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His Way Works! by Lloyd Dennis |
LD's Love Theory
(God's gift - from group dynamics to marriage)
Love - Feelings and Choices
Generally "love" is used to describe a feeling, but the "love" about which I write means the conscious choice to treat another or others at least as well as we would want for ourselves, and yes, sometimes it gets confusing.
If I ask you, "How do you love me?" You might answer, "I love you with all my heart and soul." a very beautiful and welcome expression, but you didn’t answer my question. My question is about your actions. I am asking "How are you treating me?" For, love is treating another as you would like to be treated. When a person is treating me other then they like to be treated, I know I am not being loved, no matter what the bond... or their feelings (which are how biological bonds enforce themselves).
When we speak of the feeling of love, we are only talking about the very animalistic feelings that are just how biological bonds motivate creatures to protect their young, form pairs for mating (and raising young), and keep herds and packs and villages and nations together ...for survival.
A female dog feels just as strongly about protecting and feeding her puppies as any woman. I also imagine that a male dog feels about as much for its puppies as men who have not met their children. It is interesting to note that in nature male dogs who live in packs are attendant, providing and protective fathers. Our feelings of need and attachment to one another are no different from any other social animal. The way we feel about one another is often just an accident of nature, but how we treat one another is a different story.
This is where "love" is uniquely human. We get to choose how we treat one another every time we deal with one another. We can do good and treat one another like we want to be treated or we can be evil and treat others otherwise: by misleading, cheating, leveraging, injuring, discouraging or seeking revenge. The first choice also generally gives a person the best chance to make allies and supporters for the future rather than the enemies generally created by the evil choices. In this way, I clearly understand that our Master advises us to love others for our own good, peace and prosperity.
My hope is that those who read will understand the difference between the bonds of nature we feel and the choices we have to make as the two aspects of what we call popularly call "love".
It is important that everyone is careful about with whom they associate, for we must avoid developing bonds with people who may not want to or even know how to treat us well. It is wise to know as much as possible about people before we fall in "love".
Brain scans show that women (at least) have the negative critical thinking areas of their brains disabled when they view images of their own babies or lovers. It turns out that the biological bond of "love" really is blind, so we must choose who we spend time with to avoid developing bonds with people who may not "love" us well.
When someone hurts you and says they "love" you, they may not be lying about their feelings. Even an abuser will feel a need to have you in their lives. They may feel an extreme "need" to have and control you, but you should make all your decisions about them based on their love behavior, how they treat you and others, because that’s your side of the deal, and that which determines how many enemies and how much trouble they bring to your relationship.
Someone needing and feeling attached to you doesn’t make your life any better. Feeling "love" is fine and dandy, pleasurable and exciting, but doing "love’ is what makes relationships work.
The Power of Love
Love is the basis of the social contract that makes human civilization possible. Love is what allows individuals to cooperate over extended periods of time by making us comfortable and secure about using our time, energy and resources to help others. Human beings cannot prosper unless they are willing to cooperate in many complex ways. We are constantly required to perform task that benefit other human beings and then depend on others for much of what we need to thrive. It is this inevitable interdependency which makes what we call "love" necessary for the survival of any group of people.
If each of us really considers all of the things we must have others do for us, all the things our lives and lifestyles depend on that we have no idea how to provide for ourselves, and more often than not don’t even know are being done for our benefits, it is mind boggling. We are completely dependent on others, and without love none of it would be possible.
For the purposes of our discussion let us define "love" as simply the ability to see and express one’s self interest in being helpful and supportive of others. When the individual members of a group are bound together by knowing that others within the group will automatically "be there" for one another, life becomes more secure and peaceful and much less fearful and less stressful for ll the members of that group.
Love As Original Man's Survival Advantage
Love is that (divine) aspect of human behavior that allowed the "naked ape" to dominate even the largest beast of prey, for when lions, wolves, tigers and bears confronted human beings they confronted an extremely well coordinated large group of creatures which had individuals who would risk themselves for the group. While a lion might be able to separate the weak wildebeest from the herd, human groups do not behave so. Among human groups, love can compel the strongest to risk themselves for the weak. Because of love, any creature who wants to attack a weakened human being is faced with the requirement of killing every member of the group, including the strongest.
Love is at least as old as tool making in that archaeological evidence of both tool use and skeletal remains of injured and lame but long term surviving clan members who were kept alive by fellow clan members while they healed or until the died, and indication that love was part of the human soul at least as long as humans used tools and weapons to increase their ability to exploit and subdue the rest of nature.
Both love and the making of tools required that humans could consider the future, for the making of tools meant that humans would and were willing to invest time and energy in one time to improve life’s options in another time, that had not arrived and was uncertain. Making tools and love are both ways to invest ourselves in doing something that may or may not provide benefits at a later date. In many ways making tools and love meant that when needed both the equipment and the team would be available when and if I need to feed or protect myself.
This ability to connect present actions with future benefits is the essence of the human condition. Humans are programmed to consider the future implications of present actions, the divine principal of "sowing and reaping" has solid basis right in the basic consideration of what makes us human. Could it be that we humans are the only creatures with "sowing and reaping" as the basis of their survival and dominance in nature.
Love Allows Humans To Invest In one Another
We humans are the only of God’s creatures who can choose to invest our selves in both another time and one another. When the Master reached down and fashioned us from what had been (we argue over whether firmament includes only clay or whether it means all of the existing creation), He must have, in sharing the image of Himself, added this distinct and uniquely human option to make choices about the future by enhancing our relationships with one another and exerting productive effort today.
Love, The Original "Currency"
Before humans settled on the land they roamed in small groups, each member of the group aware of the skills, knowledge and abilities every other member of the group contributed to their well being. Assisting others was how you ensured that you would have what you needed and simple memory and recognition was how we kept up with the efforts of others on our behalf. The love we received in the form of what others could make or catch for us made us willing to share our skills and resources with others.
In a small traveling group that would have carried few possessions, love, or simply doing what we could do to be supportive of others was how we paid for having access to their abilities, knowledge and skills. Love was the only exchange needed when we humans lived by the seasons following the movement of the herds when possessions only slowed you down, and you knew everyone on whom you could depend for support and defense.
Because banishment from the group would mean death, individuals in small groups understood the necessity of being both acceptable and useful to the group. A lone human being is nothing but weak, slow, harmless prey for any of the jungle or grassland big cats, wild dogs, hyenas or wolves that shared the early human habitat. The social pressure to be kind to one another in your group had to be tremendous, for unlike preprogrammed pack animals, we humans can choose to allow harm or even to do harm to members of our own pack. I submit that among humans, physical dominance in a small group still doesn’t allow for tyranny, because even a physically strong and dominating tyrant has to sleep. To be human was to be both vulnerable to and dependent upon other members of your group.
Love Creates Peace and Justice When Lives Depend on One Another
In all of the present day discoveries of "primitive" hunter gathering cultures, universally, humaneness, generosity and mutual support and protection are the rule. No individual, no matter how strong, can afford to alienate by resentment the other members of the group. Each member knows that old age and weakness will come, so no one can afford to misuse the children. We must never mistake the primal state of a culture for a lack of history, or well developed traditions and social mores that have ensured survival for thousands of years. Even present day rain forest groups have cultures that work when there is sufficient wild habitat for hunting and gathering. Love, the giving and receiving of support, was all we needed until we settled down on the land and found ourselves dealing with strangers.
While in small roaming groups without possessions, we could clearly see the opportunity in doing something for another, but once we began to trade the extra food we raised on the hillsides for the extra fish that folk who settled by rivers and shorelines caught, we had to have ways of measuring and counting the value of what we were trading, for unlike what we did within our group, there was no obvious benefit in doing for someone you didn’t know and would not have access to when you were in need. Now, love is no longer enough to keep track of what others had done and are doing for an individual.
Settling On the Land and Trading With Outsiders Creates The Need For Money
At first barter, the simple trading of actual items worked, so many bunches of bananas for so many fish, but once third parties began to become intermediaries, people who neither grew, made or caught but simply traveled between those who did, once traders or merchants came into the picture money became necessary, and was promptly invented in many different forms all over the world.
I hope one can see that love and money attempt to do the same thing, exchange value (work) for value (work), but with love there can be no hoarding or cheating. It is interesting to note that love is still able to provide access to other’s skills, knowledge and abilities, consider all of the volunteers who see and fee themselves compelled to give to the common good, and the fact that within families humans still function best when the members are kind, supportive and respectfull of one another. Using love, an individual is still able to enhance their lives by investing themselves in those around them and on whom they must depend.
The interesting thing about love is that it is limitless and the interesting thing about money is that it only has value because the amount available at any one time is limited. This means that only people who have money can use money, but anyone and everyone can add to the quality of life any time they choose with love. Any assistance you may provide to help another become better, means that there is automatically more for everyone because humanity just got better, and because the better was made by the support of one for another, there is now even more love available, for each time someone receives love. They are more likely to be willing and able to help someone who needs them, to love someone else.
Money Changes Everything
The creation of money to represent the value of goods and services changed the nature of relationships. Now for the first time, rather than simply remembering who had provided goods and services so that we would be sure to reciprocate, humans settled onto fixed locations to farm, trading between groups and the subsequent creation of money forced humans to need money to get what they needed from places they no longer traveled through and people they did not know.
This separating the value of a needed resource from interpersonal relationships between interdependent group members changed forever the way human beings deal with one another.
The Relationship Between Love, Money & Evil
The creation of money to represent the value of goods and services changed the nature of relationships. Now for the first time, rather than simply remembering who had provided goods and services so that we would be sure to reciprocate, humans settled onto fixed locations to farm. Trading between groups and the subsequent creation of money for that purpose forced humans to need money to get what they needed from places they no longer visited and people they did not really know.
This separating the value of a needed resource from interpersonal relationships between group members changed forever the way human beings deal with one another, and that is the topic of this third part of my "thesis".
Money and love are both ways human beings can get what they need and desire from one another, but money is different in that it can be counted, stored, and is used to deal with people we may or may not depend on for our safety or comfort. Money usually goes through "middle men" when people from different areas exchange goods or services, and therefore with money, for the first time humans can be tempted to abuse others.
Money Creates the Opportunity to Cheat and Control One Another
To the contrary, when trading amongst familiar members of a tribal group, the quality and amount of our effort is obvious and indisputable to those we deal with, and so the values we exchange with one another would be automatically equitable, since any evidence of shoddy effort or goods would return to haunt us when it was our turn to receive. Without money it is only the quality of the giving that establishes the level of willingness to supply when the giver needs.
The idea that "it is more blessed to give" really makes sense in this light, for it is the giving to others which sets up the probability that others will be driven to do the same. Love works because humans can only survive in the wild when they can depend on one another for cooperation and mutual defense, and we have a built in urge to return favors and kindnesses. One of the most uncomfortable feelings we can have is feeling indebted to a friend, relative or neighbor. It is also interesting that when such debts are in the form of favors, personal assistance and kindnesses the debts tend to increase the bond, but when a debt is for money, it generally strains or destroys relationships.
Money Transactions Disconnect Givers and Receivers
Money is the disembodied value of human effort. It is the value of work in a form that can be accumulated and requires all transactions to be negotiated because, unlike love, in which what we do for others is simply carried in one another’s memories as encouragement to reciprocate based on other’s needs, money value is always based on negotiations. How much is what you do worth to me?
This necessity for arriving at a specific price creates opportunity for evil, for evil can be considered simply as enhancing your life at the expense of others. With money one can take advantage of another’s desperation and give less value than is necessary for the other’s survival, a transaction that could not have happened in a tribal group of members who depend on one another for survival. Add middlemen to the situation and the potential for abuse increases, because middlemen get to negotiate on both ends of a transaction with individuals who, if trading directly, would both have received more in the transaction. In a love system such as a family or tribe non money transactions are always based on what the receiver needs or wants, not negotiations in which the needy get less advantage almost by definition.
Money allows us to abuse one another, and the willingness to abuse others is the nature of evil.
Love by definition is cumulative. Every act of kindness or support is felt and remembered is like money in the bank, a kind of human capital, goodwill in the hearts of others that can be tapped into when we need or desire support. The primitive mechanism which is still in evidence in newly discovered Amazonian primitive tribes as nurturing egalitarian peaceful ways, still works today. Love still is at the core of what humans are and continues to be a powerful influence when implemented today. Loving people have much influence with the people in their lives.
Money could be accumulated, piled up without going bad, and in such form it created the power of wealth, the ability to control and coerce others to follow an individual’s will. Possession of this power and the lust for it tend to be one of the major reasons human beings are willing to take unfair advantage of one another, and thus the major source of evil.
While money is not evil, its use to control and coerce others in the pursuit of more money is evil and the basis for most of the ugliness of the world
So while humans reigned supreme in nature because predators knew that to get to the weakest human you had to fight them all, the creation and misuse of money has strong humans preying on the weak, in a kind of economic cannibalism that has fewer and fewer people in the world having control of more and more and using more and more of their power to leave less and less for the rest.
God made love and man made money. Evil is pursuing money by exploiting our fellow man.
Love, Trust Expectations and Marriage
Sexual libido and emotional needs often drive the process we mistakenly call "falling in love". The yearning, desire and excitement that happens when we spend time with someone who is attractive to us has little to do with the practice of love and more to do with selecting a sexual and life partner whom is attractive to us and is capable of loving and responds well to being loved.
In marriage one’s partner becomes the sole source for sex, lifelong companionship, financial cooperation and places two people in a mutually dependent situation. While money has become the way we "trade" what we do to get what others do for us in the larger society, marriage, in may ways takes us back to the days before money where entire tribes of interdependent people traded support for one another simply by recognition and remembrances of how we have been supported and supportive of one another.
Trust Allows Couples To Invest Themselves in One Another
So while we use money to pay for what others do and provide for our needs and desires, in marriage, there is no way to price, store up or accumulate what a married folk do for one another. That is why fidelity is at the core of what married people do for one another, for it is fidelity, the keeping of the promise which creates trust in a marriage. This establishment of trust allows us to be kind and supportive to one another, without immediate or linkable repayment. Trust is believing your spouse’s promise, and therefore since you love me (have my best interest in your heart) it is safe and wise for me to assist and support you (since the more you are, the more I have in my life).
Sexual fidelity is not the only issue of trust, even though it may be the most difficult area in which to recover trust, once loss. Whenever we fail to keep a real promise or live up to a real expectation, trust is injured. Unfortunately, some expectations people have in marriages were never spoken to one another, only assumptions based on our individual ideas about marriage.
Un-met Expectations and Disappointment Injure Trust
Enter here all the fantasies, daydreams and some pretty ridiculous notions people have about married life which often come from television, movies, books locker room conversations and tales told by those from failed marriages. When people enter marriage with such programmed minds, they may have expectations that their partner never agreed to and may not even know about or understand.
The problem with these unfounded expectations is that the person who has them considers them "normal" and will feel betrayed when their partner doesn’t respond or do as expected. To them the trust is broken, because something they expected (and believe is "supposed to be") didn’t happen. I’m convinced that much of the pouting, and hurt that happens in marriages comes from the loss of trust that happens whenever someone is disappointed in some of these programmed expectations.
I hadn’t realized that even with the power door locks on our recent vehicles, my Boo (particularly when we are dressed up) expects me to escort her to her side of the vehicle and unlock and open her door, before I go to my side and enter the vehicle. This is not a major expectation. This is not anything that I would ever refuse to do, but I didn’t understand or realize that there was an expectation. To my Boo, however, I was not being romantic, because that’s what romantic men did in all her dreams and fantasies. (I thought all that trash I talk was being romantic.)
Needless to say, I am a much better lover now and Boo has more trust that she will be treated "like a lady" whenever we are out. I could have been upset that she was holding me to expectations that she had never expressed, that I was being blamed for something I didn’t know was important, but that would have been foolish.
Since then I open car doors for all the women in my life, so I may be part of the reason all those women and their daughters will expect other men to do the same.
My point here is not to decide whether our expectations are "correct" only to point out that all disappointments (unmet expectations) injure a couple’s ability to count on one another for what they need and want from their marriage or spouse, that trust that allows us to see doing for one another as doing for ourselves.