More words for yall

Tonight, a cherished friend has asked me to write, and I would dearly like to deliver, but there's so little I feel ready to say.

I have returned to my home town in Oceanside, CA, and I've gotten myself into a difficult situation. I have no job and I only have what little money my family can afford to send me, and I'm keeping house and helping my friend take care of her daughter for room and board. I have very little privacy or time to myself, and my relationships with the people I live with are often tense.

What keeps my hopes up is the decision I've made to make math tutoring my career. The boring work I do here (which I'm really not great at) has new meaning in light of the future I'm now consciously trying to build for myself.

I haven't been writing here because I've been busy with my notebook, and I've been so uncertain about so much. I am still thinking and writing and planning, looking forward to a time when I can share more of my ideas with the world.

I'm tired now, and I don't think I have much more time to write. I hope to have more to say in the near future, and I am thankful to the friend who actually wants to see more of this stuff.

Desert

Punishment for its own sake is harmful and stupid. A new concept of desert is called for. Beat this: What you deserve is what would make you better, in character, in consequence, and in wellness.

Her laughter

I'm not worried. If there is a single change I would make in you, it simply does not occur to me in this moment because it is so joyously, raucously overwhelmed by everything about you that I could not imagine wanting to change. This would be a dimmer world without you. These words trail off into obscurity before you. I only hope my eyes, my touch, my life will convey this message.

The meaning of love

tl;dr: Love is saying yes.

In my post on significance, I mentioned love. This is an extremely important concept for me, and the will to think and express myself clearly about love has probably been the most important driving force behind this whole endeavor. More than anything, I want to show that love can and should serve as a source of meaning in life, and as an answer to the conditions of tragedy and finitude that cast doubt on life's value. Clearly, then, I have a lot to say about love, but in this first post on it, I'm just going to try to say what I mean by that word, and maybe include some trailing remarks. It's very important that I do this, because what I mean by "love" is something quite specific, though I expect it to continue defying exact definition, and it is very different from some of the things the word is often used to denote.

I think it will be easiest to begin by letting you know what I don't mean by "love". I'll start by giving a rapidfire list of negative influences that shouldn't go anywhere near love, gathered under three major headings. First of all, by "love", I do not mean possessiveness: love has no part in jealousy, suspicion, or the presumption of ownership or entitlement. Second, by "love", I do not mean pathological attachment: love also has no part in need, craving, desperation, obsession, or false idealization. Thirdly, by "love" I do not mean any attitude that could promote harm or manipulation of its object: love has no part in demands, obligations, expectations, resentment, or excuses, at least in the petty or self-serving senses of those words.

When love is forced to coexist with possessiveness, pathological attachment, and manipulation, it is muted and strained, and the good work it can do in our lives is suppressed and undervalued. It is unfortunate that such things are often considered unavoidable consequences of love, or even conditions of love or part of the essence of love itself. In the way in which I use the word "love", and recommend that it be used, love is quite simply opposed to this raucous din of pathological influences. When we find ourselves under their sway, we had best take therapeutic measures to free ourselves of them, as they will diminish the voice of love or drown it out entirely.

As a final word on what I don't mean by love, I want to point out some generally positive influences that are compatible and in many cases synergistic with love, but which I do not identify with it, singly or in any combination. These include infatuation and lust, which should be enjoyed but not taken too seriously, and can make good partners for love. Openness, good will, affection, sympathy, and compassion can promote love and be promoted by it in turn, but are not love itself. Respect, admiration, and pride of association get along well with love, but do not constitute it. Thankfulness and gratitude are unquestionably virtuous states and friends of love, but should not be mistaken for it. Finally, in all of these cases, intensity of feeling is often taken as an indicator of love, but it is not love, and it can be love's most fickle partner. A particular case of love might hold flourishing associations with all of these influences, and it's hardly conceivable that love would appear in isolation from all of them, but they do not constitute love in themselves.

There are, then, an awful lot of things that love isn't. So what is it? What is it that I think is worth calling by that name, and is supposedly distinct from everything I've listed above?

To put it poetically, love is saying yes. In my usage of the word, love is an attitude whose most essential attribute is affirmation of its object, for its own sake. The object of love is experienced as something that should be, and insofar as its being is understood to entail a standard of flourishing, it is experienced as something that should flourish as well. To love something is to host a desire- a positive motivation grounded in recognition of an opportunity rather than in privation or insecurity- for its flourishing, a desire which feeds the commitment underlying the feeling of rightness toward the object of love. With this affirmation there comes an openness toward the object of love: an intimate responsiveness to its states of flourishing or diminishing. When I love something, I take its interests as my own through this openness, and in this way I become vulnerable to the contingencies of its development as I am to those of my own. In a way, love is choosing to be vulnerable. Like trust, it is a risk we take for the sake of rewards that are intangible, and perhaps ineffable (though you know I'm still trying to find the words).

Love is patient; it is not born of insecurity or pathology, and so it knows how to wait. Love is enduring because commitment is part of its essence. Love is spontaneous; it is part of who I am to love what I love, and it cannot be forced if it is not forthcoming.

This post has been waiting for weeks for me to come and finish it. There's so much more I want to say, but my thoughts are in their usual state of disorganization now, and I'm tired of leaving my most important subject on the back burner. I'm posting this now unfinished, I may update it later, and I'll be writing more about love in the future.

Down to Earth

I've spent the last couple days going kind of insane. I'm over it. I'm thinking about my future, and how to make it a good one. I'm thinking about the best moments in my life, and how to live up to them.

By a very rough reckoning, I think I can make it back to California and start attending Mira Costa again in Spring 2012. I'd like to do that and I think it's a good goal. I'll need to work, save, and keep a certain amount of discipline. I'll need to make plans...

More later.

Transhuman space cadet

I want us to remember Earth, and that we are of Earth. I want us never to forget our history, what we've been, what we are. As long as we remember these things, we can go anywhere and become anything and our humanity won't be squandered.

In which your writer has a life. Not really though.

I'm going to try something different: I'm going to write about my life here. Maybe it won't add to what I'm trying to accomplish. Maybe I'll decide to take it down after a little while. Either way, it seems like a good way to shake things up, and maybe to shake loose some of the ideas I seem to be having such a hard time expressing.

Let it be known that I'm a bit of a scrub. Or a whole lot of a scrub. Or just all scrub. I'm sitting in front of my computer monitor on the floor of the room that my friends are letting me stay in, typing with the keyboard on my lap. I don't have a job, and lately I've very nearly stopped trying to find one because the project seems hopeless. I don't have a driver's license, and I'm not currently making any effort to get one because it seems pointless since it's going to be a very long time before I can afford any kind of vehicle. The owner of this house, who rarely visits, doesn't even know I'm living here, and if he found out then he'd probably either kick me out or raise the rent.

My two housemates are gracious friends who allowed me to move into their home here in Wichita, KS when I could no longer stay with my family in California. I didn't want to move with my family, so I moved in with them in stead. I failed training at the job we were all so sure I'd get when I came here, and I haven't been able to find another one. The situation is awkward, and I've been informed that I'll have to leave if I don't find work by the end of next month. If that eventually does come about, I'll have to choose between going to live with Dad in New Mexico, or going to live with another friend in my home town of Oceanside, CA. I prefer the latter option, but I'll only be able to manage it if Mom or someone provides me with the money to get there. My favorite option, of course, is getting a job, saving money, getting a license, getting a car, and finally starting to build a life for myself. I would like to move that life back to California, when I can.

This is a bad situation for me. It's the kind of situation in which I stop trying to make my life better, and occupy myself with the perpetual distractions provided by my computer, by books, by what goes on in my own head, and even by sleep. I badly need to stop letting myself waste time this way and make a stronger effort than I ever have before to dust off my resume, shine up my attitude, and apply for 10,000 jobs a day. Maybe I'll get an interview.