Well, you don't have to. You just love. Love life. Leave everything else to work itself out. That is the universal love i presume you were wondering about.
The concept of universal love
- Thread starter frogwoman
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Well, you don't have to. You just love. Love life. Leave everything else to work itself out. That is the universal love i presume you were wondering about.
This seems clear... you can hate, you can have any emotion. Of course you can, but none of them fit the universal love you're seeking.
People can just as easily not hate, not be enslaved to any emotion. It's all about the art of the possible. Because then it can be.
There was some advice earlier on to read the art of loving by erich fromm. This would indicate quite clearly that the love you're talking about is not actually love. There are, nor need there be, any reasons for love, and certainly there does not have to be any reason for love.
If love, the concept i presume you are looking to uncover, is to happen, then try reading all the scriptures with reference to God, and replace this word with Life... see what happens.
you're such a fucking hippy
Seriously though. There's a difference between loving life, loving people, etc, and loving ALL life and ALL people. As much as you may think you do or want to, you don't do that mate
Mate, i'm not necessarily talking about what i do or am. I'm human eh?! But i do think i'm talking about what we can all do.
Love is the art of the possible, so is life. Avoid hatred, fear, and death, and life is all that's left. And from life comes love...
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Who says there is? It just seems prudish to feel an emotion that's exactly like hatred and then say that it's sometihng else (not that i'm saying that jer or anyone else on this thread is doing that btw)
Who says I'm seeking universal love?
Do you love George Bush? Of course you don't
Sorry! I am replying based on the premise that you were looking to further interpretation and understanding as to what love might be or mean. I guess i ought to reread your OP. But in any case, no george bush is a complete and utter bastard, that is anti-life. But do i hate him? No, not for one minute, it would mean he wins twice, and i lose twice. That ain't a good return for me frogw!!
agreed, certainly. But, and perhaps this is the key, do we have to feel emotions? Do we have to feel hatred, in the absence of love? If one feels an emotion that language best describes as hatred, then there we go. But, if one does not engage with the trigger that causes the emotion, then are we not on the first rung of ridding ourselves of the emotion of hatred?
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
"Love is the art of the possible" - I guess we have different definitions then?
To me love is something you feel for your family and friends and it's bound up with other stuff like loyalty, protection, etc. It's a very complex concept and that emotion IMO can't really be felt for random strangers just because you feel it "should" or because you want to make the world a better place. You might feel some kind of warm glow, but love it ain't.
I don't go around hating everyone I see, that's equally as sttupid (and impossible). I'm just questioning the idea that hatred is always bad, because some positive things can sometimes come out of it.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
you might not hate him, but the question is do you love him? No, obviously. Love and hatred aren;t the only two emotions that there are. "Strong dislike" might be another one. 
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
To me feeling hatred as the only emotion would be better than feeling no emotions at all, ever. It's our emotions, good and "bad", that make us human.
I think the universal love you're looking to find the concept for is purely about a giving. It has no need of anything to nourish it from the outside into our own consciousness. It is purely about what we give to the external, and nothing about what that external might give to us. That is the real love, and it is a love for LIFE. That is my current position on all my reflections upon life. I think many of the religious scriptures start to make more sense when we replace God with Life.
If we get some wanker like blair or bush come along, or other people nearer to our actual personal lives, then it's undeniable that they are worthy of hatred, as we understand the concept of hatred. But...
... does that mean we have to engage with such external triggers with our own emotional reaction? We can, and do, of course. But do we have to? I say no, and therefore we can all find ways and means to avoid hatred.
And to get negative energy out of our internal systems is surely what it's all about... no?
If we get some wanker like blair or bush come along, or other people nearer to our actual personal lives, then it's undeniable that they are worthy of hatred, as we understand the concept of hatred. But...
... does that mean we have to engage with such external triggers with our own emotional reaction? We can, and do, of course. But do we have to? I say no, and therefore we can all find ways and means to avoid hatred.
And to get negative energy out of our internal systems is surely what it's all about... no?
bhamgeezer
Dogs bark
No, love isn't just really liking someone, I hear so many people talk about love when really all they are is dependent on that person and what that person provides for them, they may not even like that person as an individual. Love is stronger than this imo. I have no time for the modern reductionist view, it is quite frankly boring. Love is alway benevolent and never self-interested, for this reason sometimes I have hard to believing some people ever love.
Thanks for the interaction here frogw, because my answer feels strong here, and can only come from your reply to me: no i don't love him, but he does not represent life. He represents death, he represents nothing that is human, or even alive, in my understanding of life. I do not hate him, but because he is nothing to do with Life, then he receives no love. Only if we percive life can we love...
there you are, how about that?!
I wouldn't say hatred is bad. My approach is simply do we have to react emotionally to external triggers? Not to judge things, rather to just observe them. Then bad and hatred cease.
I think the most positive thing that come out of hatred is seeing the futility of it, and never ever engaging with it again!
Love perhaps is simply bound in what an individual can give, and nothing to do with what we can get. It's an action towards outside of us, rather than a desire of the external reaching our internal.
At least, that's how i see the concept being sought for in the OP.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
But IMO it's devalueing the concept of love to reduce it to something that you can just feel for random strangers you don't even know or even heard of. You can love a thing, life, people, etc, as a concept, but that's not the same as what i'm asking about in my op.
And sorry but - you don't love GB because he doesn't represent the concept of life? He obviously represents it for *somebody* - and what's the criteria for deciding that someone doesn't represent the concept and doesn't get any love?
Thanks for this discussion btw, it's very interesting
And sorry but - you don't love GB because he doesn't represent the concept of life? He obviously represents it for *somebody* - and what's the criteria for deciding that someone doesn't represent the concept and doesn't get any love?
Thanks for this discussion btw, it's very interesting
you're such a fucking hippy
Seriously though. There's a difference between loving life, loving people, etc, and loving ALL life and ALL people. As much as you may think you do or want to, you don't do that mate
I think it worth coming back to this one, at the risk of repeating myself. It is easy to love Life, even all life. But not all people, because many people are nothing more than the living dead. They do not represent life. Life is affirmative, and not about negativity. I think the universal love you sought in the OP is a love for Life. For everything that lives. Such life is not anything to do with negativity...
But IMO it's devalueing the concept of love to reduce it to something that you can just feel for random strangers you don't even know or even heard of. You can love a thing, life, people, etc, as a concept, but that's not the same as what i'm asking about in my op.
And sorry but - you don't love GB because he doesn't represent the concept of life? He obviously represents it for *somebody* - and what's the criteria for deciding that someone doesn't represent the concept and doesn't get any love?
Thanks for this discussion btw, it's very interesting
The waters are beginning to resemble crocodile-infested ones...
GB does not represent life, not the one we know as citizens. He represented death in a big way, that was what his presidency was all about, same as blair. Look at their appalling legacy!
We don't decide on the criteria, it's decided for us. Life is the be all and end all, it is all we have. So the better we treat it, surely the better it treats us? The likes of GB and his mob are death personified. They don't count!
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Who decides that they don't count? I'm not saying I don't agree btw, but this is the problem when it comes to things like this, that I referred to in my OP. I'd have a lot of difficulty showing "universal love" to some of the cunts in the video i've been editing recently, and why try to make yourself feel something that you can't feel and indeed SHOULDN'T feel in some circumstaces?
Perhaps it's about recognising the difference between 'dead' people, and those that display signs of humanity and Life. I mean, you see some bastards, and no reason to love them. But, equally, no reason to hate them, because otherwise we lend credence to their ideas and ways. I think the best reaction to negativity is a non-reaction, at the non-emotional level.
bhamgeezer
Dogs bark
I don't think universal love is about approving of everyone at all, its not the same thing. You're making love sound very practical, a kind of prioritisation of those who are close to, modern psychobabble nonsense to appease practical people in practical relationships imo. Love is overwhelming desire to be privy to (I won't say possess with its overtones of patriarchy) what is beautiful (in the most general sense of the term). Thus we love towards a beautiful nature, moral beauty as well as physical beauty. A love of humanity is merely an appreciation of what is beautiful in it. If you stop believing in the inherent beauty of human nature you quickly degrade into misanthropy. The fact that people have such strong moral reactions to certain individuals is anything a sign of this appreciation and a distain for what threatens it. One only has to look at a old copper or criminal judge to see the degrading effects of being constantly being present of the uglier side of human nature.
I think it would probably be better to analyse love in terms of Philia, Eros and Agape as opposed to lumping them all together although at base they are all the same.
I think it would probably be better to analyse love in terms of Philia, Eros and Agape as opposed to lumping them all together although at base they are all the same.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
But it has nothing to do with "modern" or not. This idea, and adoption from Christianity and Judaism into other belief systems only came about relatively recently. Shakespeare when he wrote his love poetry and his sonnets, when he talked about love and about human relationships, didn't talk about it like an ideal. He talked about it how it actually existed in the world and in his and his characters' minds. Even in the New Testament where it says, "Greater love hath no man than the man who lays down his life for his friends." Is that some sort of wooly abstract concept based around vaguely caring about people you don't know? No.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
You made scant mention of doing something with animal cruelty. If it isn't labs or battery farms, then you should add a bit of detail, for the thread's sake.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I don't hate diesel. I never met the man. I was shocked to shit by some of the things we learned about him, and totally perplexed by some things. I strongly dislike racism, and I'm sure you do too. But there are few people whom I've ever hated, and it is always someone I know personally, and whom I've come to feel that way about due to things they've done.
I don't think the proliferation of hate in the world is a good thing. I try to bring it out in myself on exceeding rare occasions.
As for Belushi, I don't know him.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
So you love the cute and fluffy ones?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Something else about this: when you read the allegations against him about menacing black kids with an attack dog, what came to my mind is that, this is where hate leads you. Hate leads you out on a narrowing road to a bleak and alien place.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
What fela fan actually seems to be doing is denying that these people are human and making some contortions in his mind to separate them from others - "dead people", an understandable reaction but a dangerous one, given that we all have the capacity for good and bad inside us all. It's not a criticism btw fela - i do similar stuff myself. we all do.
bhamgeezer
Dogs bark
Not really, I consider the Greek texts to be the authority in these matters. Plato's Symposium being the best of them. Much of the Christian approach to love was merely inherited from Plato.
Maybe Love is such a strong feeling that it can only be experienced when one perceives the universe as a whole, indivisible, infinite and eternal entity, I would like too know what it's it feels like but so far have only glimpsed it under great stress or while on drugs. The eternal bit always seems to elude me. I choose to live with preference, or so I tell myself.
