Tag Archives: love

Morality is a Middle-Man

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Someone or something should be a priority not because it is considered to be right to do so, but because it is right to do so, the motivating factor being love, not self-righteousness, or self-sacrificing duty.

Morality is a distorting and easily manipulated middle-man between a person and his/her actions. You should not do something for someone because it is the “morally” Right Thing To Do (I mean, just who determines this morality? On what is it based? “Right” for whom?), you should do it because you love (him/her). If you do not love (him/her), then don’t do it, for it is untrue to yourself, and as such, is fake, an illusion, and therefore wrong, and will come across as such to anyone who is tuned in enough to feel it. It is dishonest and insincere. That is not love, that is not doing something nice or good for someone. It is selfish and patronizing.

Of course, it’s imperative to make sure we know what it really means to love someone. Most people’s understanding of love is skewed (by their own egos), and thus false. What does real love really look like?

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From my personal notes, 8/27/00

Martyr-Victim Complex

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Yesterday I was writing about selfishness and selflessness and the important distinction between for and about. I was trying to articulate my point, but a satisfactory explanation remained elusive. I think, though, that using the example of someone I know, I can put it this way: this person’s love for people, for example, is about her love for them. It is about her. It is self-oriented, self-involved. For her, the focus of her ostensible benevolence toward others is her (benevolence toward them). The point is that she does it, and that it is about her own self-validation and self-righteousness; and if she feels she has sacrificed in any way for it then that makes her that much more righteous and virtuous. It is such a “Western”, self-involved, and dare I say it, Judeo-Christian ethos. For, what is cloaked in a confused and false modesty is an over-inflated sense of self-importance (the hallmark of most “religious” people, incidentally). The point is that in the end, it is essentially, and revealingly, about her.

Anyone who exhibits this kind of narcissism, and there are many of them, reveal just how insecure, immature, weak, and unenlightened they really are. The thought that has run through my mind many times over the years when listening to this person bitch, complain, and pronounce in judgment has been, “Jeez, it’s not all about you.” Which, itself, is a beautiful irony for someone who has always considered everyone else in her life to be selfish, cruel, and uncaring for not considering her as much as she has seen fit. These are some of the subtle and complex trappings of the ego-self.

It makes sense in this person’s case, for she has said, ad nauseam, that she was emotionally neglected by her parents. Her reaction was to bolster herself up, to say, “I am important,” and therefore ended up living that way, that “I” am important. But the subtle thing about it is that this was internalized and expressed subconsciously, for on the outside (and this is the neurosis of the victim mentality) she acted the martyr (always subconsciously making you very aware of her sacrificing for you).

But that is victim mentality. It is a fairly common behavior by those who have been abused in some way, or even simply feel that they’ve been abused. A man, say, who was sexually abused as a child will hate his abuser, but will also love him/her in a twisted kind of way, and will often turn around and sexually abuse others. It is a “complex”. The person I’ve been talking about exhibits the same kind of behavior—hating her parents for her feelings of neglect, and so she internalizes the reaction against it (i.e., “I am important”), while on the outside still exhibiting martyr-type behavior that says she is not important. But it is the internal self-obsession that’s really running the show.

This is, in many ways, the very definition of selfishness, because it is all about the self—the denial of the self, the anger for the lack of satisfaction of the self, the frustrated desires of the self, etc. It is a sad thing for people to be this way, but it is important to see the truth of it, and to not condone such things just because it is a sad thing.

People who have this kind of martyr-victim complex exhibit a fucked up kind of selfishness, but it is selfishness nonetheless. Such people’s spiritual/emotional growth is impeded by this self-absorbed attitude, for they often over-emphasize their love of others and end up just a sad martyr. But their “love” of others is about the hole that their own feelings of neglect left in them. It is a subconscious longing to fill that hole so they can feel loved and thus worthwhile. They are simply precluded from (expressing) real love because they are so entrenched in “self issues”.

And so, never really understanding this, they self-righteously dish out ostensibly selfless acts, and feel that because they have done what is (outwardly) “Right” as opposed to what was done to them which was “Wrong,” they deserve, nay, demand, respect and love for it. It slides them, unknowingly, into a duty-based morality, with little genuine concern for the very real consequences of their actions. And so they get stuck in a cycle of self-importance and outwardly selfless acts.

The point here is that it is about them, their virtuous selflessness, about the fact that they are virtuous because of their “selfless” acts, then they are not selfless, but actually utterly self-full; they are literally self-obsessed, because they cannot get past themselves as the do-er of (and thus worthy—though neglected and never really appreciated—recipient of praise for doing) what is Right.

Thus, the question to be asked about a deed to determine whether it is selfish or selfless is not whom it is for, but whom it is about.

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From my personal notes, 8/26/00

Love is Not a Choice

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Love, like knowledge, is not itself to be considered a choice. Rather, the choice is in whether or not one is open to it, actively expresses it, seeks it out; for we do not decide whether or not we love, as we do not decide whether or not we know (just as we do not decide what is); we decide whether or not we make the right efforts to access and express, to do, it.

Love, like knowledge, is like reality—it is; it is we who control our access to and understanding of it, at least in and of ourselves. Thus, I do not choose to love or not love; rather I choose to let it in or not let it in, to express or not express.

These are choices we must make on our journey through life, for we are not conditioned to love everyone and everything. And many people are not “love-worthy,” in that our love may feel “wasted” on them, like seed tossed on fallow ground. To be more accurate, they are worthy of love, but, like a child given a Stradivarius, they will not know, understand, or appreciate what they are given, and, as such, the love is “wasted.” While it is true that we “should” love “everything and everyone,” we live in a world of illusions and illusory-based conditioned beings, and, as such, we must learn to work with what we’re given. Therefore, while loving is never a waste itself, if it is shunned, or taken incorrectly, abused, etc., then the one “doing the loving” needs to see that his or her love is not able to be accepted by the other person.

This is not about “not loving,” it is about how one spends his or her time and efforts in life. It’s about being productive. The act of loving is not the issue here, but rather the context. Take, for example, water. Water is, in most contexts, a good thing for a human to ingest. But if a person has a strange disease whereby water will harm him, then giving him water will be counterproductive. It’s not the water itself that is or is not the problem, but rather the context.

Truth, reality, and “knowledge” of it, is all there; it is up to us whether or not we discover it. All have access to it, for all are in and of reality, but everyone’s “karma” and conditioning being unique, our paths will be unique. Though we all walk the same “Path,” we must walk our own path. This is how we are all the same and different. We all have the opportunity for enlightenment, but there is a lot involved in actually doing it, and in this, all are certainly not equal. The “cores” are same, equal; the outside, the illusory façades, the ego-selves, are not.

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From my personal notes, 8/14/00

Armor

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The reason that ‘the system’ has so much power is that it is predicated on the need for armor, on the need to protect and look out for oneself (one’s self), if one is to survive. It makes it necessary to have armor on. The system protects itself extremely well this way. And since this society is expressly not oriented towards love and enlightenment, people do not know how to love. The ‘love’ that most people feel is not love at all but is something else—desire, lust, loneliness, blind passion, or any number of other things. People do not know how to love because they do not know what love is. They do not know what love is because love is not about ‘me’. And in this society, the self, the I, the ‘me’, is primary, and that which is ‘not me’ is secondary (if it’s thought about at all).

Those who (seem to) put others before themselves might come across, and think about themselves, as if they are selfless, but more likely than not, they are actually being selfish.

The only way to escape from this vicious cycle is to see that this duality on which we base so much of our philosophy, religion, values, and beliefs is quite possibly, if not probably, an illusion. To see the reality of this illusion is so fundamentally subversive to so much of what is today, that it is quite overwhelming. At least it is to me. The only way to understand love is to at least try to understand that real love ‘transcends’ this duality of ‘me’ and (or even more tellingly: ‘vs.’) ‘you’.

I want to try to be clear about this. What is the armor in the analogy above? The best way for me to describe it is that the armor is the ego and all that it spawns, meaning that it also has armor to protect itself not only from the world but—and this is complicated and important—from our true selves. This is why the analogy is not as simple as it might first seem.

I’m not saying we should all be hippies. Most hippies do espouse love, and I’m sure that many believe in the love they espouse, but I do not believe that most of them really know what love is, let alone know how to really love and be loved. Rather, most hippies (and pseudo-hippies) are products of their conditioning, like everyone else, just in a certain way. Underneath their own armor, they are the same as everyone else, with the same neuroses, the same human conditions, that require the right efforts to deal with and understand. As such, the point is not that I am saying that one should take off one’s armor, for that would be flippant. The reason it would be flippant is that to take off one’s armor is to ‘transcend’ one’s ego, and that is, quite complicatedly, the process of enlightenment, the process of self-awareness.

The reason it would be flippant is that while I know that this is the way to take off my armor, I do not really know how to do it. But, I do know that the first step is to understand what the armor is. How else can one possibly take it off?

As such, since the armor is the ego, hippies have just as much armor as anyone else—it’s just that the mask that their egos put on is one of ‘love’. And so the problem is even more complicated than it was before. Because not only do I know that to be happy I need to take off my armor, to live without the armor, and that if I take it off I might get stomped to a pulp, but also I have the problem that I don’t know where the damn straps are.

And that is sort of where I find myself now: fumbling for the straps.

But, I wonder what the point is of working so hard to find and undo the straps when, unless I want to go off and live alone on the top of a mountain, I will probably get pulverized when I do. I feel as if I have already had such a beating that I do not even really understand just how much of a beating I have had, and as such, I am still sort of reeling. I know this because of the sadness I feel, and how much I keep it at bay. Will I recover from this? I really do not know. I really don’t. And I don’t know the point of trying anyway. In the end, I am just a speck of a human organism on a planet out in the dark of space.

I know that part of enlightenment is understanding that I do not matter, but it is so hard to do that in this society when so many people do not understand what that means, and they fight against it because they need to feel that they do matter.

This is why the process of self-awareness can be dangerous, because there is not much support out there; there is, when you get right down to it, pretty much the opposite.

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From my personal notes 8/13/00

What is Real Love?

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It is interesting to me that in our contemporary American culture love is often seen (ironically enough) as a negative thing. People seem to fear love—either loving someone else, or someone else loving them. Unless they desire another person, and then they want love from them; but it seems that when someone says “I love you” to another person, they are really saying “I want you,” or “I need you.” And so, it makes sense that people would be resistant and wary of the sentiment.

In this culture, love is all about attachment and possession—”you belong to me,” “you are mine,” etc. Real love, conversely is not about attachment and possession at all.

And so, again, it makes sense that people do not work well with love, because though the word “love” is being used, love is not really what it is about.

People talk about love, they say they feel love, but most of the time it isn’t really love, it’s something else—desire, craving, need for validation or approbation, lust, etc. In addition, when most people “love” someone, it is about themselves, not the other person. Real love is not about “me” or “I.”

Real love is wholly non-threatening, for it is inclusive and non-judgmental; there are no ulterior motives in real love; a person who really loves is not out to get anything, or prove anything, or replace anything. People in this society do not know how to love because they do not know what love is.

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From my personal notes, 8/13/00

The Ego is a Wily Trickster

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When one talks about ‘changing the world,’ he or she is really talking about people, and the effects that people have had on the environment. The way to ‘change the world’, then, is to change people. And wise people will understand that that really means that the way to change the world is to love people and help people change themselves.

I think the best thing we can do for people, for anyone, is to love them. It is such a simple yet profound truth, that I am somewhat overwhelmed when I even think about it, but it is just so, so true.

What loving people really means, though, entails understanding what love really is, what loving people really constitutes, and this cannot be accomplished until we each individually accept that the self, the ego, is an illusion, and that no matter how much we do for other people, it is not about ‘me.’ This is one of the most subtle, yet profound, things a person must grasp in order to really start walking the path of enlightenment.

The problem is that the ego is a wily trickster, and people often delude themselves into thinking they understand and accept the truth of the self and the ego, and yet when it comes down to it, the enormity of the illusions of their conditioned existences pops up again and again, getting in the way of real acceptance and real progress. This is the difference between knowing the path and walking the path. The difference is much more difficult, and fraught with obstacles, than most people think.

I say this from my own experience. The more I understand and accept, the more I see that there are changes in my life, and things I need to do, or stop doing, that I am not yet ready to do, even though I know that they are hindering my progress. But what I have done is to accept the truth of the truth that who I think I am is not who I really am, and that in discovering who I really am lies all the answers to every question I have ever had, lies true and real happiness.

But the trick is that it takes practice, it takes time, and patience, and real courage. It takes dealing with things and emotions that are not usually present in our normal daily lives; those things that come up and surprise us when we feel lonely, or are sad, or are reminded of something that we may have denied or repressed. One must first understand and accept the truth of the truth, and then—and this is key—one must actively live it.

Again, the great thing about all this is that truth is truth, and everyone has the answers within themselves. Since everyone wants the same things in life, when I say that most people do not understand what love really is, and that it is necessary for them to do so, and to live real love, I know that it is not up to me to tell them what real love is, definitionally. Rather, I know that everyone, deep down, already knows what love really is, and that it is something they need to allow themselves to realize and admit to themselves.

This is the absolute fucking beauty of this process. It’s so beautiful that I am still blinded by its beauty, and overwhelmed by its enormity. But the more I move forward on the path, the more manageable it gets, the easier it gets to accept it and do it.

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From my personal notes, 7/17/00

How Selfless Can Be Selfish

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One of the complexities involved with “love” and relationships is that often “selfless” acts are done for ultimately selfish reasons.

For example, the way —— was with certain men she had encounters with. The things she did may seem selfless and “for him,” but they were really all about her, they were for her, to feel in control, to feel power, to feel attractive, or wanted; all of which speaks to a craving or need in her. It may be “for” him, but it all about (and thus ultimately for) her, which is what actually makes it selfish.

Now, the situation is more complex when we look at —— and her mother. What —— did by helping her mother was obviously very selfless and out of an immense love. But what that kind of selflessness did in her was to make her focused more on herself outside of that situation. Because she was so occupied with selfless work when it came to taking care of her mother, and the lack of attention to herself (to her ego) through that work, it left a craving to get it outside of that situation, which is why when —— was not helping her mother, she was always so self-involved.

It is another example of the importance of how something is done rather than what is done. For while selfless acts end up being done, they are done by a person who does not really know how to do selfless acts selflessly, for they do not understand the truth of the self and ego they mistake for who they are.

Adherents of pragmatism do not see a problem with this because they have the attitude that a good deed is a good deed, and it does not matter the motivation behind it, just that it is done. The problem with it is that while —— might be doing selfless acts out of love when it comes to her mother, the fact that she is, in reality, incapable of doing selfless acts selflessly (because she is still so controlled by her ego, by its needs and cravings), which means that when she is out in the world, she acts selfishly and does not really love other people, because, as I have always joked, “it’s all about ——.” This is not good for ——, and it’s not good for those around her, and ultimately, it’s not even good for her mother.

This is why motivation matters, because as many “good deeds” are done regardless of the motivation, as many deeds will be done that are in-line with the motivation. And not only that, but the supposed good deed will not triumph over the long-term.

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From my personal notes, 7/12/00

Self Precludes Love

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I wonder about how and why people fall in love with each other.

It seems to me that, more often than not, the reasons why one person falls in love with another person are more about him/herself than the other person.

I think that this speaks, very much, to what real love is and what it is not. Many people “love” other people because of themselves, because of something they need, or lack, or crave, or want, and, in reality, it is not about the person they supposedly love, but themselves.

This is the issue of real love; for real love is not about the self who loves, but about the loved, and, to be more accurate, about the loving. It is directional in nature—real love goes outward, and not-real love goes inward, not-real love is about the lover, not the loved.

I think that real and true love is when both people can love going outward and they do not love for themselves, or to fill a gap, or a place or something, or to get something, but simply because they love and cannot do otherwise. People who are controlled by their illusions, “issues,” desires, and assorted baggage, feel as if they cannot help it, but they really can. Real love is not desire.

I think of this topic again while reading A Farewell to Arms, wondering how they could really love each other when they do not even really know each other (let alone themselves), and it made me think about all the love stories where I simply didn’t buy it. It makes me wonder about the complexity of other people’s loves, even though I do think that most people are incapable of real, selfless love; or if they do feel it, they do not know what it is, and do not know what to do with it, do not understand it, cannot understand it, because they are too ego-bound, too self-involved to experience it in a context of truth. They may feel a bit of selfless love, but because they live such illusion-based existences, that love is smothered and appropriated by illusory, selfish love; it is distorted and unable to be expressed truly and honestly, for it is not even really known and understood as it really is, for it cannot be by one who is so lost.

Again: Self precludes love.

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From my personal notes, 7/12/00