How do we know when we’ve fallen in love? (2016)

Find your "Hell Yes". Settling for lukewarm is almost always a bad choice.

Actually, there is no single hierarchy, just an artificial one created by my top page that makes it seem like one. Maybe there should be one or more real hierarchies made as entrypoints to a large data set that can go in all directions without limit, in order to better meet reader expectations (but pls read on for more).

With a possible exception of the very first page of the site, the things you are seeing as navigation, I have intended to be content first, and navigation second. (The document you found is an exception that I hope is temporary.) Almost all entries, things with bullets, are part of the content, even if it is also a link to more content directly related to that sentence. The situation might have been confused by the fact that at the entry level (~ top level, but really any point I consider an entry point in a way), some of the bullets really are navigational titles.

My intent is that the size of the content (the number of pages and things I have to say about each thing, present and future) neither prevents reading the key points, nor prevents drilling down into more parts of interest. Again, to get the point across, and provide details, but to avoid "TL;DR" syndrome.

So, maybe I should have a note at the top of many pages like "HOW TO READ CONTENT AT THIS SITE:" which links to a page that says "Every sentence is a sentence first and a link secondarily (or sometimes a title). So, to digest the information, read a page completely, then click on links of interest to read more about those statements." I tried to put something like that in a few places, but it describes it more in terms of skimming.

So, there could be a need to better bridge the gap between typical expectations of web pages as documents, and the fact that I think of each page on the site as both navigation and content, almost like an app. There is so much content that to put it into a set of documents means choosing, somewhat arbitrarily, which content goes together, when in reality, it all goes together at every level, with an allowance for seemingly infinite amount of related content in all directions.

(In fact, in the original system where these are stored, prior to being exported as html, each page and each entry on a page is an entity in an intended object model of reality including of thoughts, where each entity can have attributes including numbers & dates etc, code, and references to other data, trying to represent knowledge at an atomic level, considering documents as merely one type of expression of that knowledge. More at http://onemodel.org .)

So, maybe I need to meet reader expectations by one or more of:

- making (somehow auto-generating?) many entrypoints each with clear a hierarchy,

- creating documents that are really data exports in outline form, to N levels.

- finding a UX designer who understands the issues well and can suggest presentation techniques for this system,

- or at least that I use the "HOW TO READ CONTENT AT THIS SITE" idea noted above.

Ideas welcome. Thanks much for considering it to this point.

Yes, I think that's really the only place where we disagree. And for the record I am OK with that, and just responding as an intellectual exercise, not because I think you are wrong for using that definition.

First off, the argument that I can't say "I love you" without it immediately obligating me to start working towards a long term commitment (LTC), and instead having to say "You are so rad" feels a whole lot like the last argument people used against marriage equality: "but why do you have to call it marriage. I am happy that you found someone but marriage is between a man and a woman, has always been that way, and should remain that way, otherwise we are messing with society's understanding of marriage, and that's dangerous." Not saying that this is what you are saying, it just has the same feel to it. If I love someone, I tell them so. I don't think they are rad. I think I am in love. They are different things.

Second, if we are looking at these terms as constructs, with the ability to define what they are, I would argue that simpler is better. Love is love. Commitment is commitment. Isn't it better to communicate them as separate things, than have the ambiguity of implying them together? Love is a feeling. Commitment is an choice and a set of actions. Why does a feeling imply action? No other feeling really does: "I dislike you" doesn't mean "now we must fight", and "I think you are funny" doesn't imply "we must start telling jokes". So why is love special in this way?

Third, the practical problems of telling someone "I love you" a week into that relationship. Yes, in a vacuum that can be a supremely bad idea. But as someone with some experience with this, I can tell you that practically, it's less of a problem than it would seem. Typically, I will be very upfront about my non-traditional view of relationships and people usually self-select pretty quickly to be the kind that understands them. Also the term casual love specifically is pretty well known in my circles, or I simply explain it as I did here, providing the original post about it. I never had an issue with someone mistaking it for "... and I want to be together forever", nor have I heard of it being mistaken that way. So I would argue it's a non-issue.

And fourth, love is a feeling an individual experiences. If you love someone, ok great good for you. Why should that compel you to do anything about it. Like, you suddenly and inexplicably fall in love with someone who isn't your spouse. Are you now obligated to get a divorce and try to pursue this new person? Just because you developed a feeling? Love shouldn't imply expectation. I guess you could argue that if you are in a committed monogamous relationship you could never fall in love with someone else, but let's face it, being committed to person A has rarely prevented someone from developing feelings for person B. Or is the idea that you can develop feelings, it's just not love, because you are in an LTC? Or you can't call it that? That to me that brings it back to the talking heads on TV saying "well where does it end? Today you feel love for your neighbor, and tomorrow the society crumbles?" Again, I think we are all big boys and girls and know when we feel in love, why not call it what it is?

So in conclusion, in my mind better communication wins. "I love you" vs "I love you and want to form an LTC" are different things, and rolling them into just "I love you" is what puts all the expectations on someone.

Multi generational families had multiple hands and shared resources to raise children. It’s the grandmother effect. I was raised in such a family. All my grandmothers children and grandchildren lived under the same roof. The women went to work, were able to pursue education and were financially independent. Everyone participated in child rearing with the grandmother at the helm and contributed to the common pot. It was based on kinship bond and a product of a strong matrilineal lineage. It comes from kinship/communalism and not individualism. But all the world is individual now as most societies around the world become westernized.

I think religious morality and wealth inequality greatly affects the hypothesis in both the books you mentioned.

No doubt, there will be a small percentage of world population that will play out that hypothesis but majority will not.

The chances that the human species will adopt poly lifestyle is small to nil, imo.

However, I think marriage as well as polyamorous or just about any relationship should come with reevaluations and time limit. It is a human universal to want to have an ownership stake in any relationship. It’s higher during reproductive age(due to the cost of rearing young).

If the concept of marriage(because it does carry a respectable heft of societal approval and reflects religious morality) is abolished AND if women are truly independent..especially financially, then I think it would become more prevalent and acceptable.

In one of my imaginary worlds, communal child rearing will also likely allow people to embrace free love, as it were...I believe that love has the propensity to include many people and at the same time, but only if external pressures that cause relationship insecurities and vulnerabilities are alleviated.

I am trying to remember the book where I read the different kinds of love...courtly love, romantic love etc etc. it was fascinating because ‘love’ through the various centuries was entirely a function of religion and society and economics. But love is what happens between our eye brows and inside our skulls powdered by brain chemicals. We are resistant to accept it.

I find myself happy to accept love when I recognize it, hold it in the now and then release it. On the flip side, I realize that I have enormous capacity to hate. It surprised me but I don’t deny it either. I dislike as many people as I love. It’s like curses and hexes kind of hate. I guess it is my unintegrated shadow inching towards my self.

I hear you. But first thoughts: 1. Replacing family structures with free market alternatives means that one must be comfortably wealthy to be able to buy into it. 2. Perhaps this would mean that poly lifestyle is only suitable to a certain sector of the population 3. Perhaps this is why religion found its most viral vectors amongst the poor and disadvantaged as it offered a sort of moral support and hope towards ‘something better’ than strained existence (promise of heaven)in return for their faith in whatever organized religion. 4. That most people now identify as atheists makes me believe that we ahve indeed conquered most of the crushing poverty that was prevalent only half a century ago. I would ascribe it to capitalism. It seems to be a better route than communism which started with atheism but didn’t succeed as an economic system. 5. That marriage is not an attractive proposition in the USA is likely because there are more ‘empowered women these days than before. I don’t think it’s a tinder effect. Most women simply don’t want to be married and pop out kids. They are likely subscribing to serial monogamy than polyamory.

As mentioned, the above enumerated points are ‘first thoughts’...i want to ponder further to see if any of them contradict each other.

Re: the book. I can’t remember!! Somehow I feel like it is probably one by Leonard Shlain. I found his book Alphabet and the Goddess enthralling at one point and then binged on everything he wrote.

From his wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Shlain

[..]His books include Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light (1991),[3] The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (1998),[4] and Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution (2003).[5][..]

I want to say it’s one of his for sure. It was beautifully written and I loved the words as much as the content. So I want to say that I am 90% sure it’s one of Shlain’s books!