I wish love wasn’t seen as a shameful cliché. I wish it wasn’t something people tried to hide or felt embarassed about. I wish people would feel stronger when showing it, not vulnerable.
I wish people wouldn’t be so proud of the hatred they feel. I wish they knew hate doesn’t make them stronger. I wish they wouldn’t let this bitterness take over their hearts.
I wish there were less “me and my own”, and more “all of us”.
Something must have gone terribly wrong, since people are more willing to spread hate than love. More willing to focus on differences to segregate than focus on similarities in order to unite. This is a severe symptom of a very sick world–an almost terminal patient. But life is like a rollercoaster, with its ups and downs, so I still have hope.
So here’s my love message to all of you. No need to be afraid – it’s free and I promise it won’t hurt you. Let love in! (I just hope this message makes more eyes sparkle than it makes eyes roll…)
Love is a synthetic emotion. By nature, humans are self-servile beings. We only exist because our great ancestors eliminated their competitors. While it’s good to be hopeful for the future, you should never forget the past. We are all products of natural selection and this is often refuted as and inconvenient truth, but it is a fact.
I find your proximity to be beneficial to me, and our future procreation services my base need to see my genetics influence the collective human gene pool, thus diversifying our species’ potential to survive come the next genetic bottleneck event. I hope you find this arrangement likewise beneficial to your needs, and thus we can both profit from continued comingling.
At some degree, we’re also made to feel love. I think what is synthetic is the concept of love, and it’s also obviously cultural.
I disagree a bit that we’re self-servile by nature. Most mammals aren’t. That’s what, for example, keeps a group united, makes a mom risk their life for their offspring. Animals don’t think in terms of “my genes will move on”.
Heck, we even have neural cells in our skins that are specialized in detecting good sensations, like a caress. Even by a functionalist or evolutionist perspective, love is an essential aspect of the human condition.
Do you suppose I live in denial of what happened before me and is genetically coded to happen again? We still kill off competitors, just not in a literal sense. You shouldn’t assume I have a significant other, either. I don’t crave the companionship that most people do. Also, “Mrs. Phaethon,” huh? Didn’t anyone ever tell you to respect their pronouns?
Considering love is an artificial emotion what is the difference between loving someone and being in love with them, apart from an excuse to leave them
Edit: hmm, another smarty pants reply (deleted now), is everyone on this forum like that?
I believe love and altruism (different from “in love”) is inherent within us. It’s my sincere wish for all beings to be healthy and happy. My own selfishness sometimes prevents me from acting on that wish, but that’s about my personal limitations - I do know that I will be happiest if everyone around me is happy as well. My well-being is enhanced, not hindered, by others doing well too.
What’s synthetic is where we draw the lines. I’ve always thought it weird that I was supposed to care more about American lives than, say, Iraqi lives. To me they’re all human lives, and all equally precious. But I know not everybody feels like that.
This is an interesting complex of emotions - you inspire both pity and contempt. I hope you’re up on your periodic table, otherwise those chemical reactions your so pleased with may go awry.
The gripe wasn’t with you assuming Phaethon to be my last name, it was with you assuming the gender that my significant other identifies as. It was satirical, nonetheless.
No. I’m not the great centurion reincarnated many times over. Sorry to tell you, but, this time, you were wrong. Law of averages, ya know? Can’t win 'em all.
Isn’t everything a conflict? Isn’t ambivalence a integral part of the human condition? I think people can be empathetic and cruel simultaneously. I love everybody equally, but in the same breath, I hate everyone just as much. There is no black or white.
I don’t ride trains for the view, I await the derailment.
