Sunday, July 17, 2011

Derivations on a Theme -- A Many Splendored Something Or Other

I usually write a derivation based on a blog post or news story from somewhere else, but today my foil is Scott's earlier post, Love. It is a word and concept I often think about, yet it doesn't appear on this blog all that often.

I frequently hear people describe genuine love as selfless. It has a nice ring to it, but how can anything we experience be beyond the self? It is by the self that we think, feel and experience the world. It is the prism that everything passes through. If love indeed was an impulse or force that didn't need the self, then it would be a default behavior inbred in us. Sort of instinctual.

As we look out onto the world we live in, I think it is patently obvious that love divorced from self does not exist. If it did, there would be no war, no poverty, no injustice, no bigotry, no discrimination and no oppression. Taking it a step further, there would be no need for religion or god either.

But none of us loves -- regardless of which kind of love we mean -- everybody and everything. We have preferences. We have objects of our affection. People or things outside of this frame of reference don't receive the same treatment or thought. So, it seems to me that love emanates from the self.

I often hear some people remark that love is manifested when we can climb outside of ourselves. How exactly could we accomplish this? What happens to the self while we are gone? Is it on autopilot?

Whenever I hear this description, I suppose I envision a misty aura rising above a person's head and hanging in the air a few feet above. It would be tantamount to looking at yourself from afar. But if this aura is no longer part of the self left down below with its housing, what in the hell is it? How could it even recognize that it was derived from that form down there if it has no sense of self?

These are the sorts of weird things I ponder. No wonder I'm half crazy!!

2 comments:

  1. As I said before, I thing love is something we DO in a relationship. Of course it emanates from the self. Don't you think it's something we can learn to practice?

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