

It requires no god. I tend to think it is an evolutionary trait.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-wise-brain/201002/the-evolution-love