DailyJim: Do we fight against love?

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. Today, this is the episode for Tuesday, April 30th, 2024. Today I'm going to talk about a topic, and we'll name it later, but this idea of fighting against love.

So earlier, the last couple weeks obviously, a couple months, I've been thinking about this concept of the war between love and peace, and how some people are striving for love and some people are striving for peace. And I had a conversation with some friends over lunch today and I was thinking about just how often women in relationships and men, I think a lot of times women in relationships will friend zone a guy, they say. Part of the reason for that, I would say, one, is they don't like the guy and so they put the guy in a friend zone, maintain a certain distance, emotional and physical distance from this person. And two, I think sometimes the friends own a person because they like them a lot and don't want to like them so much. So they have this strong feeling of love that they don't want to feel.

So, in other words, fighting against that love. Oh. And then I thought about how men sometimes, I mean, these are stereotypical things, obviously. It's not all men. It's not all women. It's not, I mean, you have straight men, gay men, like lots of different categories. So this doesn't apply to everyone. But I think in some contexts, the assumption is that men will have sex with many people. And I thought about it as, aha, because if a man has sex with many people, he's not having sex with one person too much, and therefore he doesn't fall in love. And if he doesn't fall in love, because he doesn't want to fall in love, because he's fighting falling in love, fighting against this deeper attachment, deeper bond.

I think this happens a lot, a lot. Funny, I paused because I thought in my mind, I often fight against deeper attachment when it comes to caffeine or when it comes to drugs, or not drugs, but like to alcohol or to, frankly, anything. I often, well, not anything, but I often try to fight that deeper attachment. So I wonder if I also try to fight that deeper attachment when it comes to humans.

But I think a lot of us do and whether it's the attachment of I need this thing in my life day in and day out which I think can come from something like cigarettes or caffeine or some other types of things like that but I think it can come from humans too but I think sometimes it's not even even the attachment of the person being integrated into our lives, but the fear of feeling so much, the fear of caring that much about somebody, because if that person is not near me, they're not in my daily life so much, but I might have a dream about them, or I might see something that reminds me of them. So I may start to feel so many things about them. And if I don't want to feel those things, if I don't want to think about that person, then I can push that down. Um, yeah, it really has me wondering if this kind of the fear of getting addicted to people or I don't know if addicted is the right term because I think addiction sometime is, uh, doing something that is causing great harm to us and that we want to stop, but can't stop. Maybe, maybe it's a fear of addiction, but I think I'm being a lot more inquisitive now than I thought I was going to be. I was going to come in with a very strong argument in case, but now I'm really reflecting more. Um.

Yeah, I wonder how much of it is this fighting against the love or fighting against the bonding. So if we look at kids, I think a lot of times a kid will see another human and maybe in the beginning will be a bit shy and afraid. I don't know who you are. I don't want to interact with you. But over time, 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes, maybe that kid starts to open up and starts to play with the new human. Could be another kid. It could be an adult, whatever. And then after playing for only 10, 20, 30 minutes, now, if that person leaves, the kid can feel really sad. Oh no, why are you going? This happened to me once when I went to a park in California. I was interacting with this kid. Hey, he looked like he was trying to jump down the hill. And he asked, hey, if I would go play with him. And I looked over at the mom, can I go play with the kid? Five, six years old. And we played for 10, 15 minutes, maybe. Maybe I I had a soccer ball and kicked it with him, but then I had to leave. And he's like, oh no, when am I going to see you next? I'm thinking, what? When are you going to see me next? And I think young humans do this very often. And I wonder how much the pain of separation, the pain of abandonment, the pain of distance causes us as we grow older to fight that connection with people, the fight, that proximity, that intimacy with people. Well, you know, if I know that the person is going to leave, then maybe I'm just going to fight against the desire to get close to them because they're just going to leave. But the reality is everyone is going to leave at some point, or we leave them. Death happens at the ultimate end. And so.

So what are the consequences of us fighting against the love, fighting against this desire to be close with people, this desire to care about people? Because I think the desire is somewhat natural. I think another conversation I'll talk about, is it more natural or do we actually have to fight for it? Fighting for love versus fighting against love. But yeah, it's something I just wanted to reflect on a little bit more today. And it's something that popped into my mind. And like I said earlier, I was much more confident about it. And in reflection, I'm starting to question it a little more deeply. And, you know, how much have I been fighting against love? Is it fighting against love of individuals, humans, fighting against love of this insect that was downstairs that I have no idea what it is and it's running all over my computer? It's like, dude, why are you running on my computer? You know? Is it fighting against just loving life in general being around people who seem to think that life sucks and me being afraid to really feel connected to life and really appreciate and feel all the things regard to life and love life because some other people are telling me that life sucks and i don't want to stand out so much so just yeah reflecting more on that because i think i think the desire to fight against love to fight against closeness to fight against care to fight against these things is another way to frame the idea of people wanting peace if wanting peace is being more distant from people and not interconnected being kind of more independent and unaffected by others, then disaffected maybe, then perhaps.

Another way to frame that is not the distance that one is trying to get, but the idea of trying to distance or trying to back away or push away. So I think, yeah, Yeah, framing it in the negative may be another way to look at it. And I wonder if that plays out in the Middle East. How much are people fighting against having an emotional connection or empathy or love towards their enemy, quote unquote enemy?

Because other people say, hey, you're not supposed to connect to that person. So if that person has any fond memory or any fond feeling towards their fellow human being, fight against it. You are not supposed to have love for the enemy. You are not supposed to have love for your person you dated before. You are not supposed to have love for life, maybe. You're not supposed to feel these things. You're not supposed to, so not so much, I don't know. I don't know if it's really this desire to reach a peaceful state or if people in their minds are more of just trying to limit or fight against love, not letting get out of control, trying to put limits on how much we care about people. I care about you a little bit, but I don't want to care about you too much because if If I care about you too much or I care about this thing too much, then I will get out of control. And so therefore, I'm going to try to limit and fight against my natural desires maybe that are leading me towards caring about something. And when I frame it this way, I wonder how many religions tell us to fight against what we're feeling and frankly, the things that we want to bond with. So yeah, no conclusions for today. I don't know if there are any i don't know if there are ever any full conclusions in these reflections but i hope that got you thinking a little bit and i know it has me thinking and reflecting in tomorrow i hope to maybe congeal some of