Essay 13: Love

Essay 13: Love

I hope that up until this point, you really challenged yourself with the words on the page. I hope that the implications that I didn’t have the patience to write outright, were discovered in meditating on these words in the context of your day to day. I also hope that most of the essays served as steps forward in the long journey of coming to know who you are. In a valueless, descriptive manner, I have completed the portion of the book describing my beliefs on what it is to be human. This is a materialist, phenomenological view, and a predominantly self-centered one at that. It is compelling to believe that this view is really all there is to living, but from here on out I’ll be making my case that it goes beyond that. While we can really only live life within our own mind, and we do everything we do because it is to our benefit, the case I’ll be making from here on out is not only that we have reason to reject a self-centered conception of our experience, but that we must in order to experience life’s greatest joys. In these last four essays, I hope to challenge your way of life. While reading the remainder of the book, open yourself up to the idea that, even if I did not articulate what it is, that path to actualization lies outside of yourself. That looking inwards has its time and place, but life should be spent looking out at the world, on an adventure. I hope to convince you that your purpose isn’t for you to decide, but to uncover, and that despite the existentialist conception that dominates the developed world, your essence precedes your existence. Step #1 on that argument is love. Without love, it cannot be seen (please don’t sue me). Love is an overarching principle with many elements. It gives the world form, it forgives by understanding, it is a self-othering embodiment, it is a blessing to our future, it allows us to save ourselves, and it wills us to give our best to fight our dragons in a covenant with the call to adventure. I hope you are half as excited to read this as I am to write it.

Love is what gives the world form. What needs to be understood about reality as it can be known is that it does not “exist” as we have come to use the word; it is constructed in a relational way. Remember when I defined a thing as a unit of purpose or a building block of logic? The reason I chose this way of defining it is that when you strip the attributes or qualities that differentiate things from one another, all you are left with is a placeholder. This placeholder has nothing to it, no way to identify it, and leaves no evidence of its existence. The fact of the matter is that we have no way to verify the existence of a thing without attributes. Why have I driven this point home so frequently throughout the essays? Because things do not exist in the absence of observers. One could make the argument that the underlying material does ultimately “exist” in some unverifiable way (which of course is a belief I do subscribe to) but a thing as I’ve defined it is a logical unit (defined by intelligibility by some observer). Using the soccer ball example in essay 10; we can, of course, take the various attributes that make up the soccer ball and turn it into the thing “soccer ball” but the reason why we do that is fundamentally emotional. We all know what a chair is, right? We have a set of attributes we normally turn into the thing “chair” but why do we do that? We could just take the bottom three inches of the back, left chair leg, and call it a “lerin” but we never really do that. Why? Because “chair” is a functionally useful concept to us and “lerin” is not. One aspect of love is this care that we assign to the world around us, and that allows us to construct the world. When we care about something, we turn it into a thing that is distinct and intelligible, and in interacting with the thing we come to further develop the story we have for it. Also, as attributes are simply how something is able to influence the world, it is through the means of this potential influence that something can be intelligible. So it is not the thing itself that exists, it is attributes that do, and the grouping together of them into a thing is an element of love. I once defined things as the metaphysical principle that forms the building blocks of logical thinking; the state of being a thing is the concept of “noun” using its linguistic equivalent. This metaphysical principle is love. One could say urges or needs and not be wrong, but they are one component of love. Without love, nothing can be seen.

Love is the antithesis of hatred. Hatred is a dehumanizing emotion. When we hate a thing, it’s because we believe that there are important aspects of our life that the thing in question stands diametrically opposed to in such a way that is viewed as a threat. Once this state takes hold, fight or flight takes effect; we do not bother trying to understand the object of our hatred, or at the very least, not in good faith, unless we go out of our way to get ourselves to. In the Christian faith (most obviously but not exclusively), it is said to love your enemy. Love, in the Judeo-Christian context, is less used in the emotional sense and is partially a call to understand where those around you are coming from. Love is, in part, to understand the people around you as made in the image of god, just as you are, and to provide them the dignity in your mind as such. In a sense, it is a call to work towards understanding the thing that is the person you are thinking of, and whatever complexity you feel there is within yourself, to view others as equally nuanced, if not more so. The inclination towards conspiracy and caricature stems from a lack of love. To unchangingly view groups as collaborating in pursuit of an alien motive or people as beings you cannot relate to is evidence that you do not love enough. Another part of loving someone is a drive towards understanding them, and in some fundamental way, to truly understand someone well enough that you could see how you could have been them is what forgiveness is. To love is to seek to understand, and to understand is to forgive. The moment this caricaturizing of another stops, hatred dissolves, and trust me, you don’t want to hate anyone; it hurts to do so.

Love is self-othering; it involves turning this understanding into embodied principles, where the well-being of the other becomes of interest to you. In understanding someone, you can get a sense of where they are coming from. There are many things you can do with that information, but to act on that information for your own gain isn’t love, it is manipulation. Love is being able to turn that understanding into a sense of what they need, and acting upon it to the benefit of that someone. Understanding does not stop at an intellectual understanding, in fact, an intellectual understanding is not love. To love is to understand in an embodied way, to have the being you love marked on your soul. It is to have that understanding of them become a subpersonality, a conscious structure within your own mind that is attached to your needs. This is what it is to transcend your ego; to have another in your mind, and to turn their well-being into an element of your own. It is to give them a voice in the theater of your mind, and to have the capacity to let yourself identify with the actor; seeing life through the being you love’s frame. Their good becomes your good, their pain yours, and their presence is with you even when they are absent. But to reduce them to your perspective of them is not love. This subpersonality is a being, a voice, but it is not them. They were made more complicated than you can ever know. The one you love will surprise you, shock you, and impress you. You do not know yourself, and you know them even less. Let me make one thing clear, though: just because their good is your good, does not mean that their definition of good is their good. To act in another’s interest is not to give them what they subjectively want in the moment, all the time. To love someone is to be a grounding perspective outside of theirs, one that understands them, and as such, what they lack or are missing. To love someone is, in part, dialogical. Socrates engages in what is called “midwifery” through the Socratic method. This is not a means to convince others he is right, it is a means to help others give birth to themselves. To love another is to seek the other’s rebirth into a more capable, actualized person, which by definition requires not abiding by their perspective but offering the main thing you can ever offer them, instead, your perspective. So to reiterate, to love someone is, in part, to turn understanding into an embodied element of your “self”, and through it, making their wellbeing your concern.

Do you know what else perfectly mirrors empathy for another neurologically? Empathy for your future self. Love is a self-othering perspective, but to have your future self’s interests as an embodied part of your psyche is self-othering as well as it is not the perspective you are looking out of in any given moment. To take the same principles described in the last paragraph, and taking the daily actions to ensure the wellbeing of future you is to love your legacy. In the story of Abraham in Genesis, he is constantly called upon to sacrifice to what is highest. In doing so, he fulfills his covenant with god, and is told that by making these sacrifices, he will be a blessing to not only others, but his future and legacy. What is this self-othering conception of love? It is a call to deviate from what other, more self-oriented actors want in the moment in order to help others. It is ensuring that, like any other actor, the subpersonality of the one you love is given time under the spotlight, which definitionally means time and resources that could have gone towards you are not. You are sacrificing for another. To sacrifice for your future is the same way. The parts of you that advocate for acting for your future need to be given the dignity to be a part of the process of planning for life; or at the very least, it is a definition for what it is to love your future self. The bible is full of this symbolism. Abel sacrifices for others and his future and is rewarded, while Cain obsessively refuses to sacrifice for his community and future and is left resentful as a result. Abraham is called upon to sacrifice his son, for it is only when he made the hard choice to give his son for the world to have its way with that he got him in return. To sacrifice is simply to give your best for another, an idea indistinguishable from love. Like the midwifery Socrates engages in with others, one has the capacity to assist in the birthing process of oneself. This is prayer, the forming of a relationship with god. To pray is to ask where you are lacking relative to who you could be; it is a desperate ask for the wisdom needed to overcome life’s trials. If you take it seriously and open yourself up to the idea that the answer will not be a pleasant one, you will get an answer eventually. Once you have an answer, a pathway to betterment appears, to sacrifice your stupidity to what is highest for your future. This sacrifice then changes you, which then changes your perspective of the world, which changes you again in return. This recurring cycle is dialogical in the socratic sense (relational and self-reinforcing), and is really what is meant by having a relationship with god. Regardless of the religious connotation, though, love is sacrifice, and to sacrifice to your future is to love your future self.

We discussed how to know thyself, but what do you do with this information? We discussed that parts of you are stuck within your shadow, suffocating under the weight of hatred, but what do you do with this information? What must be understood is that every subpersonality is a perspective in and of itself, and as such, they too have the capacity for love. Your ego is traditionally the perspective you operate out of, to love another is to transcend your ego for a moment to take their perspective and operate for their wellbeing. The subpersonality trapped under the weight of hatred, repressed from your line of sight by the importance of dominant beliefs, and whose cries for help are misinterpreted by you as a cancerous threat to your ideal self, is also an other in the same capacity as another person or your future self. To love your entire self is to give every part of you dignity, and acknowledge that while some of the actors you have within you may be immature or at times vindictive, they are still you, and at their core, seek your wellbeing. You should return the favor and give them time to breathe. Give them time to cry out, give them time to make a bit of a mess. Children have to behave like children and cry like children in order to grow. Love is giving the other the space to make their own mistakes for their own development, but still supporting them and acting in their best interest. The actors within you are a family, some have had more time to develop and become sophisticated in their expression, but that it is because they’ve had the time to fuck up and learn. Part of that sophistication should be a capacity to love. Give the less mature parts of you time and room to take center stage and work through the trauma of their repression. The various subpersonalities within you sacrificing their own momentary expression in order to help another part of you mature is love, and to have the various parts of you love eachother is to your ultimate benefit. A more complete sense of self gives you the capacity to experience a fuller, richer life, and reduces the internal fragmentation and antagonism that develops in the absence of this love. Love is what allows you to save yourself, it is the helping hand and shoulder that a traumatized actor can lean on, until it becomes a mature, self-othering member of your internal stage. And think about it, if you knew the people around you sacrificed willingly to act in your best interest, wouldn’t you be more inclined to sacrifice for theirs? This same principle applies internally, too. This is what it is to be a more actualized person. 

To top it all off, the utmost spirit of love is to willingly fix your gaze on the malevolence of life, and bear your suffering while walking up towards the city on the hill. What do I mean by this? “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.’ Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.” — Numbers 21:4–9 (ESV). When life gets rough and you suffer greatly, you have two choices. You may run away from it, or run towards it. This portion of Exodus makes it known that the correct way to deal with malevolence is to look straight at it and not blink. To bear your suffering willingly. In doing so, you are also called upon to not become bitter or vengeful, and to never lose trust in the goodness of reality. That is, face the malevolence willingly, and don’t return the favor to another. Bear your suffering while continuing to seek the betterment of the world and the love of others. It is not that the snakes stop becoming poisonous, but rather that you rewrite yourself. The world doesn’t start hurting less, you become stronger. When Jesus died on the cross, he was resurrected; facing all the malevolence the world had to offer and death itself was not the end, as he came back a different type of being. The differentiator between trauma and transformation is the willingness to face this suffering voluntarily. To sacrifice yourself is to say, “I will bear my suffering and not look away. While bearing it, I will continue to be an upstanding person and return the malevolence the world gave me with love. I sacrifice myself to end this cycle of hatred here, I will be its final stop. I will do this, so that no one else has to, and so that I can be a person more capable of handling it in the future.” This is arguably the greatest expression of love one could have.

That is all, see you all sometime by June 15 for Essay 14: Reason!