the only easy day was yesterday

Thursday, November 15, 2007

love

i've really not wanted to post on this, im not sure if i have before, on thisblog, but im gooing to now. it's possiby the most annoying word to consider philosophically because it is arguably the second strongest human emotion, besides anger of course, and if you disagree with people who are conditioned in their beliefs on love it will insight that one stronger emotion. but here it goes. discuss love. try to be objective. is the pursuit of love a self-centered pursuit. if you think that there are different kinds of love, why? what evidence besides your perceptions is there for this? what kind of good can separating love do for others if you think that there are 'types' of love. while i dont want to get into this, keep in mind the originally kantian concept that the way in which we develope concepts and experience in the manor in which the mind categorizes things, he proves this fascinatingly, and it has been backed my numerous neurological research, so take my word for the heirarchical form which we believe the mind to operate in; can this present problems when we try to consider love objectively?

4 comments:

The W said...

I would argue that just like anyother pursuit, love has the potential to be self centered. id like to imagine that love shouldnt be self-centered, meaning completly focused on the object/concept of ones affection. I would imagine that i would not in the least support a love that focused purely on the self, casting aside even the thing of affections. im not sure that this exists, pleaes tell me if it does.
surely love is meant to have an affect on one's self, and that is the reason why love is so powerful in the first place.

what kind of good can separating love do for others if you think that there are 'types' of love

if not sure if this is what you are asking, but categorizing love into types seems to serve a linguist function in aiding the expression of one's feelings. im not sure if it does any good, because for all i know there is one kind of love and i just feel it in different ways with regaurd to different things.
when i say:
i love my mom
i love my friends
i love yiddish
is there any difference in the love i feel towards any of these categories?
it seems as if the love for my mom is non-conditional, that, if i were to change my middle name, my mother would be really upset, but she wouldnt stop loving me, nor would i her. the love between my mother and i could be argued as natural, inborn love. whereas the love of my friends and yiddish was something i had to learn. does the fact that one seemed to come from the act of being born, and the others i reached through reason make them different? im not sure. id be interested to hear a person's account of "falling in love" and later losing all love for the person of their affection.

on a semi random note, i can recall when i got into a fight with my sister about college and yiddish. i was worrying about being able to learn yiddish, and was rethinking going to whittier, in favour of queens college (which offers yiddish). my sister, coming across this information called me and started accusing me of trying to throw my future away for a "hobby". i hung up on her rather soon after this comment and didnt talk to her for a while. in the ensuing "appolgy" conversation a week or two later, i tried explaining to her how devoted i was to yiddish, eventually using the word love. to this she responded by saying love is something that she attributes only to people.

looking back on this conversation is seems that it is silly to limit love to specific things, for it appears that love is something that people wouldnt lie about (when attributing it outside of the realm of physical individuals) for there is no reason to. there is no need to verbalize your love for your dog to a fellow human, for your dog doesnt understand english. (i just realized that im going to see star next week!). if i say i love yiddish, my sistet, although she doesnt attribute such a feeling outside of our speicies, has no right or way of saying i dont love yiddish.

your right about the anger thing. i was really really anger when she called yiddish a hobby (and associated with the possible downfall of my existance). even though i love my sister, her attack on something else i love triggered me to resort to angry instinct and hang up on her. which is interesting, because it was in all likelyhood her love for me (and my future well being) that triggered her call me in the first place.
love is pretty complicated, because its not that i love yiddish more than my sister, but the fact that i love yiddish that caused me to become enraged when she began to attack it.

hmm. thats all for now.

Jasper Yate said...

the underlying question is one that im not very familiar with in terms of philosophy, that is, the argument that everything someone does is for the good of the self; which includes putting oneself in harms way or doing something one doesnt like for others because the individual likely thinks that some good would come of it, this 'good' may not exist at all outside the individuals mind. so it can be easily, and possibly irrefutably, argued that everything is self centered, including love.

for me, id say it is anyway, to some extent. when i go into a relationship with a person i do expect something from it, or else i wouldn't be motivated whatsoever. i could be getting a sense of accomplishment from helping someone, or i could be getting sex, whatever it is, i will probably be doing it partially for my good. in some cases, though, i choose to put a halo over my own head, and in cases where ive been abused as a friend i choose to persevere and try to help the person from the flaw that lead them to 'wrong' me.

its worth mentioning here that i consider every relationship an opportunity (and indeed worthless without) for love. this is where i get my structure for love, rather than relying on sentimentality. i may feel a different kind of love for a family member or a dog than a do someone im in an 'intimate' relationship with, but i am convinced that this feeling is the same hormone acting in me, with varying connotations in my mind. the mind is a powerful tool in sensory matters such as emotion, this is why some people are masochistic, we get the same feeling when we are cut by a blade (given slightly different nervous structures etc, the feelings are essentially thought to be very similar), but the idea that cutting ones wrist is a pleasurable act and thus a way to relieve stress, is a mental doing, they would feel pain if cut the same way by an assailant. so given that belief of mine, i see it as a very uselfeul practice, for both the self and others, to look openly upon all people in terms of being able to aquire a love for them, regardless of what kind of love you think they might warrant. in my mind it would be a much more pleasent way to live if people were more predisposed to love than to hate, as itseems to be now - something i attribute to this idea that only certain people can be loved under certain conditions, and thus everyone else is an enemy unless they can do something for me or the people i do love.

i typed all that, and now i read that your sorta saying wat i was about the same actual emtion.

falling in love is lust taking the form of real affection because of the constant barrage of ideals of true love and falling in love. so when the thrill of the physical relationship is over you get to see whats really there. another component of falling in love is this stupid word love. people care so damn much about the word. luckily im surrounded somewhat with people who arent so deathly afraid of the word but i mean the dramatic moment of "i love you" is a cliche in american society, people are terrified of whether its the right person or whatever, but im not concerned with them. so its not later losing the affection as much as its that there never was any affection for that person, but rather for the amalgamation of the counterpart of all our favorite love stories that can be seen in the temporarysignificantother.

i can understand why love can only be attribute to people on the note that i dont think that a government, as a body of written laws, can be held to morality. but its an emotion, that for myself i feel for any given thing at any time my mind decides to say, hey, i love this bedroom, its so cozy, i have a desk, a tv, everything i need.

haha yea whenever i talk to maddy shes like 'yea its okay that im gonna see you, but im so happy to see star.'

The W said...

i can understand why love can only be attribute to people on the note that i dont think that a government...
^^^^^
it gets complicated, because there are people out there, as strange as it may seem, that love the United States of America. Why else would they get angry and physical (not to mention irrational) when someone attacks it, either physically or verbally. Well just like you said about being self centered, the United States (both the government and the actual territory) provides something for the people who pledge their allegience to it. They would not love it if they thought it sucked and did nothing for them.

Jasper Yate said...

what i meant about government was that it cannot itself be (as in have the characteristic and quality of) moral because it is not a human being, and thus cannot be something that only human beings can. thats an issue of literally personifying things that are inanimate, such as government and yiddish. it is impossible for yiddish to love you, but you can clearly love yiddish.

i came on to bring up a thought i had just now pertaining to the objects of love. just as we can question what people can love, when we remember something and feel nostalgia, which to me is an emotion reminiscent of love, what is the object of our love. and further more, in that what we percieve is only a product of sensory perception, can we love another thing besides ourselves and what our senses perceive (if they even perceive anything at all)?