Love Is Not Love Unless It Is Acted Upon

Originally posted by xFloggingMaryx

I dunno... all I can do as an individual is to be as nice as I can to all the people who cross my path. If only everyone else felt the same, then as a society, we'd be set!

Discrimination and prejudice are the poison in the well and you state the antidote. Is it really so hard to treat others better than they treat us? Some say there is no value in it, such is a waste and others don't deserve it. But I ask what it really costs. The same amount of time as to be cruel and spiteful and a minimal effort to generate a feeling that we will always be able to generate more of: love. In other words, not much at all. But people choose to feed on revenge and hatred like pigs eating their own filth.

reply to post by ancientthunder


Agreed that our creature comforts are significantly better today than even 50 years ago, and it is true that we see more of what we want to see and focus on what matters to us, which is why I would quickly trade a little of what I have to see less bloodshed and atrocity in the world.

reply to post by onequestion


And so we act in accordance with what we believe love to be. An expression of what we feel. Because you are right, without action there is no context for a feeling. Feelings can only be described. They can't truly be shared.

reply to post by TravelerintheDark


Nice thread! I just have a couple things I want to share.

First off, I think defining love is important. I mean...really what is it? Most of us have a good general idea what love is and can use hundreds of examples to explain it, but really we have to break it down a bit...for example:

Is love a learned behavior, many argue that it is, we learn to love by and through the examples that are instilled in us as we grow and develop into compassionate (compassion might need to be defined too) adults and begin to show our children, grandchildren, etc...what love is in our experience (meaning what we have learned either from others, or through a series of our own accounts). One question posed by behaviorists of our time is if we as toddlers love our mother, or if we are simply acting on what has been learned...mom feeds me, comforts me, and protects me...now mom's love is genuine for the sake of defining it this way...but as a small child do we actually love? Or are we rather acting on instinct and survival at our most primitive level?

Then secondly, I think there is a clear separation between perception and senses. What we physically sense gives us a perception on how to react or respond to a situation...and vise versa at times...how we perceive something dictates how we act.

Do we act out of love, or do we love out of acts by others? Loving someone like Hitler might pose a problem for many people, but I assure you someone did at one time love Hitler, and even in his death there were people that mourned for their own loss. At the same time many people would agree that Hitler did not love a single breathing soul...but then we are right back to questioning did he love as a child, and was it love? Well we have to clearly define what love is to each of us, in general it can be explained, but it is a very individual thing (emotion, feeling, behavior, etc...) and each of us has our own personal account and explanation of what love is, that makes it difficult to ascertain whether someone is expressing love and we only have our own personal experiences to rely on for determining that.

I think it is a catch-22...yes people show love in many ways...what is our perception on their expression of it? Does it come with a smile...a hug...the words...how do we think it should be expressed? The way mothers in some African tribes raise their children, we would in America call them monsters and not showing anything close love...but the mother of that child would passionately declare her love for her child. See where this is going? It seems to be related to our own experiences and the behaviors that we learned mean love...it seems to be felt as emotion, and maybe both are correct, but behavior is a huge factor.

The problem is complex, as what actions and behaviors we each would judge as "loving" differ.
One's effort at a loving gesture might not be recognized as such by the other it is intended for.
For some, leaving them freedom, independance, and space is being loving, while for another, contact, nurture, and protection is loving.
It sort of depends upon how they each see their own needs, and how they would like the other to see them (or not).

But there is the difference between love as an internal experience, something we feel inside for someone,
and something we do- a verb. They do not always go hand in hand.

One of the hardest things to achieve in life, that eye of the needle, is reaching a congruency between the two.

Love is ultimately being able to relate to and identify with another. To love many, one must have a very wide and varied awareness of their own potential, to be able to empathize and put themself in the shoes of many. This enables one to appreciate and understand others, and also be better able to percieve what acts and behaviors they, as individuals, will recognize as "loving".

We will tend to only see the needs of others through the specific needs we ourselves have acknowledged in ourselves. We remain blind to other needs.

I do think that loving oneself is the key to being able to love another, as you cannot give out what you do not have. You cannot know how to fill the needs of another if you haven't found a way to fill your own.