Loving others

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After realising what life is about I also realise I have a hard time seeing what love is about.

People are supposed to act and think according to what is best for them personally - not because of someone else. If they do something for someone else, it's ultimately because it will (or should be) benefiting themself.

There is only egoistic needs left.

What people usually call "love" is when another person can give them what they need. They don't really love the other person. They only "love" the other person because they care about themself. If the other person can no longer give them what they need they simply stop loving them.


If you think there is more to love than this between mentally healthy individuals, how come?

Are you satisfied with this superficial kind of "love"?

I don't think there's more to love than that; I feel it.

Love isn't just about satisfying physiological needs for one another. To an extent, I can see how it's a bit about satisfying emotional needs, but it's certainly not always about being self serving, nor is it always reciprocal. I freely give & express my love to friends and family that I love because I want them to feel the love I have for them, not because I want to feel myself having that feeling of selfless emotional sharing. It's truly that I want them to know and feel what I know and feel about them. As for not being reciprocal, sometimes it's one sided - one person may have love for another, and the other not in return - whether a romantic type of love or not. But often it does go both ways and both people feel love for one another, as well as feel the others' love for them. It doesn't have to be expressed verbally or even explicitly communicated, as it just is & can be felt and experienced in a 6th sense sort of way. Just a look, a feeling, a sensation, a combination of all of the above & more is all it takes to experience it.

And yes, of course there are other biological factors at play.. hormones, pheromones, etc - all of which can come into play in forming a complete picture of what people experience as "love." Sure, some may try to break it down to scientific components and explain away every last biochemical reaction, thought or feeling.. but it's not that simple when it involves the heart beyond it's mechanical pump function - especially since science doesn't know nearly as much about the electrical signals throughout the heart and their link to emotions, feelings, intuition and more, when compared to what they know about the brain - which isn't everything yet, by a long shot, either. So, it's complicated.. more complicated than one very simplistic black and what philosophy could ever pretend to try to explain.

Thinking about love not necessarily requiring reciprocation, ie I'd still love someone I love even if they never indicated that they loved me in return, reminds me of this song - so, song sharing time:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9PYiIGAsM8[/youtube]

Hi goldfish21,

I'd really like to be convinced about what you're saying. I really would. It's just very difficult when there's so much evidence pointing to the opposite.

But in the end, aren't you doing this because it benefits yourself? Because of a need to feel loved and love someone.

If it didn't benefit yourself, would you still do it?




I have experienced this myself. I just have a feeling that one experiences this because of egoistic needs, when those needs are no longer met, the feeling disappears.





But isn't this just saying you have a need for a person, but that person doesn't need you?

Well, I'd have to say there can be a difference. My take is that there's different kinds of love.

If the one you described was the only one out there; long-distance relationships likely wouldn't exist. Since the results would no longer outweigh the effort.

But often long-distance relationships don't last, right? I don't think that's a coincidence.

If they do last, it's only because both persons involved know that no other person could fulfill their needs as well as that specific other person. So in that case they assess that the reward of a long-distance relationship actually does outweigh the effort.


"True love" is really only a matter of two people being really good at fulfilling each others needs. Is this satisfactory for you?

I have such a hard time thinking of it as love.

Everything happens for a reason, and is what it is because it needs to be.. so, I suppose it does benefit me some to know/feel Im able to give what I do to others, but at the same time, the desire to do so isn't driven by self serving desires to know or feel that, it's motivated by having that other person experience the love I have for them. It's truly about them, not me, so I feel it's more that I feel it as a byproduct vs. the main aim. It's difficult to explain the emotional & philosophical intricacies of love, but it is interesting to try. Why can't it be about the intended recipient vs. benefitting oneself? Love for another can be truly selfless, IMO.

Although I do feel it in return when it's given, too, and IMO that doesn't come from the other serving themselves, but mutually expressing a similar love in return as they acknowledge and accept yours and you do the same.




Perhaps, perhaps not. I don't think you can force something as complex and not fully understood as Love into such a rigid little box of rules. Love is one of those things that just doesn't work like that, nor consistently, as it seems to be much more dynamic than that as it changes, evolves, presents itself in different forms throughout your life and experiences etc.




If you're trying to make every possible statement slot into one simplistic philosophy, sure. But even if you have a need for them & a need to feel love for them and they don't have a need to feel love for you in return, that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have a need for your love, now, does it? It's possible that, if everything happens for a reason, your love for them happened for a reason and they needed it whether you or them knew it or not & your love fulfills some metaphysical energy need or cosmic balance just by you manifesting it for them, and that's all there is to it, whether either of you ever know it or not.

I have this nagging suspicion that everytime you love someone for other than selfish reasons, it's really a manifestation that something is "wrong" with you....autism for instance.

It's really sad, I think. But then again, it's likely because of autism I think that it's sad.


As with all other things that are too tough for people to deal with laughing is the only medicine.

"If we didn't laugh, we'd cry"....it's very true.

No, if you only love for selfish reasons, that's something wrong. That's how psychopaths love.

You don't seem to have much of an idea what NTs are like. NTs, like autistics, are wired to care, and not just when there's a benefit to them.

Seriously, you should drop this weird survival theory of yours. It's complete nonsense. Pretty much nothing you've said that relates to this theory has any accuracy to it at all.

True, people are wired to care. That's what one should do. That's the healthy life-preserving action. But ultimately it is for selfish reasons. If people suddenly change you might not love them anymore....love is conditional, so it does have a selfish origin! Otherwise you'd keep loving them even when they changed into something you didn't like. It will always be a matter whether it's good for you or not.




Opposite autistic people, have you noticed how much psychopaths are worshipped in society? They are often considered very attractive and charismatic...at the same time, it's not for no reason autism is considered a disability...there seems to be a clear tendency in where things are going...

Last edited by qawer on 20 Mar 2013, 9:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

We're wired to care. We're wired to enjoy helping each other. Humans live in groups. If we don't care for each other, we lose all the benefits that come from interdependence.

What do you think pleasure is for? It's there to tell us, "You've done a good thing." Whether that means you've eaten a good meal or examined a beautiful painting, the pleasure is a signal that says "This thing is good for you." Yeah, pleasure can get twisted into things that hurt us--maybe because we don't think ahead to the longer-term results, or maybe because the sense of pleasure itself has been co-opted by a chemical substance. But, by and large, pleasure is a sign that you are on the right track.

Human beings are made to care for each other. When we care, we are expressing our purpose. That this should cause pleasure is natural. It is part of who we are.

Sometimes we have to do things that do not cause pleasure--but this is always because we can see that in the future, they will make things better. I might go get a flu shot because I want to be immune against a winter bout with the flu. I don't like the flu shot, but I can use my abstract reasoning ability to think ahead.

Human beings are unique in that respect: More than any other animal, we can think ahead and deny ourselves pleasure now in order to have more of it in the future. Culturally, this has grown into an admiration for self-denial, whether it's admiration for the life of an ascetic or the discipline needed to quit smoking. We admire these things because we know that being able to balance intellectual understanding of the future with desire for pleasure in the here-and-now is, in the long term, a trait that will benefit both you and others.

We admire the ability to postpone pleasure, but this should not be taken to mean that something done for pleasure is meaningless. In fact, pleasure (whether immediate or delayed) is a side-effect of actions we take that are usually useful and helpful. Why is it so surprising that we should be made to enjoy the things that are beneficial to us and to our communities?

A lot of people still love each other even when they change. Like when people grow old together, their bodies, lifestyle, income level, families, etc all change, but couple still stay together. Or how parents love their children even as they grow up. That's unconditional love.

...

Last edited by qawer on 20 Mar 2013, 9:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

You actually convince me there's hope when saying those things.

I should probably just accept that love is when people are very good at fulfilling each others needs.

There more I think in survival-terms, the easier it gets to "love" others. The problem is that it's not my true self. So I don't really feel it.

True love seems to really only manifest itself over a long period of time.

I disagree

I think there's a lot of truth in it but because it's a very clinical way of looking at life most people won't relate to it

I relate to it very well though and find it a very useful filter to see life through

I think it's fine to say you personally don't agree with or relate to this way of thinking but to dismiss it out of hand is not constructive at all

It's not weird at all, just weird to you personally

As for the idea that NTs are 'wired to care' I'd say this is only in specific circumstances ie when it's in their own best interests and those of their genetic line usually

There's another form of love called Agape:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape

"Agape (pron.: /ˈæɡəpiː/[1] or /əˈɡɑːpeɪ/; Classical Greek: ἀγάπη, agápē; Modern Greek: αγάπη IPA: [aˈɣapi]) is one of the Koine Greek words translated into English as love, one which became particularly appropriated in Christian theology as the love of God or Christ for humankind.

In the New Testament, it refers to the covenant love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term necessarily extends to the love of one’s fellow man. Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love.[citation needed]. Although the word does not have specific religious connotation, the word has been used by a variety of contemporary and ancient sources, including Biblical authors and Christian authors. Greek philosophers at the time of Plato and other ancient authors have used forms of the word to denote love of a spouse or family, or affection for a particular activity, in contrast to Philia (an affection that could denote friendship, brotherhood or generally non-sexual affection) and eros, an affection of a sexual nature. Thomas Jay Oord has defined agape as "an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being." "

The poet W.H Auden wrote about his experience of Agape:-

http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/ ... _Intro.pdf

"Introduction

Perspectives on Love and Agapé

The Vision of Agapé

In his personal journal from June 1933 W. H. Auden describes a mystical experience
he had that he came to call the “Vision of Agape.”

The context for the experience was a leisurely evening conversing among friends on a lawn.
Auden insists that the two women and the one man in his company had neither a sexual attraction to the
other members of the group nor had they consumed any alcohol. He says,

We were talking casually about everyday matters when, quite suddenly and unexpectedly,
something happened. I felt myself invaded by a power which, though I consented to it, was
irresistible and certainly not mine. For the first time in my life I knew exactly—because,
thanks to the power, I was doing it—what it means to love one’s neighbor as oneself. I
was also certain, though the conversation continued to be perfectly ordinary, that my three
colleagues were having the same experience. . . . My personal feelings towards them were
unchanged—they were still colleagues, not intimate friends—but I felt their existence
as themselves to be of infinite value and rejoiced in it. I recalled with shame the many
occasions on which I had been spiteful, snobbish, selfish, but immediate joy was greater
than the shame, for I knew that, so long as I was possessed of this spirit, it would literally
be impossible for me to deliberately injure another human being.

Among the various characteristics of the vision Auden describes a primary one seems
to be the power of transforming the possessor’s perception of the self and of others.
The experience of the vision seems to represent the fulfillment of the second part of the
great commandment: to love your neighbor as yourself. The vision of agapé reveals
to the one who participates in this divine love both the “impossible possibility” of
fulfilling the Great Commandment completely while simultaneously recognizing one’s
own finite—and sinful—conditions. The power seems to transform the moral vision of
the possessor in such a way as to see the self in all its clarity and likewise to see one’s
neighbors quite possibly as God sees them, as having infinite value.

Auden’s compelling description of this mystical experience raises a number
of provocative questions. Is agapé a species of love completely alien to human
experience such that we can only wait to be possessed by it? Are there practices that
can inculcate the possession of agapé? To what extent does agapé produce in the
possessor a revitalized moral epistemology? Maybe most importantly, to what extent
do human and divine loves overlap?"

I've had a transcendental experience like this about once

I have that feeling too. You have to view the topic with "black and white"-eyes to accept it. I'm surprised people in here don't buy it, because black and white thinking is supposedly a common aspie trait.


Wow, it's so rare that someone really gets this ( :