Posted 11/5/2013
I define "love" as: the experience of unconditional acceptance of what is. "What is" is my definition of reality--not what we think is, or hope is, or believe is, or wish wasn't, but what actually is (whatever that proves to be).
I can see only one option to flight/fight survival behavior and that is face; to fully allow reality to be, just as it is right now. To face what is is to accept what is is to experience what is is to love what is.
Acceptance of what is is empowering. If I'm caught in a rip current the more I perceive and accept the reality of the situation the more I can effectively deal with it. Panic and drowning result from flighting and fighting the existent reality.
The catch in my definition is that in order to unconditionally accept something I must unconditionally know it. The only thing I know absolutely is that some kind of experience is happening at my location. Everything else I know is, at some point, limited by total ignorance. As Tennyson nicely puts it:
Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, little flower--But if
I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is
Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, little flower--But if
I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is
Romantic love, familial love, love of work, love of hot dogs--all are experiences of acceptance. The reason love is so rare is because acceptance of reality is so rare. Finding existent reality--the way it is--unacceptable, is insane.
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