Pluto
Meowing to go out
- Dec 27, 2020
- 3,881
The word love is inherently problematic in English because its usage ranges from the profane to the profound, from feelings towards a favourite ice cream to expressions of the deepest bonds between loved ones. Nonetheless, hopefully the word can be used for the sake of discussion despite its vagueness.
Numerous people here have expressed a frustrated inability to give and/or receive love as a reason for their grief. Additionally, many of us were not loved in childhood so don't even know what it's supposed to feel like.
For me, the best memory of love was the family cat who was my only friend at one point in my 20s. She used to cry to come inside, and would then just sit on the table next to me, or curl up and sleep on the chair next to me. We would stare into each other's eyes and she seemed unconcerned by my dreadful hygiene of the time. She had the softest fur!
While the love of animals is pure, it seems that the intellectual concept of human love is easily diluted into oblivion when we unravel the impurities of selfish motivation. Rallying in support of other groups of people counts as virtue signaling. Romantic love is reducible to obtaining sex. Friendship boils down to trading in trustful companionship. Parental love is an expression of robotic biological processes. Even pets are driven by self-interest. Therefore the conclusion of the intellectual mind is that love is merely an illusion and must be viewed with deep cynicism to avoid trouble.
Having worked with young children, I recognised that their love is initially devoid of this cynicism, open and sweet and warm. But then, slowly I see the poison of the human culture permeate over time. The competitiveness, the dominance, the hierarchies, the insecurity, the preying on the vulnerable... until innocence is lost.
Fast forward two or more decades and here we are with our battle-hardened world views. So many people are literally dying to connect with others only to find attempts distorted by the culture's pervasive dysfunction that our minds have internalised. It seems that something has gone very wrong somewhere.
I don't have any answers and this can all be considered rambling that may or may not stimulate some discussion on the topic.
Numerous people here have expressed a frustrated inability to give and/or receive love as a reason for their grief. Additionally, many of us were not loved in childhood so don't even know what it's supposed to feel like.
For me, the best memory of love was the family cat who was my only friend at one point in my 20s. She used to cry to come inside, and would then just sit on the table next to me, or curl up and sleep on the chair next to me. We would stare into each other's eyes and she seemed unconcerned by my dreadful hygiene of the time. She had the softest fur!
While the love of animals is pure, it seems that the intellectual concept of human love is easily diluted into oblivion when we unravel the impurities of selfish motivation. Rallying in support of other groups of people counts as virtue signaling. Romantic love is reducible to obtaining sex. Friendship boils down to trading in trustful companionship. Parental love is an expression of robotic biological processes. Even pets are driven by self-interest. Therefore the conclusion of the intellectual mind is that love is merely an illusion and must be viewed with deep cynicism to avoid trouble.
Having worked with young children, I recognised that their love is initially devoid of this cynicism, open and sweet and warm. But then, slowly I see the poison of the human culture permeate over time. The competitiveness, the dominance, the hierarchies, the insecurity, the preying on the vulnerable... until innocence is lost.
Fast forward two or more decades and here we are with our battle-hardened world views. So many people are literally dying to connect with others only to find attempts distorted by the culture's pervasive dysfunction that our minds have internalised. It seems that something has gone very wrong somewhere.
I don't have any answers and this can all be considered rambling that may or may not stimulate some discussion on the topic.
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