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The present ideological cookie cutter within Western culture pressures each individual to value romantic love as ultimate life purpose. One is held captive to a particular ideology of love. Romantic love is obsessed over, which causes great anguish on the subjects psychology. For one to have a ‘good’ life, one is expec... |
Defining an Abstract such as ‘Love’. To define romantic love, the haze of the abstraction must be cleared. It seems to manifest in each individual and guide their entire lives. One is led to investigate culture and what purpose it serves and why it is so highly valued in our current society. The ability to achieve happ... |
According to Schopenhauer, one’s desire for romantic love is heavily dependant on the human desire to reproduce for the greater good of the species from an impersonal level. To reproduce is to continue one’s own self. It is to continue ones own existence in and through another. He asserts, |
“he will specially desire in the other individual those perfections that he himself lacks; in fact, he will even find beautiful those imperfections that are the opposite of his own. Hence, for example, short men look for tall women, persons with fair hair like those with dark, and so on. The delusive ecstasy that seize... |
From this heteronormative perspective, one can understand romantic love to exist like a magic trick presented to the audience. Each individual is asked, “Is this your card?”, and the responses are, “Wow, yes!”. However, the factual trick is that all of the cards are the same. One believes this magic trick to be perform... |
The accuracy of this depiction does not account for many types of relationships. Homosexual, asexual, virus infected, and infertile relationships present an innate flaw in Schopenhauer’s conclusion. In current society, one does not always seek what one lacks within the other, and one might seek similarities rather than... |
We are left with something hidden that is difficult to pinpoint or even articulate. The cookie cutter has given the mould, but not explained the reason why this particular mould should be utilized instead of another. |
The Experiment. Upon commencing my investigations into this topic, I was asked by a co-worker, “What? You don’t already understand what love is?” I responded with, “No, do you?” He brushed me off pridefully stating, “You must be stupid.” I questioned him seeking his declared wisdom asking, “What do you know love to be?... |
The more I learn about this topic, the more I understand its unchecked ramifications. Just as Aristotle teaches one to practically integrate wisdom from thoughts into actions (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by W. D. Ross (ebook, 1994), 4), my mission became to find out how others around me understood and int... |
I asked this question to a large number of age groups, sexual orientations, and relationship statuses. I spoke with over thirty individuals. In every case, the trend of hesitance and surprise carried on from the original subject. I was able to extract little to no information from a single person. Most concluded that I... |
Consideration also must be given to the cultural confinement of this experiment. This only accounts for a small portion of individuals whom reside and have contact with me within the small military town of Augusta, Georgia, USA. This experiment might assist us in our investigations, but can in no way account for the en... |
Conflict! It stands to question whether the source of this desired happiness is misplaced. To identify personal happiness primarily within another directly puts us eye to eye with the bull. Sartre asserts that a relationship places us in direct conflict with the other. |
“While I attempt to free myself from the hold of the Other, the Other is trying to free himself from mine; while I seek to enslave the Other, the Other seeks to enslave me.”(Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (New York: Washington Square Press, 1961), 77) |
From this perspective, ones task is to claim a type of ownership of the other. A role to capture the freedom of the other. It is not a ‘love potion’ that is desired, but a free choice to give up some of thyself for the other and the likewise, directed towards one’s own person. Both parties desire for the other to utili... |
I for one do not wish to be the cause of a process as sinister as this. To gain an ability to effectively fix mechanical problems, one must understand the mechanical problems involved. To be able to relate this depiction in almost every relationship that I have seen frightens me. But this is not written in stone and I ... |
True Hidden Knowledge. Reflecting on the prior survey, we are led to interrogate what love really is and how it functions. The hidden seems special. For Nussbaum, the not so obvious is in fact just the opposite: the only given. This given seems to not just be an abstract concept, but true knowledge itself. As science a... |
“knowledge of our love is not the fruit of the impression of suffering, a fruit that might in principle have been apart from suffering. The suffering itself is a piece of self-knowing.” (Martha C. Nussbaum, Loves Knowledge (New York: Oxford, 1990), 267) |
This places perspective on our topic’s experiment. To articulate love is to place the known into the less known. The vehicle to communicate this knowledge might lie within intellectual scrutiny, however, in doing this, the result is only backtracking from the known. From this knowledge that we truly know stands impossi... |
Love’s Anguish. How can one come to understand and cope with all the pain and suffering that manifests as a result of our love? The moment the other departs one’s side, suffering incurs. To love one is required to make sacrifices that demean their own individual autonomy. It is to place trust in a fallible being to con... |
The relevant inquiry seems not to be, “What is?”, but instead, “What can one do about it?” For Nussbaum, the answer lies in learning how to fall. (Martha C.Nussbaum, Loves Knowledge (New York: Oxford, 1990), 274 - 280) As within martial arts, to avoid intense pain and suffering, one must learn how to fall. To reduce th... |
Why Suffer? Learning how to fall appears to be a great deal more appealing than ignorant suffering. Can it stand as a solution to assist humankind to deal with the pain and suffering that love brings about? Are we still missing something? Falling still entails suffering of some sort. Humans do not wish to suffer. Can s... |
“Humanity is destined to go beyond suffering, but not in the way the ego thinks. One of the ego's many erroneous assumptions, one of its many deluded thoughts is “I should not have to suffer.” Sometimes the thought gets transferred to someone close to you: “My child should not have to suffer.” That thought itself lies ... |
Without the expectations that one should not need to suffer, suffering becomes absurd and its very definition collapses. If suffering is humbly accepted the process to remove suffering begins. By no longer identifying with the causes of suffering, the human being in turn transcends it. To reposition ones perspective on... |
Conclusion. To love without the demon of suffering waiting around the corner can enlighten our perspective on how one chooses to pursue their love. To love virtuously, independent of its corruptions, can be to recognize the cultural conflict that Sartre raises, learn from its ramifications as Nussbaum asserted, and acc... |
Bibliography |
Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation, translated by E.F.J. Payne (New York: Dover, 1958) |
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by W. D. Ross (1994) Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, translated by Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1961) |
Nussbaum, Martha C, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford, 1990) |
Tolle, Eckhart, A New Earth (New York: Penguin Group, 2008) |
A university assignment that I put my entire heart into and only obtained a Credit for. Why? Our current education system does not need to justify itself. |
Act 11 |
The Mark of Humanity |
February, 2012 |
Throughout our ancient history, ideals were passed through the generations through the use of tablets, parchments, and the like. The invention of the printing press caused a huge intellectual boom in which new conceptions of everything arose. The creation of the Internet has opened up a door for a new golden age if we ... |
In the beginning God brought about all things and cast a conscious self awareness within Adam and Eve, and it was good. God was made known to them through their environment, for they saw that all the individual details acted as representations of their origin. As the ideal couple develops through the joys of life, they... |
God had given humans everything they wanted, including the ability to become it, that is to live in its nature. The hardships of the struggle to actualise god-like characteristics overwhelmed the newly formed self-awareness. Thus it became a struggle to align themselves with the psychology in which they modified. The g... |
As the original man had not the facilities for understanding, they employed the use of tools in their strife towards the divine. They learned to effectively communicate with each other and their environment. They learned to create methods for conveying meaning by utilising the planet's resources. Ideals passed through ... |
Computers are born and act as a basic representation of its human creator. Human memory looks into the mirror and electronic storage is discovered. The technology develops and copulas amounts of information becomes portable. These computers naturally evolve to become like their Creator and network themselves together. ... |
The toils of Adam and Eve and their descendants is near its realisation. The history of man had to actualise itself through a long process of suffering. It had to overcome its physical and mental hardships. It had to create the required technology to effectively retrain its own psychology towards healthy methods of men... |
We are so close to being free from our chains! The Internet unlocks our shackles and manifests a moral responsibility on everyone. The path of ignorance will show itself for its superfluous qualities, and one will be in common understanding to realise that the reason for all errors in judgement is only a result of a le... |
When vast ranges of University grade educations are obtainable through easy, popular, and free methods of distribution over the Internet, the seekers of the world have the necessary means to achieve an infinite spectrum of potential. When one is given a mind to fill which has no observable limits, the blank slate is tr... |
With such power comes great responsibility, and we must carefully consider how such involvements could result. We are nearing the end of our poisoned fruit and the future of our races quality and longevity will come into question. The collective result of our answers to our problems will determine the possibility of co... |
The turn from the phenomena of the world into the psychology of the sufferer has given our kind the tools to overcome our mundane. Asceticism has crafted mankind an adaptable mould to go beyond their physical and mental limitations. When we prepare the body and mind for any conditions, the mind lets go of needing anyth... |
When an individual immerses themselves into the safety of the collective identity of society, they become vulnerable to being manipulated by it. The atrocities of our past massacres paint this image and calls into question whether one can claim to be "good" while allowing such events to unfold. As a learned individual ... |
Our distorted and abused understanding of the term "belief" has caused much suffering over the course of our human history. A simple modification of the term to not identify oneself within, but instead demonstrate a degree of inclination towards, without limiting the scope of, could solve many of our irrelevant dispute... |
The entire philosophical and religious scope of our human history has been in a process of coming to its realisation. Significant developments can be seen and our human consciousness evolves as a result. Hostility from diversity is seen in our actions which occurs from misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and misinte... |
Act 12 |
Barbed Wire Fences |
April 24, 2012 |
Why do we create fences where there once was none? We are a species that sees the limits of our world and then dedicate ourselves to overcome them. Yet the systems that we erect within society dominate our lives. What can we do to tear down the limits of our experience? How are we able to alter our systems to treat the... |
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