Love, New Conception

It seems my conception of love just keeps changing and changing. Before my second semester of college I had some idea of what love was but I never really thought about it. I just thought you'd know it when you felt it. I never thought about trying to understand it and just left it as this ideal, this just unexplainable feeling that can't truly be figured out or understood. Then in my second semester of college I had a philosophy teacher by the name of Mr. Sanders. I only had him for intro to philosophy but his insight into certain subjects was rather captivating. There are many subjects now that in the way I think are influenced by his thought, not that I blindly accepted what he said but I tried to find flaws in his reason and accepted the ideas based on his reasons. Now to get back on the subject at hand he had given his explanation of what love was and I thought it was pretty good and accepted it on a temporary basis because I still needed to work through his reasons and the idea behind his conception of love. His idea was that love isn't about yourself. Love is not selfish, it is when you are concerned about the other person to whom you love above yourself. You don't want them to be sad because its them you care about, you make them happy not to make you happy but because knowing they are happy is all that concerns you. I can't fully explain it because I'm still adjusting to the idea. Its a rather shocking concept but I think it is good. The way I've simplified it for myself was that you are concerned about the other person more then yourself. Now when I brought this concept up to one of my friends who does have his own insight in the world that is rather remarkable, his name is Chris. Chris's concepts and ideas I don't always agree with but he has the ability that most people don't, he can give reasons and rational reasons to explain what he believes and why he believes it. But when I brought up the idea he looked shocked and disagreed with the concept. He said that doesn't work because you can't say that your goal is your reason, you can't want to make someone happy because it'll make them happy. So that makes sense. When it came to the concern portion of this idea of love he said that nobody does anything for someone else there is a drive that when you make someone happy it makes you happy. His argument was that everybody does everything to make them happy or at least content, or something along those lines. I disagreed because I don't think people are selfish all the time, maybe most of the time but not all; but that is for another discussion.

But anyway the true point of this essay is that I think I've poked a hole in the concept of love that my teacher spoke of. The idea came to me when I was showering, I thought of the wife in the Truman Show. She married Truman and pretended to be his wife to make him happy and her concern was him; her reasons were for her “job” but she still fills the concept that your concern is of the other person. This is a little far out but it is a thought experiment which usually are a little outrageous in their conceptions. Thinking of this there could be other reasons that make someone legitimately care for the concerns and happiness of another person more then themselves but they probably do not enjoy it and regret it, like the wife in the Truman Show, does that still qualify as love. Yes I think it does, at least in the concept that my teacher gave because the reasons were not clearly stated as why you have concern of the other person over yourself.

This led me to rethink love, I am not a fan of any of the “all” ideas, people are selfish all the time, there is an all knowing, all loving, and all wise being; I don't like “all” concepts and yet I let one slip by, your are always concerned about the other person above yourself. So I think now the concept of love has at least two concepts; you are concerned about the other person above yourself and you are with that person because they make you feel better, happier or content. Neither one over powers the other they are both necessary. This rules out the wife in the Truman Show because she might not have been happy or felt better while being with Truman. So that is what I believe are two parts of the concept of love, there may be more to it but for now those are the ones I understand.

The Woods

The air is musty, the trees are old, this part of the forest is so enclosing. I feel like I'm lost in ancient lands were demons, monsters, giants, imps, sprites, goblins all still roam. The area seems to repeat but keep its differences. As I walk further into these ancient dwellers I'm more and more disoriented. The area around me seems to become darker and darker. Light, bright there is a shine a faint glow of gold that catches my eye. It seems to bring me out of my disoriented state. There it is, laying on the flow, the ground around it bare, and the ancient trees like pillars encircling. New questions arise, as I stand to view this glorious sight, the fog of my mind is growing worse. I seem to be stuck looking at this object without realizing I have picked it up this idol and rotating and checking every square inch of this entrancing gold object. Further and further I fall into a trance. Sudden noise, I'm broken out of my fogged state of mind, I look around this dense jungle. I'm holding out this idol at arms length. I then begin to bring it closer lost further and further by its ability to captivate my mind. Further noises, these are different closer. I drop the idol. On my toes I look, I back away hiding in the pillars shadows. Gazing upon my lost idol. There is a wild man, who encroaches the bare ground where the idol lies, he looks around eyes afire, wondering why his idol has moved. He picked it up, gazing at it, and gently places it in the center, quickly gazing from left to right. His guard is up, that idol is lost. I look at the idol, it seems to have lost its glow, its there but its faint, the glow is focused on this new man. I panic, and begin to run out of these lost woods. I'm breaking branches, scraping my skin, running at a furious pace, I fall and hit the ground tumbling. Why am I running, my thoughts don't change my actions, I'm still running, faster and faster, I see daylight, that gold glow was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, the last ten feet, out, flood of light, I'm blinded by the daylight and yet I feel free yet more trapped then ever before.

On My Potential

In an earlier writing I said that I needed to reach my full potential before I can truly help others. Well now the question in my mind is what is my full potential. Am I there already, what do I need to do to get there, what actually would be my full potential and will I actually be able to get there.

What is full potential? In my mind fulfilling your potential is kind of like fulfilling life goals. Not all life goals but those of knowledge and of your future career. To me its hard to explain what your full potential is. I think part of it is your personality and your character, being the best person you can be, knowing your limitations and being able to stand for your beliefs and ideals as well as being able to give reason for your beliefs. It wouldn't be being the wisest you could be because I don't think that is a possibility because you can always learn and become wiser. Its when you are reasonably comfortable with the person you are. When you reach a point in your life that you reasonably believe that you have become your true self and accomplished what you have set out to accomplish.

Now what is my full potential. I guess it would be when I reach the level of ability in art that I want to be at and when I find myself again. Finding myself is the challenge to which I am not sure how to reach, I know I need more life experience and more time for self reflection but there is more to do then just that in order to puzzle together the pieces of my mind. The level of artist I want to reach is something to which I pretty much know how to go about getting there, its gonna take a lot of time and effort on my part to reach the level I want to reach but I know how to get there.

Now am I there now, no. My art ability is good but not where I want it to be or where it needs to be. There is still so much more time and much more to learn before I am where my potential is at art. Now in myself and my character I don't think I'm at my potential at all. I think I may be close, at least closer then most people but that doesn't mean I'm any where near my potential. There is still so much more for me to learn about myself and so much more for me to become a complete person, I still need time and effort to be able to get to where I want to be, and getting rid of my self-doubt and cowardice has to be one of the first things I have to do.

I kind of forgot what I was going to write about and forgot some of the points I was gonna make but this covers it pretty well. All for another day and another blog.

I know I write too much, well I write in spurts and this will probably end when summer ends or when I longer have time to write. I like the idea of writing and getting it all out but the other question is why do I post it online. Well I don't know I could keep a private journal so that the very personal topics I do write about will stay with me, well I just don't know. I like the idea of being able to track the progress of my thought throughout time and it being online makes my thoughts somehow permanent. The main reason is that I can keep track of the erratic nature of my thought and if there just so happens to be a reader who follows these blogs which are really just my thoughts, they know full well how I can think one way and then change completely the next, weird, but I need to elaborate on this some other time...