"Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command."

Love is a command in Christianity. How much have that command made you suffer? How much has "love" taken a toll on you?

A huge toll. I think alan watts is the guy that explained television and how it was never meant to entertain you. Haven't watched tv in 6 months because i always remember what he said and he is correct.

Alan Watts would have had an opinion on the internet. He was a wise guy and would probably have imagined the tailor-made experience of the web. People can choose what they want and there is a presence of a gigantic filter bubble. The question is if this bubble are driving people against each other or that there is a question about different qualities creating more understanding between people?

This forum is a kind of exile from a destructive context. Here dissenters/apostates can vent their opinions. When Alan Watts lived these kind of possibilities did not exist and people were much more lonely.

Is love a command? Wrote:
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> Alan Watts would have had an opinion on the
> internet. He was a wise guy and would probably
> have imagined the tailor-made experience of the
> web. People can choose what they want and there is
> a presence of a gigantic filter bubble. The
> question is if this bubble are driving people
> against each other or that there is a question
> about different qualities creating more
> understanding between people?
>
> This forum is a kind of exile from a destructive
> context. Here dissenters/apostates can vent their
> opinions. When Alan Watts lived these kind of
> possibilities did not exist and people were much
> more lonely.

Did not know that he passed. He did seem like a very wise and smart observer of life and how people were controlled by tv and sport stadiums and tribalism all the while getting no where in real life. Not sure what he would of thought of recovery forums where people were aloud to vent their frustrations somewhere. If he would have thought it healthy or unhealthy. Hard to know.

He has been silent for 44 years. But the whole thing is still the whole thing and his ideas are on paper, tapes and videos.

Love is the least followed Christian commandment.

"How much has "love" taken a toll on you?"

"Love" hasn't taken a toll on me. Lack of "love" has.

1st marriage to a mormon woman....no love in it, took a toll on me.

Current marriage to a non-mormon woman, love is good, as it should be :)

Jonny the Smoke Wrote:
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> 1st marriage to a mormon woman....no love in it,
> took a toll on me.

All you needed was glove. I hope you used one.

"All you needed was glove. I hope you used one."

I did, except when planned. I almost left after the first year and no kids, but back then honestly, my main fear was losing face in mormondom....RM, temple marriage, divorced after a year:(

I stayed 15 years, had two kids, and realized I was dying on the vine and had to get out...damn the torpedoes!

She was violent, physically, emotionally. No one in the church or my family suggested I get out, and when I did, the comments were along the lines of "are you sure it's over?", "what about the kids?"

What about me?

All said and done, I did the right thing and my family came to realize that. I was out of the church by then, so no mormonism was involved either.

I'm not questioning you. I just think kids are always collateral damage in the wars of "love" so I hoped there wasn't much collateral damage.

I didn't feel questioned, no worries. Kids did fine. They knew why I left and they experienced the same. They stayed with me through most of their teen years. I lived a couple blocks from the house I left. Son has done well, just turned 30, has a great job/ career, etc. Daughter made some poor choices later in her teens/ early 20's and is still dealing with that at 27. I can only hope for the best with her.

Define love...go ahead...I dare ya,,no I double dare ya..haha...there's a fine kettle of fish...how often would we even cross the street if there were a fifty percent chance we wouldn't make it....yet well tear into a loaf of love like a starving teenager...we are optimists for sure

Do you command me to define the undefinable?

I often wonder what love really means. I sometimes wonder if it means don't kill each other and not much more. I mean in the bible people would kill each other for no reason (as do some people now), maybe it is that simplistic, like don't stone your neighbor because they have a different religious belief as you. Commandment...love thy neighbor.

All this time I am thinking I have to love them ie: form a relationship with them, but maybe really all I have to do is, let them live life the way they want to and don't hurt them because they think different from me.

is that while he seems brilliant on any number of topics, regarding interpersonal relationships, he was really an ignorant prat.

Alan Watts is a realist. I first started reading him in my twenties, some ten years or so out of LDS (indoctrination) affiliation.

I remember reading in one of his books, some years ago , about how 'now' - this moment - is the "burning tip of awareness". Then remembering LDS preaching about past and future bring so important, even discounting the every present moment.... and always knowing it's all wrong.

Alan Watts was therefore a prophet, of sorts, to me. You'd get way further - much faster - following him than the LDS 'church'.

M@t