The quality of love

Today, fellow students, we discuss love beyond quality (No. 4 in your texts). Ahem.

I think it's like energy: People talk about suffering from negative energy, and what they really mean is they're not getting what they think they want, or they're feeling threatened by somebody not giving them what they want, or they're mad at somebody for SAYING they're not going to give them what they want. Anyway, there isn't good or bad or positive or negative energy. It's just energy. We use it or misuse it, but if we don't get the results we were looking for, it isn't because the energy is bad, it's because we're misguided or manipulative or greedy (proceed with listing the rest of the seven deadly sins here), or maybe just screwing up the experiment.

Likewise Love: There obviously can't be negative (bad) love, right? There's pounding on someone you say you love; or there's sacrificing oneself until one becomes a piece of broccoli in the name of loving one's master; or there's "loving" your children into complete incapacity and laziness, to the extent that they can't even feed themselves when they grow up and finally, very reluctantly, leave home. Well, clearly none of that is love.

If we're both generally and specifically loving, then we're fulfilling our lives and destinies. As I have said before (a lot) you can love people without having to buy them a beer. I don't think that by suggesting we turn the other cheek, Jesus meant that we should let ourselves get beaten up over and over again; I think he meant we can comfortably leave the premises and love from a much calmer and safer distance. Hitting back only perpetuates the non-love going on at the moment. Get the hell out of there (literally and figuratively) and go back to loving as hard as you can.

That's the only way out of this mess. Well, that and the tango: When you're all tangled up, tango on. (Sorry, I can't find the original soothsayer of that, or I'd attribute it for sure. I didn't think it up, but I'm not above using a sooth when I run across it.)

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