At about age 6 or so, my family attended a Baptist church. It was there that I learned about Jesus and his messages about love. I learned about loving my neighbor as myself. Throughout my life, I experienced the love of my mother and many other wonderful people, older, my age and younger.
I never got too enthusiastic about love, since it seemed at best fleeting and at times, impossible. When I was really angry or disappointed, I didn't care about the subject of affection and gooey warmth and such. It seemed to me to be a matter described by Daniel Gilbert's book: "Stumbling on Happiness" - one could only stumble on love and that worked better than chasing it or trying to corner it.
However, practicing meditation has been proceeding along typical lines, from concentration on a point or corner to look at without moving from a relaxed but still position. After maybe a year of about 10 minutes a day, I became much more aware of my moods and their change points. I have seen that I can often put my attention where I want it and keep it there. I have found that I can control my moods to a pretty good extent. So, if I get to pick, what's a good choice? Why not love and happiness?
As I have aged, I have slowly had to broaden my concept and awareness of love. I still enjoy roaming all over and into my wife's body. But I find that deep, deep affection for little kids, people who are deceased, that I have read about, is a big part of my life, in many cases, far more so than I used to realize.
Barbara Fredrickson's "Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do and Become" has a very good title since it does have some eye-opening things to say about love. She is the head of the PEP lab at the U of North Carolina. That's "Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology" lab. She studies subjects related to having positive emotions and brain function. She states that research has convinced her that love builds between two people who experience simultaneous states of the same emotion. It is related to high levels of mutual response to each other, whoever the people involved may be.
The TED talks by Helen Fisher, especially the brain in love, support Love 2.0 in seeing love as the accumulation of multiple experiences of loving moments.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
I never got too enthusiastic about love, since it seemed at best fleeting and at times, impossible. When I was really angry or disappointed, I didn't care about the subject of affection and gooey warmth and such. It seemed to me to be a matter described by Daniel Gilbert's book: "Stumbling on Happiness" - one could only stumble on love and that worked better than chasing it or trying to corner it.
However, practicing meditation has been proceeding along typical lines, from concentration on a point or corner to look at without moving from a relaxed but still position. After maybe a year of about 10 minutes a day, I became much more aware of my moods and their change points. I have seen that I can often put my attention where I want it and keep it there. I have found that I can control my moods to a pretty good extent. So, if I get to pick, what's a good choice? Why not love and happiness?
As I have aged, I have slowly had to broaden my concept and awareness of love. I still enjoy roaming all over and into my wife's body. But I find that deep, deep affection for little kids, people who are deceased, that I have read about, is a big part of my life, in many cases, far more so than I used to realize.
Barbara Fredrickson's "Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do and Become" has a very good title since it does have some eye-opening things to say about love. She is the head of the PEP lab at the U of North Carolina. That's "Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology" lab. She studies subjects related to having positive emotions and brain function. She states that research has convinced her that love builds between two people who experience simultaneous states of the same emotion. It is related to high levels of mutual response to each other, whoever the people involved may be.
The TED talks by Helen Fisher, especially the brain in love, support Love 2.0 in seeing love as the accumulation of multiple experiences of loving moments.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
