Forgetting Myself and the Point of This Post

There is a time and a place for everything, as the cliche runs.  Is this true?  There are so many things that seem to be fairly useless or wholly detrimental, but they have their place?

The consciousness of our subjectivity places a difficult strain on personal realities.  So maybe I just can't see the purpose of certain things, or maybe 'everything' does not include everything.  Also, situational subjectivity makes it difficult to say the cliche works one way or the other.

More specifically, I wonder about selfishness.  You could say that its important to be selfish because it keeps us safe, healthy, and makes us successful, but is selfishness truly necessary to bring about these qualities?  Naturally we make sure we eat, stay warm, and keep clean (enough).  Is that selfishness, or is selfishness something else?  I feel that it requires a certain idea of self that coincides with desire which manifests or is thought of as a need.  But, at the end of the day, we don't even need to be happy or satisfied.  To be healthy we might need these among other desires, but we don't even need to be healthy necessarily to survive.  But then, is that it?  At the end all, is it just that we survive?

living vs thriving

I don't think so.  I mean, we can just survive, but when we look deeply at our "needs" what we find is that we have a drive that manifests as a need, to thrive.  Sometimes thriving looks different to different people.  This is where our selfishnesses differentiate and on some social level we decide which selfish actions are okay, and which are not.

So where does this leave us?  I don't know.  I have no insightful conclusion for this one.  But maybe an encouragement.  Maybe don't be "selfish", but most definitely go thrive in all the ways that you know how.  Happy trails.

Fighting for Love?

There's a phrase that goes 'love is hard', and I was once asked if I thought that was true.  Well, I don't, but I do think that people are difficult and complicated and awkward.  Which brings me back around to the idea that love is not hard, it's actually quite easy, but that people and honest connections are hard and difficult to understand.

This can quite often leave one individual of a couple or group standing aside and wondering what's going on here or where did I mess up or what are we now, now that we're not what/who we were when we started?  We don't look at each other and think, this is too hard because the other beside us is just downright difficult - unless there's a healthy scoop of denial involved - we look at each other and think, I love them, this, and us, but something is hard about all this, what?  And then we analyze.  And then we prioritize.  And then we compromise... or not. 

Maybe some love is worth fighting for and some is not.  Maybe we need to grow or are growing into something different and the best way to compromise is to let go.  Maybe we need to fight, because although it's not easy, it's real, and that is beautiful.  "There are as many different loves as there are hearts", (Tolstoy) and maybe there's an evolution that goes along with loving that needs to be respected, and that's hard.

What do you love today?  Is that love worth continual cultivation?  Can you accept the outcome of that growth?  If you let love stay stagnant, is that where resentment comes from?  Friends, family, lovers, strangers, acquaintances, we have so many people with whom to create and cultivate love, but can we do it graciously?  Because that is hard.

very impressive love plant