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Applying an experimental procedure to fall in love

nytimes.com

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Re: Applying an experimental procedure to fall in love

#31

Post by mbrock »

cllns wrote: post #4

I'm just finishing up All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks. In it, she talks about love as an action. She frequently quotes Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving , which seems good as well. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_About_Love:_New_Visions [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Loving

Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, especially letter #7, has similar sentiments.

"It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. [...]"

http://www.carrothers.com/rilke7.htm

Re: Applying an experimental procedure to fall in love

#32

Post by mbrock »

garretraziel wrote: post #28
djrtwo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love has a circular definition? I find that interesting. It implies (to me) that more love grows from love. Maybe the experiment successfully lays the down a foundation to begin the circular love reinforcement.

I don't think that it's circular definition. Definition talks about the one you love, in other words: love(x, y) = x has the active concern for the life and the growth of y "Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love" only says that "if x has no active concern about y, love is zero".

This definition of love as a binary relation is interesting. Fromm, in a way, goes beyond it. From The Art of Loving:

If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism. Yet most people believe that love is constituted by the object, not by the faculty. In fact, they even believe that it is proof of the intensity of their love when they do not love anybody except the "loved" person. This is the same fallacy which I have already mentioned above. Because one does not see that love is an activity, a power of the soul, one believes that all that is necessary to find is the right object - and that everything goes by itself afterward. This attitude can be compared to that of the man who wants to paint but who, instead of learning the art, claims that he just has to wait for the right object - and that he will paint beautifully when he finds it. If I truly love one person I love all persons, I love the world, I love life. If I can say to somebody else, "I love you," I must be able to say, "I love in you everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself."

Re: Applying an experimental procedure to fall in love

#33

Post by mbrock »

logicallee wrote: post #12

I thought this was great and recommend the article. Click through to the list of questions - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/no-37-big-wedding-... There's no harm in trying it. At worst you'll get to know someone. I'd have no qualms working through this set with at least a dozen people I can think of off-hand (some of whom aren't available anyway, it doesn't matter, or where we flirt anyway.) The questions…

There certainly could be harm in trying it. Love is powerful, relationships are fragile, people are easily confused.

Re: Applying an experimental procedure to fall in love

#34

Post by jacques_chester »

jvagner wrote: post #23
jacques_chester wrote: post #20

Time for all of us to come up with pre-canned answers. "My greatest weakness is that I'm a workaholic perfectionist. I know I should spend more time doing stuff other than working and preparing for work, but it's just so important to do everything that is best for my company."

The whole, whole point of her article is that, in that action, you're not choosing love, and won't get it. Read the last sentence of her article again...

The whole point of my comment is that it was a joke. HN, at least officially, frowns on humorous remarks. But I've found that it's not always true.

I fully expect that I will be "spontaneously" bombarded with these questions on dates in the coming months. And they will lose all efficacy because people will prepare for them in the same way that they prepare for idiotic brain-teasers and HR questions.

Re: Applying an experimental procedure to fall in love

#36

Post by [deleted] »

selimthegrim wrote: post #3

This is sophistry. She was already attracted to him (here, I use it in the sense primarily of "willing to go out on a date with him") before they started. I don't see any mention of "to build attraction, do this", and intimacy will smother their boundaries and their relationship without attraction.

[deleted]

Re: Applying an experimental procedure to fall in love

#37

Post by EC1 »

djrtwo wrote: post #19
rhblake wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Art of Loving , while feeling a bit dated in some parts (especially Fromm's views on homosexuality), is on the whole a fantastic, short little book that I reread every few years or so. I always liked his definition of love: "Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love. Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love."

Love has a circular definition? I find that interesting. It implies (to me) that more love grows from love. Maybe the experiment successfully lays the down a foundation to begin the circular love reinforcement.

Love is fractal!
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