Love is one of these words like racism, compassion, and imperialistm with a lot of baggage. One can assume, I think, that any word that finds itself consistently on T-Shirts sold at Wal-Mart and Target has been denuded of much of its meaning. I try to avoid words such as this. Yet, it is really the best word we have, so the option of defining it usefully seems better than trying to invent a new word, like Grok (although Heinlein and I are on the same page).
Love and Goodness, in my usage, are more or less synonymous. Goodness is taking pleasure from the happiness of others, and the capacity to live happily on one’s own. What is necessary for this? Obviously: transcending your own parochial difficulties, pains, and concerns. On a superficial level, this means actually listening to other people, recognizing they are there. Many people, in talking with others, are mainly fishing for good gossip, and the opportunity to share with someone all the trials and tribulations–and successes–of their own lives.
I have found, for example, that there are few of the most intimate details of their lives that many people won’t share with you in bars, if you will simply give them your full attention, and show them you are focused on them, and not your own response. If you pay careful attention, I think many of the conversation you hear are, in part, reciprocal monologues.
Likewise, too, I think most of us, perceptually, are really mainly concerned with our own worlds, and a very small number of other people, normally family and close friends, if we have any.
This world is a sort of cage, that keeps out the sunlight. I had a dream the other night, which led–through the convolutions of my ruminatory intellect (I suppose I am a sort of intellectual cow, with many stomachs)–to this post. First, the dream, then my interpretation.
I was travelling around, and became aware that Oprah was going to be at a book reading. I thought that sounded mildly interesting, so I went up, and at the top of some old wooden stairs, in a somewhat musty, but not overly run-down house, was a woman, and a window into the room. I looked into the room, and there were Oprah and Gail, sitting in the front row, with perhaps 20 other people, packed into an upstairs room, that did have windows all around. They were listening in rapt attention for the Next Big Thing. The whole scene was cloaked in greyness. It wasn’t dark, but it was overcast, like a day that just doesn’t want to shine. I started to go in, but was told the admission was $10, which didn’t seem reasonable to me, so I left. When I got to the door, it occurred to me I just float through it, rather than open it, and I did. When I did this, the world exploded into a feast of light and color. There were rainbows and waterfalls. To put a word to it: beauty.
As I thought about it later, I realized that this world is always RIGHT THERE. What we have to do is drop our small little cares and worries, and swim in the big sea. It’s all always already there. The movement there is not through a book, or through thought. It is with your spirit.
This morning, I realized that with Love, you are never alone. You are the other person’s best friend, always, such that no matter where you go, or what you do, you have communion, you have companionship.
And when you have renounced caring about pain and suffering, it doesn’t matter if others try to hurt you: you are immune. You just move on. The energy in you is flowing out. Their energy does not flow into you. It’s irrelevant. You dictate the terms of the engagement.
This is, in my view, a useful insight.
Edit: Rumi:
“Does sunset sometimes look like the sun’s coming up?
Do you know what a faithful love is like?
You’re crying. You say you’ve burned yourself.
But can you think of anyone who’s not
hazy with smoke?”