On love.

[duszek]

The French psychiatrist Lelord says that we are more able to fall in love if we are in an emotional state.
So if we try to suppress our emotions and to be cool all the time does it mean that we have very small chances (if at all) to fall in love with someone ?

[Scott Mayers]

The French psychiatrist Lelord says that we are more able to fall in love if we are in an emotional state.
So if we try to suppress our emotions and to be cool all the time does it mean that we have very small chances (if at all) to fall in love with someone ?

"Love", while variable in meaning, IS an emotional state. But yes, I also believe that you have better odds at higher states of love if you ignore rationalizing it with clarity. I just made a point of this indirectly on another site and post to which someone was being 'funny' to which he asked basically if I had a funny bone. I replied (with a joke) that while I may recognize his humor, I've already learned the pattern of it rationally as a form. Once you learn the form of it, jokes in kind lack the same unusual instinct to react to it in the same way.

Remember the joke, "Why'd the chicken cross the road?" Even I as a young kid found the punch line odd because I'd likely derived the formula of it as being rather dull as most who even once laughed at it no longer find it funny either.

As to the emotion of 'love', the same thing applies. If you have experienced what you once felt strongly for as the elation of 'love' as a formula through certain experiences, you may come to find it merely a formula. If you keep up with feigning it as equal even where you don't have the same strength of it you once had, this comes across as being pretentious. While many continue to naturally feign it regardless, this is often more about keeping others from interpreting you as at least NOT disliking them.

So 'love' is more of a result of surprise and a willingness not to question the motive of it. Intellectualizing in general can also lead to this but is also as much about how one is deprived of certain successes which force them to become more intellectual as it is what they've learned they needed in order to overcome certain barriers. I believe that much of any intelligence IS a derivative of the lack of 'love' one may feel when they must both desire it but cannot achieve it in some form. But it doesn't make the need for it go away as we are necessarily evolved to have this motivational drive in order to reproduce. And so we intellectually learn ways to suppress it if only to prevent the harm of allowing us to be invested in such a goal to which we may only again suffer from for seeking it.

But it doesn't actually take away one's chances because this assumes we all have the luxury of chance through our ability to choose it. It is the other way around. If and where we actually LACK the chances in practice, whether accidentally perceived or real, we learn to suppress them and attend to other things in a distracted way. You also cannot unlearn what you experienced emotionally where love fails and creates the opposing sensations of hurt all the way to hate as one extreme. Thus one may not even be able to choose in fact AND may be so emotionally corrupt by their experiences of seeking it that he or she is no longer even able to 'love' in the same way again.

People do NOT choose emotions, contrary to many. But even most poetry and songs on love often feign hope as a mechanism that assures each and every one of us can certainly achieve it. It is not true in fact though....it just allows us to fantasize it is.

[Hobbes' Choice]

The French psychiatrist Lelord says that we are more able to fall in love if we are in an emotional state.
So if we try to suppress our emotions and to be cool all the time does it mean that we have very small chances (if at all) to fall in love with someone ?

When ever I've fallen in love it has always been at a point in time when I was emotionally open to the situation.
In matters of love the object of your affection is paradoxically less important. When you are receptive, there are quite a range of potentially suitable and non suitable persons that your love can focus on.
Mistakes are made, love does not care. Heart ache and repression can follow. You need to be big enough not to blame, either yourself, or the person you fell for.
But uptight people, or those with a list of criteria will fail in their objective.

[Lacewing]

Ahhh... nice things being said here!

Love feels like a "state" to me -- a state that I can be in -- or a vibration. It's not the kind of love that is based on anything at all, rather it is a euphoric feeling/sense/awareness when judgments and demands and ego are set aside. It is unity and connection. It has no conditions and no aims. It is a complete and grateful embrace of the moment.

It helps to get your head out of the way. You can still appreciate your head for the work and creativity it does here, but it WILL get in the way of other awareness and experiences that are available. Like trying to drive a car to get to the moon. It's not the right vehicle or methodology or logic for some travels in this universe. Real love requires NOT needing to control.

And to love life in general, I think it helps to recognize and accept absurdities without jumping to a position of defending or condemning them. Let them be. It's ALL part of the whole picture. We can watch it dance, and then we might find ourselves relaxing into fits of giggles and waves of euphoric love... from time to time.

[henry quirk]

Love is what I do, it's my valuing of another, a valuing that's idiosycratic (that's applicable only to the one valued [That is, I love my nine year old cuz of who he is, not as some generalized value applicable to any or all]).

[Hobbes' Choice]

Love is what I do, it's my valuing of another, a valuing that's idiosycratic (that's applicable only to the one valued [That is, I love my nine year old cuz of who he is, not as some generalized value applicable to any or all]).

You love you kid for deeper reason, that none of us are aware of.
The love of the parent for the child is not chosen.
It happens.

Although the thread is really about romantic love, I think a similar thing applies to each of us. That to love at all requires us to be receptive to the idea of it. But once you are, the feeling opens like a flood.
Romantic love is more frail than that of a parent for it child but I think they have similar chracteristics.

[HexHammer]

The French psychiatrist Lelord says that we are more able to fall in love if we are in an emotional state.
So if we try to suppress our emotions and to be cool all the time does it mean that we have very small chances (if at all) to fall in love with someone ?

Some can supress their feelings in the extremes, like anorexic people, then there's those who can't and over do it like obese people.

..it all depends..

[Scott Mayers]

Love is what I do, it's my valuing of another, a valuing that's idiosycratic (that's applicable only to the one valued [That is, I love my nine year old cuz of who he is, not as some generalized value applicable to any or all]).

You love you kid for deeper reason, that none of us are aware of.
The love of the parent for the child is not chosen.
It happens.

Although the thread is really about romantic love, I think a similar thing applies to each of us. That to love at all requires us to be receptive to the idea of it. But once you are, the feeling opens like a flood.
Romantic love is more frail than that of a parent for it child but I think they have similar chracteristics.

Not all parents have a default love for their kids.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Love is what I do, it's my valuing of another, a valuing that's idiosycratic (that's applicable only to the one valued [That is, I love my nine year old cuz of who he is, not as some generalized value applicable to any or all]).

You love you kid for deeper reason, that none of us are aware of.
The love of the parent for the child is not chosen.
It happens.

Although the thread is really about romantic love, I think a similar thing applies to each of us. That to love at all requires us to be receptive to the idea of it. But once you are, the feeling opens like a flood.
Romantic love is more frail than that of a parent for it child but I think they have similar chracteristics.

Not all parents have a default love for their kids.

What did you not understand by the phrase "That to love at all requires us to be receptive to the idea of it."?

[duszek]

And what makes us receptive and what makes us non-receptive to the idea of love ?

Is it a question of the aphrodisiacs and anti-aphrodisiacs ?

[duszek]

Do certain sorts of music put us in the mood for love ?
Like Jazz is said to put people in the mood for eating.

And if so, the person who is the target is simply put in the mood for falling in love with someone who fits into their prey pattern (Beuteschema).
The music makes the target person aware that she actually does have a prey pattern.
The music does not enlarge the prey pattern.

So a person can realize: I am terribly in the mood for love but no matter how hard I look around nobody fits into my prey pattern.

[Lacewing]

Led Zeppelin does it for me. Oh wait a minute... what were we talking about?

[Scott Mayers]

...

You love you kid for deeper reason, that none of us are aware of.
The love of the parent for the child is not chosen.
It happens.

Although the thread is really about romantic love, I think a similar thing applies to each of us. That to love at all requires us to be receptive to the idea of it. But once you are, the feeling opens like a flood.
Romantic love is more frail than that of a parent for it child but I think they have similar chracteristics.

Not all parents have a default love for their kids.

[quote="Hobbes' Choice]What did you not understand by the phrase "That to love at all requires us to be receptive to the idea of it."?[/quote]
You said, "The love of the parent for the child is not chosen. It happens."
I only interpreted your context of "chosen" to imply that parents do not 'choose' to, say, love one child over another (favoritism). I believe this does occur and it could be 'natural' for some; but where this happens, it may or may not be true that such a parent 'loves' their favored ones. But it also implies that for those parents, they have less 'love' for their other children or even 'hate' to one extreme, whether by 'choice' OR 'nature'.

I agree that a 'good' parent is one who loves all their children by default but don't believe it is as natural universally as many tend to think. It is where one treats 'love' as a verb, as in not simply some feeling of goodwill for them but being actively a part of their lives in both the good and the bad.

"That to love at all requires us to be receptive to the idea of it." reminded me of how many believe that each and every person always has the real same opportunity or chance to BE loved. I don't believe this is true at all. It reminds me of one of my favorite songs, "The Rose" to which it says the same thing but is about 'hope', not reality. To place the burden on one to 'be loved' is not generically true as it suggests one has the power over another to MAKE them love them.

[Hobbes' Choice]

And what makes us receptive and what makes us non-receptive to the idea of love ?

Is it a question of the aphrodisiacs and anti-aphrodisiacs ?

I did not think we were talking about fucking. You do know there is a difference?

[Hobbes' Choice]

You said, "The love of the parent for the child is not chosen. It happens.".

It happens to people that are receptive to it. You have to be in the right place mentally.
But if you are open to it, there is nothing you can do to create the feeling. It's not a choice.