By what standard does someone deserve something? It isn't that things ought to be or ought not to be, it is only that things will happen as they will. How we react to what happens is what defines a good life or bad, not what kind of stuff we get.
So love isn't like a lottery. We have total control over who we love and how we dispense it. The angst is that we cannot control how others love us. But if we could, it wouldn't be as valuable.
Come on, my friend. It's a line of verse, and as such, highly subjective. Nothing more. I thought it was beautiful, and representative of a mindset. How many people have felt that way, regardless of whether or not it is accurate assessment of life?
You should know me by now; it's my curse to always look beyond the fascades. I find beauty in most things I encounter, but I always try to look further. If I don't, another religion might form.
True, I know that about you. And there is nothing wrong about that.
I do disagree a little in that I am not sure we are 100% in control of who we love. We can control how we express it and whether we want to pursue something, which is why I never sympathize with people who say "it just happened" when they are caught having an affair. But I don't think we can will ourselves to love someone based on reason.
If I give you that we are never in 100 percent control of anything, even something like driving a car or riding in an elevator because there are so many other factors, we can then talk about control as a loose idea. Like I control that I want to drive myself to the store (even though the store might have been burned down, or a detour exists in the road, or something comes up along the way); I'm talking about a general sense of control.
Given that, if we can control who we don't love, or if we can undermine our love for someone, then why can't we create love for someone with enough work? Humans imagine all sorts of things that aren't actually the way they imagine them, so why not love?
What I think you are confusing is a return of love in some manner, but I'm not qualifying this; it seems unlikely because we generally conceive of love as a two way street where the object of love responds. And if the object of love responds in the negative, that pretty much brings it to a close. But it doesn't really remove what was felt and in many cases, like stalkers, this sense of love continues.
All of our feelings or preferences about some person or object are nothing more than a type of programming that we've exposed and conditioned our brains to. We love only certain types of people because we've already subjected our brains to many years of programming so we only respond to certain types of people under certain conditions.
So even though it would be unlikely, I still believe that it is possible for one person to condition him/herself to love any other person. This might take circumventing all these years of conditioning, but it is possible. It would begin like any other attraction, by creating connections between the person and things the individual already likes.
By what standard does someone deserve something? It isn't that things ought to be or ought not to be, it is only that things will happen as they will. How we react to what happens is what defines a good life or bad, not what kind of stuff we get.
ReplyDeleteSo love isn't like a lottery. We have total control over who we love and how we dispense it. The angst is that we cannot control how others love us. But if we could, it wouldn't be as valuable.
Come on, my friend. It's a line of verse, and as such, highly subjective. Nothing more. I thought it was beautiful, and representative of a mindset. How many people have felt that way, regardless of whether or not it is accurate assessment of life?
ReplyDeleteYou should know me by now; it's my curse to always look beyond the fascades. I find beauty in most things I encounter, but I always try to look further. If I don't, another religion might form.
ReplyDeleteTrue, I know that about you. And there is nothing wrong about that.
ReplyDeleteI do disagree a little in that I am not sure we are 100% in control of who we love. We can control how we express it and whether we want to pursue something, which is why I never sympathize with people who say "it just happened" when they are caught having an affair. But I don't think we can will ourselves to love someone based on reason.
If I give you that we are never in 100 percent control of anything, even something like driving a car or riding in an elevator because there are so many other factors, we can then talk about control as a loose idea. Like I control that I want to drive myself to the store (even though the store might have been burned down, or a detour exists in the road, or something comes up along the way); I'm talking about a general sense of control.
ReplyDeleteGiven that, if we can control who we don't love, or if we can undermine our love for someone, then why can't we create love for someone with enough work? Humans imagine all sorts of things that aren't actually the way they imagine them, so why not love?
What I think you are confusing is a return of love in some manner, but I'm not qualifying this; it seems unlikely because we generally conceive of love as a two way street where the object of love responds. And if the object of love responds in the negative, that pretty much brings it to a close. But it doesn't really remove what was felt and in many cases, like stalkers, this sense of love continues.
All of our feelings or preferences about some person or object are nothing more than a type of programming that we've exposed and conditioned our brains to. We love only certain types of people because we've already subjected our brains to many years of programming so we only respond to certain types of people under certain conditions.
So even though it would be unlikely, I still believe that it is possible for one person to condition him/herself to love any other person. This might take circumventing all these years of conditioning, but it is possible. It would begin like any other attraction, by creating connections between the person and things the individual already likes.