Do you agree that loving somebody isn’t the same feeling as loving the taste of chicken? The use of the same word doesn’t mean that it’s the same feeling underneath.

When you love someone you want to take care of them, you want for them to be happy, this isn’t the same as loving the taste of chicken. A taste is not a person, and a taste can’t be happy, loving a taste is about yourself and not about someone else, it’s surely not about the chicken as a living being, you don’t really care about the chicken since you’re eating him.

It can be true that loving someone brings good to yourself, but it is directed towards someone not towards yourself. Well you can certainly love yourself, but when you truly love someone else, when you truly care about their well-being, it’s not about yourself, even if it can be good to yourself too. Love can make you sacrifice some of your own well-being (safety, comfort, health, ...) so that the other(s) can have more of it.

So true love is certainly not selfish. Just because something can be good to you that doesn’t make it selfish, if through loving someone you feel better that doesn’t mean you’re loving that person so that you can feel better. I would say it is important to love both others and ourselves, to care about the well-being of others and about our own well-being.

But if a man says he loves a woman and he doesn’t care about the well-being of this woman, then in that case he’s being selfish, he thinks about how this woman can be useful for him, he is focused on how this woman makes himself feel and not on how she feels, he sees the woman as a mean rather than an end. It would be less confusing if we used another word than ‘love’ for this, maybe we should call it a craving, a desire to possess or something like that, which isn’t what true love is.

The way I see it, love and desire originate from the same affect or feeling, but the confusion comes from a misunderstanding of ‘person’ as referring to an object or experience, rather than to a potentiality or a meaningful relationship.

When we ‘love that dress’, we’re referring to an object: to its physical properties as we experience them. It could be the colour, the style, the feel of the material. We may desire that dress now, but as a person who desires, we’re not a static object but a developing and experiencing being who can change in how we relate to an object from one moment to the next. Plus, we probably won’t love that dress anymore if it shrinks in the wash, or gets a red wine stain...

When we love the taste of chicken, we’re referring to an experience, regardless of the properties of whatever object it may be attributed to. It’s the same when we love a person not necessarily for their physical appearance, but for how they positively contribute to the way we feel about and experience ourselves, that person and the world in general.

But love can be deeper than that. Because we can love a person not just for how they make us feel at the time, but for the potential we see in them, and the potential they bring out in us. At this level, we’re not deterred by bad moods or stressful situations, by their shyness or prickly personality, their embarrassing faux pas or bad taste in clothing. We can see past how others see them in that moment to who they can be, even if they don’t quite see it themselves, and we strive to bring out the best in them - not just for how it makes us feel, but for their benefit and the benefit of anyone else who interacts with them. This is not the same as trying to change, improve or ‘rescue’ them - it’s about potential, not possibility - we need to be honest about their capacity, and about ours. But it is this love that endures through the rocky patches of life and marriage, through illness and money troubles and teenagers and nightmare in-laws...

And we can also love a person for the added meaning that relationship brings to how we relate to the universe as a whole. At this level, the love we have for them intensifies every interaction we have with the world, because we relate to everything not only through our own experience, but through our relationship with that person we love as an experiencing being. In this way, what might otherwise have escaped our notice has meaning for us purely because we know it has meaning for them. We can relate to the world almost with two minds. It is this love that endures long after that person has been lost to everyone else.

I think this is why they often say that love is a journey...

Love is a self-serving concept. Each person has their own conception - so to speak - of what one is supposed to do when one is in love. Some people find monogamy a pivotal element of love, and others do not. Some people find certain ways of communicating to be acceptable, and others do not.

In all cases, when one acts out of love, they follow their own conception of how one is supposed to act out of love.

The trick, of course, is finding someone who has much the same conception or one that is different but compatible.

What I mean is - when a man falls in love with a woman, does it mean he saw someone in this woman who could provide him safety, comfort, satisfaction,...? — Craiya

You can safely assume that this man, first and foremost, wants sex. This man may not be thinking it over properly, because nowadays there are very dangerous risks associated with that behaviour, depending on what country you live in. This man should therefore learn to control his emotions and try to avoid getting dragged into risky ventures.

Is love really a good thing, or is it selfish to love somebody/something? — Craiya

Again, depending on the country this man lives in, it could be rather stupid rather than selfish. He has probably failed to make the correct cost/benefit analysis, while he may also underestimate the risks involved. This kind of behaviour is only sound in countries with a rather traditional legal system. That does not include any western country. Therefore, I would advise him not to do it, if possible.

perhaps both. chances are, when the one you love feels happy, you feel happy too. so keeping him/her happy makes you happy as well. this is a ''selfish altruism'' thing.

I think Leo and Possibility really captured much of the answer relating to your OP.

At the same time, as others have alluded, we are self-directed individuals seeking happiness, thus cannot escape the self-serving interest component. Kind of like the need to procreate/aspire to have children of our own.

(Albeit adoption, seems to be more in line with an altruistic act or concept... .)

At the same time, as others have alluded, we are self-directed individuals seeking happiness, thus cannot escape the self-serving interest component. Kind of like the need to procreate/aspire to have children of our own.

(Albeit adoption, seems to be more in line with an altruistic act or concept... .) — 3017amen

Well, we can escape it, it’s just less effort to roll with it, and justify it, and pretend that it’s somehow necessary.

The ‘need’ to procreate derives from the little effort it takes to love a physical extension of ourselves. The more that extension deviates, the greater the challenge to love them as something more complex than ‘object’. Some people love the genetic ‘object’ that is their child, or certain positive experiences of ‘being a parent’ that the child provides them, and struggle with the rest. Adoption should start from this second tier, because it then challenges the parent to love not just the experiences of parenting, but the potential for growth beyond the ‘good’ experiences - which is where the challenge of adoption beyond the newborn stage should begin. We are then challenged to love relating to the world beyond what is personally significant in our own life - which should be the base challenge to love as a foster parent.

Yeah P., I take no exception to your approach or otherwise virtuous ideal of love. In theory, one should always aspire to a greater good in the name of Love. And I think you have articulated that well.

My issue is with your notion of 'just rolling with it'. I know Ayn Rand gets a bad rap with her theories of selfishness and all, but there is a nugget of existential truth associated with her premise of self-direction.

For example, as Maslow [inspired by Fromm's paper on healthy selfishness] once said (in paraphrase but pretty close) 'how could selfishness be opposed to altruism, when altruism became selfishly pleasurable'.

I think your 'just rolling with it' is more or less instinct or intrinsic needs for happiness. In other words, it becomes in a sense, logically necessary to want to love someone as a mutually beneficial, virtuous ideal in order to create a better sum of the parts. To better humanity.

In that way, I see being able to merge those dichotomies (contradictory or mutually exclusive opposites) as like merging duty with pleasure; pleasure with duty (head v. heart, wish v. fact, turning a hobby into a career or job, etc.).

So, rather than, as you say 'escape it', I submit one should integrate it. Embrace those hard wired needs for inner peace, joy and happiness with altruistic acts/types of unselfish love, to better the human condition.

Is love really a good thing, or is it selfish to love somebody/something? — Craiya

If one say's: 'I really love that car, house, guitar, boat, or person, etc..' , then one should in theory want to make that thing better by obviously maintaining it, making improvements to it, and all the rest. And even though the word love in that context can really be a misnomer, it still conveys an intrinsic need or passion to experience some level of joy and happiness.

It in some way begs another question of whether Love is a choice. Thoughts?

A couple of points, if I may.

‘Escape it’ were your words, not mine. I don’t see love as a battle to escape or even overcome selfishness, and I’ve specifically not referred to ‘altruistic’, ‘unselfish’ or ‘unconditional’ notions of love because of this misunderstanding. From the most basic level through to the most ‘ideal’, love is not a negation of self, but an integration of self with other. When we love it isn’t about self-denial - if you read again what I’ve written then you’ll see this. Individual needs certainly become less important, but there’s no opposition to joy or pleasure in themselves.

That said, I dispute the notion that self-serving interest is ‘hard-wired’ in humanity - only that it requires less conscious effort. Achieving inner peace, joy and happiness is more connected to the higher ideals of love than to any ‘self-directed’ pursuit of pleasure.

Well, we can escape it, it’s just less effort to roll with it, and justify it, and pretend that it’s somehow necessary. — Possibility

I thought those were your words based on your quote above..., can you please clarify this?

If you are saying it takes less conscious effort, isn't that the same as saying something like; intrinsic needs, or hardwired, or instinctual, etc..

What causes human's to seek pleasure and/or Love ? One plausible answer would be metaphysical will. Accordingly, that would be something existential that just is...otherwise, maybe other possibilities could include something else that is beyond logic; intrinsic, instinctual, phenomenal, genetic, emergent, et al .

can you please clarify this? — 3017amen

My use of ‘escape it’ was in response to your use of it here:

we are self-directed individuals seeking happiness, thus cannot escape the self-serving interest component — 3017amen

Yes, we are seeking what we refer to as ‘happiness’, but this self-serving interest component is a misunderstanding of what ‘happiness’ entails as an experiencing, self-reflective subject.

If you are saying it takes less conscious effort, isn't that the same as saying something like; intrinsic needs, or hardwired, or instinctual, etc.. — 3017amen

I’m not referring to efforts to suppress behaviour that we understand to be instinctual. I’m referring to conscious, self-reflective and self-evaluative efforts to understand and challenge what motivates us to choose this behaviour. We’ve been doing this for thousands of years, and teaching our children to do the same. It takes much less conscious effort to believe that we ‘cannot escape’ pleasure-seeking, than to understand that pleasure-seeking isn’t as ‘necessary’ as we think.

What causes human's to seek pleasure and/or Love ? One plausible answer would be metaphysical will. Accordingly, that would be something existential that just is...otherwise, maybe other possibilities could include something else that is beyond logic; intrinsic, instinctual, phenomenal, genetic, emergent, et al . — 3017amen

Personally, I think that ‘love’ at its most fundamental is the origin of the universe, but we don’t really understand what that means. I think a fundamental truth beyond logic is that the universe matters to the universe, regardless of anything. This truth brings meaning to interactions between potential, which realise a mutual capacity to develop and achieve by increasing awareness, connection and collaboration in the universe as it unfolds with each interaction.

With each particle interaction manifesting only one observed/measured potential at a time, and this limited energy/information only rarely available in subsequent interactions, the challenge for those partial manifestations of the universe - as systems of potential interactions - that remain open to further potential interaction is to structure the information they have to increase awareness, connection and collaboration within these limited and limiting conditions of available energy/information.

Internal conditions of ‘sufficient’ energy/information are achieved by creating isolated systems of what matters. By ignoring information or excluding it as ‘other’, an individual system of potential interactions (eg. a living cell) can perpetuate a temporal state of almost ‘being’ everything that matters to the universe/system. This is the illusion of ‘survival’, where motivations, pleasure-seeking and/or love are based on a limited perspective of what matters to the universe/system.

Personally, I think that ‘love’ at its most fundamental is the origin of the universe, but we don’t really understand what that means. I think a fundamental truth beyond logic is that the universe matters to the universe, regardless of anything. This truth brings meaning to interactions between potential, which realize a mutual capacity to develop and achieve by increasing awareness, connection and collaboration in the universe as it unfolds with each interaction. — Possibility

Could not agree more... ! Thank you kindly for sharing those thoughts above on this most intriguing topic. Well said!

It takes much less conscious effort to believe that we ‘cannot escape’ pleasure-seeking, than to understand that pleasure-seeking isn’t as ‘necessary’ as we think. — Possibility

I'm trying to understand your thought process there. I know you've repeated that statement, but I think you might be denying some basic existential phenomena. (A detour into Ecclesiastes' would make my point a little clearer from a philosophical view... .) But in any case, from a Kantian perspective, there are some things that are fixed properties of consciousness that have little to do with logic, philosophy, empirical truth, etc..

In that sense, how can we escape ( I'll use that wonderful word again, ha) the so-called intrinsic need for seeking gratification? To love a something, in part, means I'm both making a choice to do so, and I'm satisfying an existential or intrinsic need. Arguably to Love, is much like the need to eat or sleep. Albeit in this case, eating and sleeping would be first-tier hierarchical. To Love though, seems integral with all forms of behavioral needs. Thus I can love to eat steak, love my house, love my girlfriend, children, career, ad nauseum.

So, in thinking out loud here, I'm trying to understand why you believe pleasure-seeking would not be 'necessary' for human existence.

In that sense, how can we escape ( I'll use that wonderful word again, ha) the so-called intrinsic need for seeking gratification? — 3017amen

By recognising that it isn’t individual gratification that we’re seeking, but the energy/information required to develop and achieve, and that increasing awareness, connection and collaboration enables us to do this more efficiently (ie. with less energy/information).

To love a something, in part, means I'm both making a choice to do so, and I'm satisfying an existential or intrinsic need. Arguably to Love, is much like the need to eat or sleep. Albeit in this case, eating and sleeping would be first-tier hierarchical. To Love though, seems integral with all forms of behavioral needs. Thus I can love to eat steak, love my house, love my girlfriend, children, career, ad nauseum. — 3017amen

To love a something satisfies a ‘need’ communicated to us by internal systems: a limited individual perspective of what matters. Our bodily systems are always making choices about how to budget their limited energy based on what matters, and communicating those needs to the overall system. Maslow’s hierarchy stipulates that these bodily needs are first priority - that all the minor systems must reach a level of sufficient energy/information before the system can start to address higher needs. But Maslow’s hierarchy is individual, and works on a sense of abundance: that there is more than enough energy/information available - we each just need to be systematic in our efforts to acquire it. The hierarchy is not effective for individuals in the grip of a nationwide famine, for instance. Those individuals develop and achieve not by focusing on meeting basic individual needs first, but by using what little energy/information they have available to increase awareness, connection and collaboration beyond the grip of the famine. Otherwise they will all eventually starve.

So, in thinking out loud here, I'm trying to understand why you believe pleasure-seeking would not be 'necessary' for human existence. — 3017amen

Pleasure-seeking can be considered ‘necessary’ for individual human existence - if that individual human existence was the entire universe/system. We know that it isn’t, but we prefer to behave as if it is:

Internal conditions of ‘sufficient’ energy/information are achieved by creating isolated systems of what matters. By ignoring information or excluding it as ‘other’, an individual system of potential interactions (eg. a living cell) can perpetuate a temporal state of almost ‘being’ everything that matters to the universe/system. This is the illusion of ‘survival’, where motivations, pleasure-seeking and/or love are based on a limited perspective of what matters to the universe/system. — Possibility

When we ‘love that dress’, we’re referring to an object: to its physical properties as we experience them. It could be the colour, the style, the feel of the material. We may desire that dress now, but as a person who desires, we’re not a static object but a developing and experiencing being who can change in how we relate to an object from one moment to the next. Plus, we probably won’t love that dress anymore if it shrinks in the wash, or gets a red wine stain...

When we love the taste of chicken, we’re referring to an experience, regardless of the properties of whatever object it may be attributed to. It’s the same when we love a person not necessarily for their physical appearance, but for how they positively contribute to the way we feel about and experience ourselves, that person and the world in general.

But love can be deeper than that. Because we can love a person not just for how they make us feel at the time, but for the potential we see in them, and the potential they bring out in us. At this level, we’re not deterred by bad moods or stressful situations, by their shyness or prickly personality, their embarrassing faux pas or bad taste in clothing. We can see past how others see them in that moment to who they can be, even if they don’t quite see it themselves, and we strive to bring out the best in them - not just for how it makes us feel, but for their benefit and the benefit of anyone else who interacts with them. This is not the same as trying to change, improve or ‘rescue’ them - it’s about potential, not possibility - we need to be honest about their capacity, and about ours. But it is this love that endures through the rocky patches of life and marriage, through illness and money troubles and teenagers and nightmare in-laws...

And we can also love a person for the added meaning that relationship brings to how we relate to the universe as a whole. At this level, the love we have for them intensifies every interaction we have with the world, because we relate to everything not only through our own experience, but through our relationship with that person we love as an experiencing being. In this way, what might otherwise have escaped our notice has meaning for us purely because we know it has meaning for them. We can relate to the world almost with two minds. It is this love that endures long after that person has been lost to everyone else. — Possibility

Yes loving someone isn’t just about how that person makes us feel, and it isn’t just about wanting them to be happier, and it isn’t just about seeing a potential in them, it is also about seeing who they are beyond appearances, about seeing a light in them despite how they appear or how they behave, about seeing their inner beauty that the eyes don’t see.

Yes loving someone isn’t just about how that person makes us feel, and it isn’t just about wanting them to be happier, and it isn’t just about seeing a potential in them, it is also about seeing who they are beyond appearances, about seeing a light in them despite how they appear or how they behave, about seeing their inner beauty that the eyes don’t see. — leo

Yes, and it’s ultimately about seeing beyond even the ‘beauty’, to the ugliness that is nevertheless a part of who they are, were or could become, and recognising in them the absolute and inclusive possibility of the universe - and our ultimate capacity to love it all without judgement.

You can safely assume that this man, first and foremost, wants sex. — alcontali

:100: So wise, so true. It all starts out with lust “first and foremost.”

I would advise him not to do it, if possible. — alcontali

:lol:

Does love usually sour after years of cohabitation? Do couples need to learn to “fall back in love” for the sake of keeping together what they have built their lives around, especially when it has been many years of cohabitation?

Does love usually sour after years of cohabitation? Do couples need to learn to “fall back in love” for the sake of keeping together what they have built their lives around, especially when it has been many years of cohabitation? — Noah Te Stroete

I think perhaps love either evolves or stagnates, depending on what it is that you love.

After more than 20 years of marriage, I’m certainly not the same person I was in many, many ways. So for someone to love me for that length of time, they would need to love more than who they thought I was then, or even who they thought I might become. And they would need to love more than who they thought they were or would become, too - and more than what we had in common or built our lives around, because ALL of it changes eventually.

I think it’s a matter of a couple being more open to their love changing in unexpected ways. If love stagnates, then they’d need to be prepared to get to know each other all over again, let go of any expectations or assumptions of the past, be open to loving their spouse for the different person they are (who will inevitably change again), and be honest about the person they’re becoming. That’s a decision: for the sake of keeping together what they have built their lives around, it could be worth the effort.

Thank you. You gave me some things to think about.