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...

Right Now

Okay now I have time to write again. This is after a pretty long discussion about me and about the things that are going on in my life, between me and my friends. There are things in my personality that I might have to change, not to drastic degrees but enough that it would no longer be self-destructive.

First there is this concept in my head that the people I love, this means just my family right now because those the the only people I love, that I hold myself as having less worth then they do. I have the idea that if I could sacrifice myself to make them happier I would. Apparently that is a self-destructive behavior, I kind of see that but not really, I guess I just have to tone down the degree to which I'd sacrifice and go with what one of my friends told me which is go to my full potential first so that I have a better opportunity to help and my sacrifice would be after I have reached my potential.

There is also my cowardice or my self-doubt. I seem to just have an inability to do certain things and usually it applies to my endeavors into romance that I concede to others and don't do the “competition” for compassion that, not in those words, my friend has said is the dating world. I guess I just never wanted to be with a girl to whom I have to compete to get because in competition I feel that a person is fake, they try to be something they are not and I never wanted to be with a girl to whom I have to compete or be fake for. Then again I got encouragement from my friends and I know myself that I am a damn good guy myself, and just letting aspects of myself out will be my form or competition. Well we'll see if that works out.

Now there is this girl, I don't know what it is about her, maybe I'm just obsessing. Probably. I think I figured out what happening. She is really smart, quirky, laughs at my jokes, catches me off guard, and I like all those things about her but I think I just like them. She still has to grow up, not that she isn't mature she is but she's just not there yet. I love her potential, yeah love, pretty sure its that, I love who she could be, a self assertive, strong, mature, smart, quirky, humorous, “catch me off guard”, woman; and that's what I love.

Right now I'm still not sure. She seems to be attached to someone else right now and I'd like to say I'm not bitter about it, I am a little but not that much. I just get disappointed sometimes that it seems that I could never get that great girl, that its always someone who gets her, I feel I'm deserving, but that just my ego talking. Right now my role is to be her friend, yeah, sucks for me but I think she needs that more from me then anything else and I think that the best role I can be right now.

Life is a mystery, its crazy twists and turns are what makes it interesting and devastating, all we can do is to continue to walk those paths before us and hope that when we reach the end of the road that the things we are glad we did outweigh the things we regret.

Torn Thoughts

(This is a very big insight into my thoughts so if you don't want to know whats going on in there then stop reading, trust when its over you'll understand)I am torn in my head, my situations that I'm in are not life threatening or of major concern, well maybe. I am being pushed, compelled, propelled into a direction, into a situation to which I don't know what to do. My feelings and emotions are guiding my mind into this territory. My mind is even finding it difficult to resist the thought. Well whats so bad, what is the worst outcome, ah where to begin. One of the bad things is that I'll be putting someone into a situation to which I don't think she feels comfortable. Some people need certain people to be there for them. I don't know if changing my role, my relationship with her will effect the effectiveness of my ability to satisfy that need. This person, I feel needs good guys in her life because only dicks seem to be attracted to her. Good guys in the sense that is a guy who is a friend and is there to help and comfort her without the want or desire to be anything more then a friend. Of course I know that I can't be that, I know I will always want some thing more then a friendship but that doesn't mean I can't put on a facade. I can show that I'm not thinking of being more then friends and even say some things that might discourage her from liking me beyond a friend, so that I'm protecting myself and her; why do I feel I need to protect people, why do I concern myself with other peoples lives, why can't I not concern myself with how something effects someone elses' life and just worry about my own and my feelings, I guess that goes against my nature. The other concern is her age, she is younger and not by too much but at our current ages to me seems a lot. Too much. As time passes that is concerning me less and less. She is very mature but still has moments of immaturity. Am I concerned for her more that for others. That I don't know; I have cared to be with her over other people. Those I've know longer I've blown off or thought of blowing off because of her. My thoughts are a little infuriating, why can't I make a decision why does this seem so complicated. Does she like me the same way I do. I believe she cares for me but does that translate to a romantic like. Will I ever know without asking. She has shared with me something that I know is very difficult to talk about, I tried to return the sharing of a traumatic event but my life does not have tragedy, I just know the tragedies of others, they tell me how it feels from their perspective and I make my own thought experiments as to how that would effect me and can get an idea of how to react to certain things and try to help in certain situations. Again my need to help is too crazy. Will I just let things play out as normal or do something about it; will I just leave bread crumbs for her to follow and discover what thoughts are in my head. I guess that is what I'm doing, I will post this online, and have set the crumbs for her to read. That stems from me actually coming across her blog almost accidentally and with coincidence that I think one of her posts was about me, and it just so happened to be the first or actually the last one. She used caring but what does that mean, does it translate or is it just caring, does she know how I feel about her, was that post even really about me. It feels better to jot this all down. I feel like I'm talking to someone and I do think the best when I'm talking. In speech I find reason, in conversation I find my muse, in language the expression of my soul is tamed and coherent. In these words my demons are exercised and I am at peace. Love, that's whats in my head, can I feel love, no that's not the question; the question is do I deserve love, do I deserve to love someone and especially for someone to love me. I don't know what love is, is that because I run from it, do I not want to know someone can make me that vulnerable. Yeah love, is that whats causing this tearing... … continuing from there I have found more time and more paper to write. It seems this subject is more serious than I first thought, I felt better but I got frustrated within 10 minutes. I don't know why I'm mad, I shouldn't be. Am I mad at her. Ha, mad at her; damn why does she make me feel like this; ugh she is purposely making me feel this way and making my mind trip up and be confused; that's an ass-backwards way of looking at it. I question if I should tell her, just to find out if she like me or not but what will that accomplish. Okay if she says she doesn't then its over, there will be some awkwardness and I might put her in a situation where there is just another guy whose after her trying to be her friend, not true, but she may think that-looks like I'm trying to defend myself. And if she says she does that opens up a whole can of worms. Do we go out, do I just let that sit and brew. If I find out she does like me and I let life just keep rolling along, she may become annoyed at that because of my inability to take action or assert myself. If I do go out with her, when, now well I have felt she needs time to be alone, she is too young to concern herself with relationships for awhile but what if she goes out with someone else, have I lost my chance will I ever be able to, if I go out with her now either its so awkward and weird and it never works or it works she cares for me, I for her, we fall madly in love, get married have kids and forever remain together in happiness and sadness ha ha. Can I picture myself going that far with this girl. Can I picture a house together, kids, ups and downs of life... Damn can I?..... First can I think of even kissing her, holding her, and other things relationships entail. I can picture kissing, I can picture embracing, actually you know what I can picture, I picture laying next to her, her asleep, me waking in the middle of the night raising on one elbow and staring at her, wondering the whole time how did I end up with this girl, what did I do for her to be with me, how did this happen? You know it makes me nervous to think of it but I'm not getting scared. Ah she does that, she makes me nervous, what does that mean. She has had my heart stop and my breathing cease before. I still remember what happened. I was asleep, woke to her voice calling me, I opened my eyes to see her looking at me, then she blew a kiss; very childish kiss but it made my heart stop; my chest hurt, hurt in a way that I had no idea what was happening; it felt like I couldn't breath it was the weirdest and the most amazing feeling I have gotten in the longest time. I don't know these thoughts are new but familiar. Man this girl is gonna make me stress out. I'm usually inspired to write poetry and “philosophical” essays when I am getting feelings of romantic entanglement but never have I devoted four pages, hand written front and back to delving into my mind for answers I will never find. If I could talk to her about it, if I could not be such a coward about my thoughts and feelings and just be blunt like I am with everything else, why do I coward behind words ink and paper. What am I hoping for, that she'd come across this and talk to me about it, put me in a situation where I can't get away from talking about it, maybe. Do i just want her to know how I feel even if she doesn't feel the same way, if she knows will she change her mid, god why do I think so much about everything. Now I am coming to the end of my writing, not that I don't have time, I think I could write more but what beyond this point will I talk about that hasn't already been said. My brain is torn and I am in the process of repairing it. I think I may give it a year or so, so I'll take the rout I always take; wait and see, just let life roll by and see what developments occur and what will and won't happen of course all that means is I'll take the cowards way out, of course, I will do nothing about it, what a bitch I am. God I hope she reads this.

On Love

There is a constant quote by my philosophy teacher Mr. Sanders “I believe the Greeks were the ones who had a true understanding of love, they had three different types of love.” He constantly says this but never gives an explanation.

In my own research of the subject there are four types of love set by the greeks, agape, eros, philia, and storgē. Which is just general affection and contentment, passionate or romantic love, friendship, and affection for parents or offspring; respectively. I think that this is pretty close to how love should be treated, but I would like to elaborate a little on it and also simplify it to three.

First, there is the love of friendship. This is the love felt toward a friend, there is no sexual relation, you have a feeling of admiration, compassion, and connection with an individual. These are the people to whom you can confide your secrets, your problems and help you through some of the worst of your troubles. These people are different from your family and may be considered family but still are outside the immediate family. This is the love to which you would never want to leg go and help give you a sense of comfort.

Second, there is the love of your family. This includes parents, siblings, and offspring. This to me is a stronger love then that of friendship and of romantic or passionate love. This love seem to be almost irremovable, you can hate someone of your immediate family (parents, siblings, and offspring), but there still is an almost necessary obligation to love them in some way. Many people may disagree with me on this one but I hold it as the top. The love of offspring comes from you having helped create that life and you being a major role in shaping how that person develops as an adult. The responsibility of caring so much for the life of another human being is so strong that someone who cares to take the responsibility is in love with their child. The love of your siblings is a result of their influence on your life, regardless if you want to accept it but the person you are is greatly shaped by your siblings, if you have siblings, and you shape their lives. This vice versa role helps create love between the two. Now there is love of your parents, this one is easy, one your parents help to create you, so your entire existence is do to those people you call your parents and the other which is the most important is if they took the responsibility to raise you in the best possible way through their means, this amount of devotion to you is enough to grant love, compassion and respect to your parents.

Third, there is romantic and passionate love. I believe I don't really have an understanding of this type of love. My best explanation of this type is that it is of two people being in romantic-sexual relationship with each other. I will try my best to explain this love. This love goes beyond infatuation and lust, they are only temporary and can imitate and replicate the same feelings of actually being in love. There is a physical part of this romantic love but it is also a personal. The best way I can put it is that you like 70 to 80 percent of a person and hate or dislike the other 30 or 20 percent but that doesn't really bother you, it may bug or annoy you but at the end of the day you still care for the person beyond you annoyances. This love isn't always filled with happiness and joy, it is the love that means that you care for the other person above yourself, in fact all of the loves share that same trait. The other persons concerns, troubles and hardships are what you care about, you want to make them disappear or have less of an affect on the other person, not because it would make you happy but because you know that they will be happy regardless if that is going to make you any better. There is a sexual aspect of this type of love, there has to be some level of physical attraction because humans as a creature need that as a component to be able to stay in a relationship with another human. There is a sense of oneself in this love but it is not always and not the main point of it. As my philosophy teacher says it is not love if the person your with is in the relationship because you make them happy, if your in a relationship like that then head out as quick as possible. Now this may be a little stunning to some of you and you may completely disagree with it but I look forward to your disagreements and hope you comment so I can respond to them.

Love in general is a sense of caring for others above yourself. You desire the feelings they make you have and they desire the feeling you make them have, there is selfishness in love but love is when you care about the other persons life and are willing to make some sacrifices to secure their happiness.

(now I may have forgotten some of my points, and I may not have put all the points I wanted to or had not put them down the way I wanted to, I only thought of this a couple times in my head before I began writing. During writing I had come up and lost some better points and ideas but the argument I think is still there, I encourage you to bring up inconsistencies and your own view on love so I can better my argument and adjust my ideals based on yours-if you provide good reasons of course)

In My Head Again

Okay so now that I mulled over my previous thoughts and every other thought that has occurred since. It seems I have been overly dramatic or at least I overemphasized certain thoughts that were running through my head at the time....

Okay so in one of my previous blogs I said that I loved a girl named Brittney but I don't think I do. I like her, and i like alot of things about her but I always seem to fall prey to over exaggeratted emotions. Now then I don't know if i do love her or not but considering that I am questioning it I will go with the not. So now that I have given my self time to think everything over again, she is just a really good friend. I am just closer to her then I am with most girls, I think it is more of her personality and the way she is that is so appealing. Then again there are factors of her that are not so appealing, I will not go into detail.

So as of now I have decided with myself that i do not love anyone as of the current moment, excluding my family, that is a different kind of love anyway.

So the point of this is that I have a very impulsive soul and i tend to over emphazise my emotions (just to let you know I am a horrible speller =) so having said that i just want to feel like I got something off my chest. I think i did this because rethinking and re-reading what I wrote previous made me think over if my emotions where that strong.....

.... and then this all leads to my neccesity to be able to detach very easily from people, most importantly women. Because my emotions, especially those of love and lust are so irratic I have to be able to detach. I do get very attached very easily, although for the most part I don't display any of it, at least I try not to, I don't know why. I am lost now and can't remeber if there was another point I was going to....(excuss excessive grammer and spelling errors I am writing directly into the post thing so I have no spell check and this is sort of just a impulsive writing moment and it was spur of the moment... oh well.)