I’ve experienced “universal love” before, but it required being in a really good state of mind, one that I think most people will never access more than a few moments in their life without the use of drugs.
But even if I try, and agree with you cognitively, and want to feel this love, I can’t access the feeling again. I believe it requires a very high valence state, an abundancy-mindset strong enough that all self-defense feels excessive. As your mood gets is a little better, you tend to treat other people better as well, and to be more lenient. I think that “universal love” is the limit of this.
That said, this feeling didn’t result in much action from me. Why would it it? My mind told me that everything was alright. Watching people felt like watching birds, I just enjoyed the sight. When watching birds, we don’t think “Oh no, what if it’s hungry?”, there’s a strange feeling that interfering would only ruin the beautiful process (which is real and natural, like all nature is before humanity steps in and ruins it). Another example is seeing children play, you might let them fight, or disagree, or do something stupid, as figuring out things on their own is one of the beauties of life.
Thus, this state as I know it, is detached, and accepts things like they are. Pity is more common in low-valence states. It’s hard to sympathize with suffering when you’re in a high-valence state in which all the suffering in the world feels like a trifle illusion. To compare, you might laugh when a child is afraid of ghosts, because you know that the dangers aren’t real.
A cognitive “universal love” might be more real than the state which I experienced, but to even value this idea in the first place, I think you need to be in a good mental state at the top of the hierarchy of needs. A fragile ego or sense of desperation is likely to make you fall into “survival mode” again. I guess I will claim that positive feelings like these are all projected, so that only people with beauty inside themselves can see beauty in the world. The funny conclusion here would be that we’re responsible for the reality that we experience, since it’s actually ourselves. So whenever I criticize the world or anything in it, I’m actually just criticizing myself.
Anyway, I can get behind the whole “love” thing for sure. I’m more optimistic about ideal states inside our minds than in the world, since less restrictions seem to apply.
By the way, Hitler was just a person like everyone else. A lack of love is often due to dehumanization, which in turn is often because of “distance”. It’s easier to hate an idea than a person, and to hate from afar than up close.
I’ve experienced “universal love” before, but it required being in a really good state of mind, one that I think most people will never access more than a few moments in their life without the use of drugs.
But even if I try, and agree with you cognitively, and want to feel this love, I can’t access the feeling again. I believe it requires a very high valence state, an abundancy-mindset strong enough that all self-defense feels excessive. As your mood gets is a little better, you tend to treat other people better as well, and to be more lenient. I think that “universal love” is the limit of this.
That said, this feeling didn’t result in much action from me. Why would it it? My mind told me that everything was alright. Watching people felt like watching birds, I just enjoyed the sight. When watching birds, we don’t think “Oh no, what if it’s hungry?”, there’s a strange feeling that interfering would only ruin the beautiful process (which is real and natural, like all nature is before humanity steps in and ruins it).
Another example is seeing children play, you might let them fight, or disagree, or do something stupid, as figuring out things on their own is one of the beauties of life.
Thus, this state as I know it, is detached, and accepts things like they are. Pity is more common in low-valence states. It’s hard to sympathize with suffering when you’re in a high-valence state in which all the suffering in the world feels like a trifle illusion. To compare, you might laugh when a child is afraid of ghosts, because you know that the dangers aren’t real.
A cognitive “universal love” might be more real than the state which I experienced, but to even value this idea in the first place, I think you need to be in a good mental state at the top of the hierarchy of needs. A fragile ego or sense of desperation is likely to make you fall into “survival mode” again. I guess I will claim that positive feelings like these are all projected, so that only people with beauty inside themselves can see beauty in the world.
The funny conclusion here would be that we’re responsible for the reality that we experience, since it’s actually ourselves. So whenever I criticize the world or anything in it, I’m actually just criticizing myself.
Anyway, I can get behind the whole “love” thing for sure. I’m more optimistic about ideal states inside our minds than in the world, since less restrictions seem to apply.
By the way, Hitler was just a person like everyone else. A lack of love is often due to dehumanization, which in turn is often because of “distance”. It’s easier to hate an idea than a person, and to hate from afar than up close.