It is 9:40 p.m., Wednesday night.

I am as sleepy right now as I was at 1:30 a.m. last night.

No explaining these things.

So, if I fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, don't worry.

It's only insomnia which has finally played out into a full blown comatose state.

Not to worry ---

Or, as my Hispanic brothers and sisters would say, "da nada", i.e. "it is nothing".

While I need to continue my little dissertation on "mastering", this is definitely not the time for that.

So, what instead?, I am wondering out loud.

Well, here's one I have been wanting to write about for awhile --- how about

LOVE

Now, here is a word which is pregnant with meaning, if ever there was one.

The word gets tossed about as if everyone agrees on one definition, it therefore supposing to be being obvious to all just what I am talking about when I use this word.

The word is used continously and very recklessly in popular music songs to describe the act of sex.

As if sex is love.

Or as if love is sex.

Any who have been around more than a few years or who have raised families to adulthood know just how ridiculous these ideas are.

The sex act is something which can be counted in minutes (if not seconds, in some cases).

There are twenty-four hours per day.

Gee, I wonder what you are going to do with all of those other hours of the day.

And then the real clincher is the fact that after the human sexual lust has worn off or is relieved, the other person turns out to be a loser who couldn't be a worse match, with you wondering the rest of your life just how exactly you managed to get into that mess.

Now knowing, far too late, that there is, in fact, no way out.

NO EXIT!, as it were.

You have now become a victim of your own making.

So, how could this possibly be love?

Or have anything to do with love?

Well, the first problem with discussing this word or concept is most definitely the fact that we must define our terms with much more precision that we have, heretofore, seen.

Note that I do not claim to use the word the way other people use it.

The word, in the English language is just way too overly generic, such that it can mean all things to all people, which, in the final analysis, makes it mean nothing to anybody, and good, as such, for not much more than another round of sophistry.

Remembering that sophistry is neither argument nor logic.

Rather, it is a statement which pretends to be such, while being no such thing, as can readily be seen by even the most cursory study of so-called logical fallacies.


Accordingly, many people like to go into the New Testament greek and claim that there are four different words for love in that language.

They typically say that there is:

1) philos = brotherly love
2) agape = God's love
3) storge = familial love or animal love
4) eros = sexual love

Now, the only problem with this paradigm is that a look at the usage of philo and agape will show that both are used synonymously on numerous occasions.

This means that they are not two different meanings or shade of meanings, at all.

Rather, they are synonyms.

So, then, we have two rather generic koine Greek terms which mean nearly the same thing.

Then we have sexual love (eros) and familial love (storge).

Interestingly, the Greek New Testament does not use the word eros.

And it only uses the word storge once.

And that is to say astorge i.e. without storge.

People in the prophesied "latter days" were said to be "---without natural affection".

So, there really is not as much enlightenment there as many pretend that there is.

Accordingly, I had to look at all of the usages of the words philos and agape to determine just what it is that is being spoken of here.

The first clue that we have is that "God IS love".

Then we know that " --- we loved him, because he first loved us".

The Messiah, crucified, becomes the epitome of these ideas.

The suffering servant.

The Holy One of Israel.

So, after considering this matter for many months and after reflecting upon the major points which I just made I came to the conclusion that:

LOVE IS SACRIFICE

The great eternal abiding principle is that

Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his brother.

Here is the principle of self-sacrifice in full play

Love is shown by sacrifice.

It is shown by action, and by deed, not by words and gestures.

Many think that the "laying down of the life" which is spoken of here is akin to one jumping out in front of a car to save another's life.

While this undoubtedly well may be the intention of the original writer, nevertheless, one can only wonder whether there is not yet another deeper layer of meaning.

That is to say, when I give up my career, or my fame, or glory, so that I may stay home and properly raise my children, I have given up my life for another, every bit as much as if I jumped out in front of a car, and maybe even more so when all matters are considered and weighed together at once.

So, if LOVE is self-sacrifice, or the sacrificing of self for others, then do I "really love you baby", when all I mean by that is that I want to have sex with you, and little more?

Does I NEED YOU SO BAD somehow equate with giving up one's self for another.

I want want want, and will take take take does not seem to me to equate with giving up my life for you.

I think it may be the "giving" part which is so patently and obviously missing from your formula versus the correct formula.

So, through some of the most bizarre twistings of logic imaginable I will turn "taking" into "giving".

So that while I mean that I want to take something from you I will frame it as me giving something to you.

Now, here is sophistry at it's finest.

But, how many people fall for this one every single day in every single major city and suburban neighborhood across the entire planet, do you suppose?

Too many to count?

So, now, I am giving you myself.

Oh, lucky you.

One book on abusive relationships spoke of him or her as "the great catch".

I really loved that one, because that is exactly what the poor deluded soul thinks they have captured, so that they cling on, in total denial of their own dignity and self-worth, spending the rest of their sanity trying to prove that he really is Mr. Right, or that she really is Ms. Right On.

Oh, maybe they just need a little bit more work, but it will all work out in the end, we are assured over and over again, while in fact, this never has happened and probably never will.

I have much more to say about these matters, having actively practiced divorce law for about twenty years.

Have heard it all and seen it all and have been left with utter disdain for my fellow humans and for mankind in general, in no small part thanks to the machinations and continuous series upon series of lies and half-truths and misrpresentations, from all parties involved, at all level of process.

One could say that it is rather disheartening to watch.

Must fall over and go to sleep.

And just for the record, no, I do not drink.

My erratic sleeping habits are a lifelong problem.

They are nothing new and are caused by nothing more than everybody around me, each putting in their two bits until my nerves finally shatter from the continuous strain, leaving me in a perpetual state of bliss (if you could really want to call it that).

That is how one learns to survive.

w/love (yes, the kind I just talked about, above)

vw
6-20-12
10:17 p.m.