Society can be quite a confusing place. Some people are quite vigorous in fighting for free speech while condemning censorship. Others may be the opposite. However, they are actually two sides of the same coin. The perfection of one depends upon the perfection of the other. The purpose of both in the long run is to help us grow.
You are aware of how honey is good, right? It tastes good and has some health benefits. However, do you know that if given to a baby in their first year, they can became gravely sick? As your father, I not only have a right, but I also had an obligation to prevent you getting honey until you turned one. Instead, I must give you food that helps you grow so that your body was mature enough. Then you could enjoy the goodness of honey.
Why do I bring this up? Because this applies to more than just food. I must also protect you from some ideas or things that can be dangerous for you. I must do this until you become mature, that is when you can handle them. Until then, I have a duty out of love and as a parent to raise you with good things and ideas. Then when you have a good foundation, you can endure the evils you may come across.
You also have a right to personally censor things that you cannot handle. A recovering alcoholic should not be receiving advertisements for beer. Likewise a man struggling with pornography should been allowed to avoid corresponding materials. And if someone is worn out from discussing a topic, he should be allowed to rest, though he should be honest and open to conversing later. The noble purpose of censorship is to protect an individual so that he can mature.
At the same time the noble purpose of free speech is to grow. The freedom to speak is deeply linked to the freedom to think. We should be allowed to speak about what's important to us. We also must speak up when we notice areas of concern or improvement. These help us protect our rights, see that our needs are fulfilled, and help others. This right is indeed quite important and must be cherished.
In order to achieve perfection of either right, both need to be in harmony. Can a tree grow if it has little room and access to water? Will not a tree grow weak and maybe even die if given acid? Must not the roots of a planted tree be contained so as to not cause destruction to surrounding infrastructure? So too censorship and free speech must be. The key to understanding the proper limits is love again.
Censorship and free speech are two important rights that help us achieve perfection. They not only serve to help and protect us, but others as well. When these two are put under the guidance of love, they may reach their harmonious perfection.
With Love,
N. D. Moharo
P. S. "Hate speech" and bullying are evils and abuses of these rights. However, you must be careful to limit what you consider hate speech. I say that it it be limited to only words where the intention is explicitly that they hate you. If you must infer the hatred, then it's safer to assume the hatred is really on your side. E.g. Dialog where someone says he doesn't believe siblings should be married to each other due to beliefs is not hate speech, but where someone says he wishes them to die a horrid death certainly is hate speech and should be condemned as such. Falsely accusing something to be hate speech only promotes hatred. Let's promote love and not hate.
Life is an interesting right. Without it, the others are worthless. However, it also can be confusing as to what it's purpose is. Now I pretty much covered this in the right to be good, so here I will focus on addressing it's immediate purpose and why it's important.
The general purpose of life is ultimately to be good, which includes true love. The specific purpose of your life is something you find that corresponds to the general prepare. Now the immediate purpose that aids in both of those is to grow.
Unless you are alive, you cannot change. At least that is the philosophy I've interpreted from Thomas Awuinas, Aristotle, and Buddhism. So the purpose of life is to change. Now if we are idealistic in thinking everything has a positive purpose, then life is so that we can change positively, that is to grow. And this purpose covers both physical and spiritual growth, though some philosophies will argue that the spiritual growth is the primary reason.
You might wonder if this means those who cannot grow therefore do not have a right to live. This is not the case as they still maintain the right to be loved and their life brings about many opportunities to love. The moral growth of people who take care of the infirmed and handicap is far superior to those who do not have the opportunities to show this love. Remember that no action is to oppose our purpose of loving, and that means every single person. Otherwise we venture into the realm of selfishness in which we are bound to choose evil.
In the original Spider-Man movie, the Green Goblin gives Spider-Man a choice between saving his love and an elevator full of children. His choice? Save all of them, even though it leaves himself vulnerable to the attacks from his enemy. His choice is instantaneous and he pulls it off thanks to the people of New York. It's not a question of numbers or even status. Every life is worth saving because our nature of love has declared it as so. And if we die in the process of saving others, then we have fulfilled our general purpose of love.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but perhaps the people who need to live the most are the ones who are the most evil. While we certainly need the ones that are good heroes, it's really the wicked that could use the inspiration and opportunity to change. If you believe in a heaven and hell, this is especially true, which helps explain why some religions advocate for abolishing the death penalty.
Life is extremely precious, but in order to understand why, we must the various purposes it has. It's ultimate goal is to be good, the individual goal is the specific purpose that you as a person can fulfill to aid being good, and the most immediate goal is to grow. This purpose of growth stems from that we need to live in order to change. We will change until we die and whatever our state is then will be how we will be for eternity.
In order to be happy, we must be good, but what does that mean? I'm sure that most people consider themselves to be good in general. However, others may disagree with our personal evaluation. What does it mean in general for something to be good?
When we say something is good, we tend to mean that it fulfills a purpose we have in mind. A good screwdriver should be able to screw in screws. If the handle breaks as soon as I try, then the tool is not good. A good textbook likewise is supposed help me learn about a subject. A bad textbook would make the subject even more confusing. We can therefore infer that for us to be good means that we fulfill our own purposes as well.
Like all things, mankind has a general purpose and can have many specific purposes. The general purpose is to love, as I mention in many of my letters. The specific "purpose" is something we generally search for ourselves or feel called to. These can be our careers or a passion we do outside of work. For some people, it's simply partaking in the general purpose of love and applying it to their everyday life, such as parenting.
In addition to purposes, we also judge things based off requirements that help aid in fulfilling those purposes. For example if the binding of a book easily breaks, I would consider the book to be bad no matter the contents inside. How important each of these requirements is varies, but they exist nonetheless. When it comes to being a good person, we can find hints in the form of fundamental human rights.
Rights help us understand the various needs of people. They help us move toward fulfillment and therefore perfection and happiness. Understand that I do not consider power and rights to be the same thing. Even if you can do something, it does not mean you should. Just as different books don't share all the same pieces, so too different people don't necessarily need all of the same non-fundamental rights, we just try to make sure they have access to them in case they need them, unless said right contradicts their purposes.
Does a cookbook need a prologue? No, but a novel could benefit from it. Likewise, one man may need to marry, but it might be best for another to refrain from all romance. There are books that instruct how other books should be formed so as to aid in their purpose. Similarly, when we claim someone does not have a right to something, the best arguments are those that show how the right ultimately contradicts their need to need to be good.
An example of this would be when someone is in need of medical treatment. It's good to want to help, but if there are professionals there already treating, then the good thing is to let them work and simply be available when they need your help.
We should note that our specific purpose and rights should never interfere with our general purpose of love. If there is ever opposition, then love should win. Otherwise we are sure to commit some evil, which is the opposite of good. Can we truly say we are good if we willingly choose to oppose good?
Being good is intrinsically linked to our perfection and therefore happiness. When we fulfill our purposes and prerequisites, then there's nothing more we can do to obtain happiness on our end. So let's choose good and work towards becoming happy.
Human rights are essential to society, but we have a tendency to not fully understand them. People fight over the rights of free speech, religion, marriage, etc. all of the time. However, for any debate to really take place, Rights need to be define. After that, we need to properly understand the hierarchy of rights and what their goals are. With this understanding in place, we can better understand if something is a right or an abuse.
A right is simply something that allows you to seek perfection, honored by society. When we argue people have natural rights, we are arguing that these are good and required by nature. Examples of rights are Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom to defend oneself and family, the ability to rest, the right to an education, the right to security and privacy, etc. If you examine each of these rights, you should find that they allow men and women attempt to be the best they can be.
Another thing about rights is that they must adhere to the Philosophical Moral Code. They must exist because they allow men and women to reach perfection. A right can never be to promote selfishness or inhibit the ability to love. For example, to enable someone to sue someone for saving his life would be a violation. This is because it promotes selfishness and limits our ability to love each other.
Now you may already know where I am headed with this. The absolute basic right of man is the Pursuit of Happiness. It is from there that we can philosophically explain the other rights. To help with that, let me present to you a model. Now this is not a complete model and there is room for debate, but this is what I will refer to as I show how the different rights point towards Happiness as it's goal.
For now, I will simply leave you with this diagram so that you can ponder it. I hope to cover every branch in some way or another in the near future. I intended to to it all in this piece, but it was already getting too long and complicated. However, I hope that this diagram itself will help encourage you to think how things are ordered and help make sense of the world.
Continuing from my previous letter on the pursuit of happiness, I would like to present a model that I think accounts for most actions we perform.
The cycle of the pursuit of happiness starts with us recognizing an imperfection. This prompts us to make a decision about an action to take. Our goal is to reach a state where we are satisfied or content with the results. Our motivation here is essential as it reveals why we might act or not act. An example for why to act is to stop a suffering. This is common when you want to solve a problem. An example for not acting is that you might suffer more for acting than not. In this case, you've decided you are satisfied with tolerating the problem than create a worse one for yourself.
After we make a decision based off our reasons, we take our decided course of action and evaluate the results. If we are satisfied with the results, we are content and move on. If not satisfied, then we pick another course of action until we are content.
When we are content, we have a taste of happiness. This is because one of the effects of happiness is that you don't want anything because you are fulfilled. We want to be in this state because to want something indicates we are not fulfilled. An old definition of the word want is to lack. You can see how it reached it's current definition of to desire something. When you lack something, you feel a sort of pain. Therefore you feel like you need it in order to be complete. As a result of this need, you desire it.
Our life is primarily spent in this cycle. This is because man has many needs and the capacity to want is infinite. However, once all our needs are fulfilled, then we finally exit the cycle and reach the state of happiness. In my next letter on the subject, I intend to examine what those needs are and how they relate to each other. Until then, I hope you find that this model actually helps you understand more about how your psychology works so that you may better find the true path to happiness.
With Love,
N. D. Moharo
Q&A
Now I'm sure you have some questions. In this section, I shall try to anticipate then and provide what I believe to be the answers
What are our reasons for acting and not acting?
I cannot give a complete list because the completeness is dependent upon how deep you want to go, but I can say what I have identified, though there will be some overlap.
For not acting, there is
Fear of greater suffering
Incapability
Not seeing benefits
Action is contrary to goal
Lower priority
Not Understanding
Moral opposition/hatred
Not fun
Change
For acting, most if not everything can be said to fall under some sort of suffering. Here we have
Fear of suffering
Desire for completion
Possibility for improvement
Fun
What accounts for our other actions?
In all cases, I believe happiness is the cause of actions. For the pursuit of happiness cycle, it's the goal. However, once we obtain happiness, it's the fuel for our actions. Consider when a woman finds a man she falls heads over heels in love. Does she not try to help her single friends find love as well? I remember that I was so happy by finding a job that I asked all of my friends that were searching if they tried the same website I used.
If I don't want anything, does this mean I won't do anything anymore?
As mentioned in the previous answer, happiness actually makes us perform actions. This is because man's nature and perfection is to love.
Also need to be careful about the word "want." When I said that "when you are happy, you don't want anything," I was referring to the old definition described following that statement. So in today's terms, it is probably best to say, "When you are happy, you do not need anything in order to be happy." This does not exclude desiring to help people. When you are happy because of goodness and love, you will act because it's your nature to act out of love.
Consider the example from before. Whether or not my friends actually used the website I used to find a job doesn't affect my happiness. I acted out of love for them, but their response has no effect on me.
Some people say that God wants us. Does that mean he's not perfectly happy?
I included this question because I'm certain some people are going to ponder theology based off this model. Some people might reject this model because they feel like it threatens their theology. Other might try to embrace it by saying that it proves theology is wrong. That might be true, but you can't really debate on this because there are a few things to consider.
What is the nature of God?
This relies on theological premises. If you can't agree on the premises, then you can't really argue and therefore it doesn't really concern this model.
Perfection for Man is not necessarily the same as Perfection for God
while I argue what the perfection of Man is, I cannot say the same about God unless God tells me.
What do we mean by the word perfection?
Could it be that the original meaning of perfection is akin to how a lover thinks his beloved is perfect because he desires and admires her so much? Or is it that God is truly perfect in that he is complete?
Which definition of "want" should we be using?
If we are using want as in "he needs us in order to be happy," then God isn't perfect in that sense. However, if it's simply "he desires us as something nice to have," then that's a different story. For example, there are many games that I "want" to play, but I don't need to play them in order to be happy. In this case, they are simply nice to have. Logically speaking, if you accept the premises that God is Love and that being with God is essential to us being happy, then of course he would desire us to be with him.
What relation do external sources have with our happiness?
While the model I presented doesn't show it, because it's a model for the actions we take, external sources play a large role in the cycle. They can make use dissatisfied, change our reasons for acting, and even give us happiness.
An unfortunately common marketing tactic is to create a need where there is not one. The makers of Listerine coined the phrase halitosis in order to sell their product. On the more positive side, external sources also point our our imperfections so that we can indeed improve.
For the second point, by debating with us, an external source might make us decide to act or refrain. They may even do what was needed and therefore you don't need to do a thing. As a result, you can also say external sources can make us content.
On the last point, there is room for a little debate. While we can say that external sources can make us feel happy, can they actually make us enter the state of happiness? I argue yes.
Man is a social animal and needs some external help when it comes to obtaining his perfection. One thing we desperately need is true love. When our love tanks are full, we are filled with joy and become the best versions of ourselves. We need love not only because it's our precious fuel for being good, but also because it is our perfection.
One philosophical argument about the nature of God stems from the argument that God is the source of all that is good. Everything that man needs to reach perfection is a good. Therefore God can fulfill Man's needs. Now this doesn't prove that God exists. It is simply logic to show why people can believe that God is essential for happiness. Personally, I like the notion that God as a source of infinite love makes it so that man's love tank is always filled. It's a nice idea but is not proof of any sort.
Why do we brood?
Brooding is an action that doesn't bring us to happiness but instead makes us miserable. Yet we choose to brood. This was actually a reason why I held off on presenting my model for a long time. However, I have two ideas about this and the result is that brooding actually follows the model in a corrupted way.
First is that brooding is an action we instinctively believe that brooding will get us toward happiness. Babies cry until they get what they want. When they become children, they still try this tactic with some success. Even adults use this to some success where they "play the victim." Brooding is the act wallowing in the belief that we are the victim. We use this to help us feel justified when we take another action that otherwise would be condemned.
The second idea stems from the claim that brooding is a selfish action. While it does not bring our good nature towards completion, it does grow our ego. That ego always wants to grow. Therefore, while it may not truly bring us towards happiness, our ego believes that it will bring it to completion. However, this is not reality. Instead, it makes us even more miserable and we in turn act to create misery for others. Brooding is a fuel for bullying.
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I hope these answers help give answer your questions either directly or indirectly. I contemplated having them in a separate post as this got really long, but I figure it was best to keep it together with the main piece. While some questions can certainly be their own piece, I felt it best to address them now rather than later. Perhaps I will share them again individually so that I may expand upon them.
Feedback is an important part of our society. It's when we convey what was good, what was bad, and what can be improved. However, if you truly wish for your feedback to be positively effective, timing is off the utmost importance. Specifically when the recipient is ready to receive it.
Perhaps the best example to illustrate this is taking care of a child. Everyone has different opinions about how to raise children. This is a combination of exposure to ideas, experience spent with children, and your own personality. The stereotypical story is the working father doing something and the housewife instructs what he should be doing. This does not work. People do not want to be doing what they think is best only to be told that they are wrong, especially while they are in the midst of struggling. Instead, they would more likely be willing to receive help and, after things calm down, discuss what would have been the best method.
I think when people are having trouble, they don't want advice unless asked for. Instead, they want to see signs that they are cared about and appreciated. When they think they did the right thing also isn't a good time to critique. Instead they need to doubt first that they were right. However, you probably don't want to knock them of their horse right away either. If it can wait, let them enjoy their pride for a moment or they might start to think every conversation with you will be to criticize what you have done.
When people know they did something wrong, this is a bit more tricky. Some want consolation while others want to know how to improve and others want to try and fix things. Also keep in mind that some may want a break. It could be to reflect on their own or maybe they are tired of thinking about the subject. After all, constantly thinking about something you cannot do anything about is a big cause of stress. Therefore it is important to consider many variables such as time, gravity, appearance, and personality before giving feedback.
Another reason to ponder timing is that you might not be ready to give feedback either. If you are angry, you'll likely be unable to avoid personally attacking in your critique. If you are upset, you likely won't be clearly logical in your argument. Even if you are logical in your head, you'll likely neglect to mention certain key points, making it difficult for anyone to follow your line of reasoning. In addition, they might be distracted by the emotion in your voice leading them to think more like, "How can I get him to calm down?"
Feedback is an important thing as it allows us to praise someone for their work or advise on how to improve it. However, in all cases, we should be patient and consider when is the best time to give it.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are three fundamental rights listed in the United States' declaration of Independence. When the founding fathers wrote this document, they swapped the right to property with the pursuit of happiness. While this does not mean they did not believe in the right to have property, it does mean they brought attention to the basis for all other human rights and the driving force of humanity.
Happiness is the ultimate goal. There is no reason to be happy except to be happy. The characteristics of this ultimate state is that it's perfectly fulfilling, cannot be lost, and blissful. Since happiness is the perfect state, we can say it is the pursuit of absolute perfection. While you are not guaranteed to obtain happiness, it is indeed the fundamental right.
Consider what the purpose of liberty is. There is no other benefit for freedom except to realize your full potential. That is why it is so precious and yet sometimes must be sacrificed. When you realize this purpose, you understand that when you can only improve by sacrificing some freedom that it is actually the best choice. Babies have no bias towards a language, but if they wish to grow and mature, they must take up a language and follow its rules. This logic can also be applied to security and privacy.
It can be said that life is the state of constant change. While some things appear to persist, everything that is living is constantly changing in one way or another. Death, on the other hand, is the setting of a person's final state. There is nothing more that person can do to change himself. Therefore, if someone wishes to progress towards perfection, he must live.
Now one thing I must address is that even though we have the right to pursue happiness, not all of our actions are justified. If you seek justification, then you must consult the key to morality, which is true love. If you do, then I would think you have a great chance at obtaining happiness.
With Love,
N. D. Moharo
P.S. Next time I address the pursuit of happiness, I intend to present a model explaining the cycles of the pursuit of happiness and how various situations fit in it. However, I need more time to polish it so that it is easy to understand. Please be patient as I work to polish what perhaps accounts for all of our choices.
In today's society, showing displays of anger is frowned upon. However, there are times when it is appropriate and effective to be angry, but you need to control it rather than let it control you. In order to get it under control, it is helpful to know what the three purposes of it are and how do deal with them.
The first purpose is to show what is important to you. This can be tricky because you might not realize what is important until you get angry and even then you still have to play detective. For example, my wife told me we got a mosquito in the house and I got very upset. It was not so much that the mosquito was in the house that upset me but rather the fear of having to wake up on the middle of the night to find it after it bit me awake. If the mosquito was killed beforehand, then I wouldn't mind.
In order to control this and make our anger more effective is to identify what is most important and explain it. For example, when my child cries with no way of calming him down, I would get angry for second, but then identify that he is more important. This love for him helps make it so that I'm in control. Limiting the number of things that you consider important will also make your few occasions more effective. Otherwise everyone will think there is no satisfying you and they will begin to ignore you.
The second purpose is to demand a change. I believe the ultimate goal of giving negative feedback is to encourage some sort of change. A good customer service sees what upsets it's customers and tries to avoid that in the future. However, since there are so many improvements to make, seeing the obvious signs of anger can help promote which improvements are done faster.
The help for dealing with this is to develop a sense of acceptance. While things can be improved, there is nothing that can be done about the past. We might do things to help recompense, but we should avoid aiming for compensation as that encourages selfishness. If we accept that the offending parties did not mean to offend us and that they tried their best to help us, then we can suggest improvements in a calmer manner which can lead to a productive conversation.
Another help here is humility. The smaller we see ourselves, the less offended we feel. We can still suggest improvements, especially if it will help others, but at least then we can show we are not acting out of selfishness.
The third purpose is to simply to be an outlet of emotion. We are emotional people and sometimes we need to vent our frustration in order to feel better. This is a tricky thing to control as the more you vent, the less effective it becomes, both for you and those around you. This is why the intensity of expletives grow the more you use them. However, someone that never uses expletives can be even more effective than those who do. This is because expletives give a shock and offensive structure, making the recipient upset and angry with you, but those who are angry in a controlled manner might be empathized with.
Even though this last purpose is the first one seen, it is based upon the other two. If we can handle the other purposes, then this one becomes weaker. I cannot say that it will be eliminated because this is the reaction caused by your brain's emotional center, which happens before you can be rational. If you have the rush of adrenaline, it might be 20 minutes before you can be rational again.
While people claim various methods for dealing with this such as stress balls or hitting something, you probably notice that these lose their effectiveness after a while. When we act on our emotions, it becomes harder to control them. This is especially dangerous when your output is to hit something as that will likely turn to hitting someone. Again, your emotional center acts before your rational. You cannot guarantee you won't do something unless you place a hard limit on everything that would build up to it. One thing I would suggest instead is meditation though it certainly is difficult at first. Therefore, you need to practice meditation before you get angry so that you won't become even more frustrated.
One thing I can suggest in the meantime until you can practice meditation is to convert your frustration into sadness. This will at least prevent you from harming anyone. This is not perfect as it can lead to depression if you are not careful and therefore I suggest meditation and everything else I've mentioned. Once you obtain that state, you will find that your anger is more controlled and far more effective.
In summary, if you want to control your anger, you have to identify the three purposes; conveying importance, demanding change, and output of frustration. The keys to dealing with this are the same for being patient; love, humility, and acceptance. Now that you know this, I hope you can better use your anger for progress and not for destruction.
To the Afflicted,
Some of today's society believes that Justice and Fairness are the same thing. However, even the usage of the phrase of a decision being "Fair and Just" indicates this is not the case. They are certainly related, but they are definitely different.
An old and essential definition of Justice is rendering what is due. When we argue if someone's case is just, we argue whether or not they deserve something or not. When putting someone on trial, we are trying to argue what sentence they deserve to get. However, the question becomes "How to determine was is just?" That is where fairness comes into play, by which I argue to be "judging by the same standard for different people/things."
An apt analogy for Justice and Fairness is that Justice is paying someone the correct price for an item while Fairness is using the same scale to determine the price for different people. If we measure some tea leaves and I pay some amount, but someone buying the exact same amount of the same tea after me is measured to be charged more, that would be considered unfair. Another example would be when someone cheats in a game, that's unfair because he's not playing by the same rules. One more example is a just decision would be to send criminals charged with the exact same crime to jail, but if the sentences are different lengths, then it can be considered unfair but not unjust depending on circumstances (for example two different judges, different levels of remorse, mercy, etc.).
Why do we often consider unfairness to be the same as injustice? There are a few reasons. One is that we believe it is due to us to be judged on the same standard we perceive. This is common when it comes to siblings. If one child gets something, another may assume he should get it too because they are both children of the same parents (perceived standard), not necessarily because of something he did or need (actual standard). Another reason is that unfairness can lead to injustice. When someone cheats in a game, his opponent is not receiving his due respect in fair play and his due prize can be stolen from him.
Now even though a standard is how we initially judge justice, we must be careful of the standards we use because they may be unjust. How is this possible? It's due to the nature of higher standards. Perhaps the best way of thinking of this is in terms of what justice is most often associated with; Law.
According to a local law, punishment may be due to someone, but if that law contradicts a higher law, such as the constitution, then that would be opposed to real justice. This is important because lower laws often eliminate mercy and goodwill. I argued before that Mercy and Justice get along because Justice cares about order and balance. If someone is willing to forgive an injury, the relationship is put back into proper balance despite the perpetrator not paying restitution. Likewise, if a shop owner decides to give me a discount because of goodwill towards my father for some help he gave, it could be a fulfillment of justice. Of course, this idea of justice is dependent on using Love as the high standard.
I argue that Love is the standard we should prioritize. I have written about the multiple definitions of love before, but in this case and pretty much every time I mention it, I'm referring to the caring definition by which "one wills the good of another." When you judge by using the standard of Love, then you judge based off the perfection of man that I argued for before in proving the universal moral code, and in doing so, you help advance the perfection of others. I like to think that that would be both fair and just.
When I wrote to you last about Love Tanks, I left out mention of Appreciation. It is debatable that this is a fifth Love Tank, but I eventually decided it was not. Even if it was a tank, I do not consider it as falling under a definition of love for a few reasons.
First, it's always separate when we use it in language, We say "loved and appreciated" and not "love is appreciation." Second, Love requires two parties, but only one is required to act. Appreciation, on the other hand, indicates a return, meaning two parties need to act. Third reason is that it's relationship to the love languages and love tanks is unique. While it acts like a tank in that it can be drained, it can also drain all of the love tanks. It also is filled by any of the love languages, but which one is dependent on the situation.
Something you must consider is an interesting paradox. It's good to give and receive appreciation, but bad to want it. The reason behind this is that the former can focus the attention on the other party in a good light, but the latter focuses on your self and can place the other party in a negative light, negatively impacting your ability to love. That negativity not only damages your relationships, but also drains your love tanks, making you depressed and lonely.
Remember though that appreciation itself is good. The thing that is bad is the feeling of entitlement. If you think about it, it can be quite often that you perform an act of love with no expectation of a reward. Instead you act because you love, focusing solely on the receiving party. However, once the idea that you should be rewarded enters your head, you begin to take those acts of love and focus on yourself rather than your beloved. By transforming the acts of love into fuel for entitlement, you become bitter. This is true with all senses of entitlement. For the sake of your soul and happiness, you need to drop the selfish-feeding desires of entitlement and just let them happen or not.
Now I know this is difficult, especially for me. When there is injustice or abuse of rights, I become very angry or depressed. However, I believe it is helpful to start dismantling your ideas of entitlement one by one, hopefully making it to just the core rights, things you need in order to become a better human being. If you can go beyond that, your ability to forgive will be divine.
Whether you believe or not, actually practicing Christians have an advantage here. This is because they have a perfect model as a result of their beliefs. God should be entitled to praise, honor, and respect, but instead people mocked, scoffed, and executed him in an excruciating manner. Yet, instead of condemning these people, God spoke words of forgiveness and proceeded to suffer and die for them. When you believe that, it should have a profound impact on your senses of entitlement.
If you examine it even further, even though Jesus displayed no sense of entitlement, he still fought for the rights of others and rebuked their oppressors. The point is that he was not selfish, but loving, according to Christian beliefs. When you believe all of those things, there is no greater role model of love.
I have
written to you about love languages before. Taking from what I have written on
the various definitions of love, perhaps we can understand the nature of love
languages even better. To recap, the five love languages are Physical Touch,
Words of Affirmation, Gift Giving, Quality Time, and Acts of Service. I gave
four definitions of love but here I will describe them in terms of feeling
loved. When we say we feel loved, we can mean that we feel Cared For, Liked,
Admired, or Wanted. Each of the Love Languages address these accordingly
You may
have noticed that there is a mismatch of numbers, but that is okay. What I have
figured is that there is some overlap. Some languages will address the same
feeling, and a language can address multiple feelings. However, in order to
have a full “Love Tank,” you need to have all four addressed.
Perhaps
the first thing we should do is establish that you have four love tanks, but
one set and probably only one primary tank by which you judge if you are loved
or not. I say four because it’s not the Love Languages themselves are not the
tanks, but the fuel, if we are thinking like gas tanks. The tanks are the four
ways we feel loved. However, due to the unique nature of humanity, the size of
each tank is most likely not the same. As a result, three out of four can be
filled, but the primary tank can account for over half, meaning you still won’t
feel loved. On the other hand, it also means that it does not take much to fill
the others, and you do that with different Love Languages.
To feel
like we are cared for, the primary fuel is Acts of Service. The secondary fuel
is Gift Giving. Quality Time and Physical Touch are wildcards depending on the
relationship. A child playing with his mother might feel cared for, but a child
playing with friends will likely not have that feeling. Gift Giving is also a
wildcard, but for the reason that if the gift is something we really desire,
then we feel like they care about us.
To feel
like we are admired, the primary fuel is either Words of Affirmation or Gift Giving.
The secondary fuel is Quality Time or Physical Touch. They are secondary
because we can acknowledge that one or the other will fill the respective tank,
but it most likely won’t fill much.
To feel like we are wanted, the
primary fuel is either Quality Time or Physical Touch. A secondary fuel is
Words of Affirmation. I make it secondary because we I consider Gift Giving a
wildcard, because I can only think of it applying in romance. However, even in
romance, the gift will probably fuel Admiration more, even if the reason for
the gift is desire. On the other hand, depending on the gift, it can also
convey being wanted.
For
feeling liked, pretty much everything covers this because the word is a bit
broad. Not only can it mean desired, but also admired and similar. However,
since we cover the other too, here will just take the Similar aspect, saying
that we feel we belong. As a result then the primary fuels are Quality Time,
Words of Affirmation, and whatever Love Language the recipient primarily uses.
After looking at this chart
interesting things we can see after looking at the chart. First is you can
understand why Hugs/Kisses and Gifts are popular since they are the easiest to
do and can potentially fill every tank. Of course, in reality, some people don’t
need gifts and some people don’t want to be touched. However, according to the
chart, Quality Time is the best in terms of coverage and degree, though how you
go about it is still important. At the same time, Words of Affirmation do a great
job of making someone feel liked no matter the definition.
The second interesting thing is the
effect of romance on creating wildcards. This perhaps is one of the main
reasons why people desire romance so much and attribute it to love, even though
friendship is arguably the best example of true love. It makes Gift Giving able
to convey that you are desired. It can make us assume that we are cared for. It
gives us a meaning of belonging and that someone admires us. Friendship, of
course, can and does cover all four, but perhaps finding that level of
friendship is too difficult for some and it doesn’t cover the sexual appetite.
I hope this helps you, my child, in
understanding the complex nature of love as well as how to make others feel
loved. However, you must remember that just as these languages can make a
person feel loved, they can also do the opposite and cause great harm. Take
care to use this knowledge to promote love and you will be on your way to
becoming a saint.
News update: I am writing a book collecting and organizing various essays and letters I have written over the years. To be fair, it's been mostly complete for about 3 months now and I am currently just doing the polishing process as well as collecting opinions before I publish it. The project started while I was writing the series on True Love and I realized I would like to make it easier for my children to read what I have written. The result was that many of the letters I have published have been slightly modified versions of letters I have written to my children for this book, including what I'm sharing with you now.
Dearly Beloved,
I often preach that True
Love is an act of the will. The primary definition I use is “Love is to will
the good of another.” I like the definition as it covers action, choice,
desire, mind above emotion, and selflessness. However, one more definition is
“Love is a great admiration of something.” Similarly, love can also mean “a
strong like of something.” In addition, another definition some people love the
most is “Love is a great desire to be united to something.”
If you study language,
you may find what are called homonyms, “words with same spelling and
pronunciation, but different meanings.” Some are completely unrelated such as a
“bat” being a flying mammal or an object to play baseball with. However, many
words are derived from the original word. In fact, when the connotation becomes
the definition, it goes through this process. Love is one of these words.
Consider the first and
second definitions. If you greatly admire something, it means you are more
likely act on behalf of it. Consider a priceless jewel. If you don’t care about
jewels, you’ll simply toss it away. If you greatly admire jewels, then you’ll
take care of it. Same applies to people. If you greatly admire people, you will
even perform some sort of sacrifice for their benefit.
Now consider the second
and third definitions. You tend to greatly admire something you strongly like.
Then take that “like” is derived from the same word which means “similar.” You
like things that are similar to yourself or who you want to be.
Next up is the third and
fourth definitions. A synonym for like is “desire” so naturally you can see how
they link. When we think of desires, we tend to think of them as uncontrollable
passions. And that is how you get the same word meaning an act of the will to
meaning an act of passion. Is this believable? Certainly as we do this with
language all the time. Words “evolve” as long as there is something to link it
to the older meaning, including sarcasm. After all, antonyms can swap meanings
just as “awful” and “awesome” did.
If you look up synonyms
for “love,” you will find “passion” among them. This is what I meant by “Love
is a great desire to be united to something.” This is the emotional definition
of love that many people love. You want something so much that you can’t
imagine being without it. This is the explanation for what I consider the Love
Paradox. You love someone so much that you want to be with them, but at the
same time, you want him/her to be happy, even if that means he/she is not with
you.
Now there is nothing
wrong with any of these definitions. The biggest point I would like to make is
of all of them, the first is the most pure and admirable. That is the one that
makes use better people and is the secret to morality. The key here is that
it’s the only one that works perfectly with humility, service, and every other
virtue. The other definitions open the door to being selfish and therefore
conflict and tragedy. As long as they are bounded by the first definition, they
are fine. However, you generally cannot have all of them and therefore only the
first is essential.
Consider what it means
when you have the others, but not the first. Perhaps the best example is a
teenage boy who tells a girl he loves her so in order to have sex. He might
greatly admire her, but if it’s only her beauty he admires, he’ll dump her when
he finds someone else he considers more beautiful. He might hold a lot of
things in common with her, but that is very fickle especially for teenagers.
Even if they maintain common interests, the importance of them will change as
life changes. Lastly, he certainly wants to be united with her, but it’s to
satisfy himself.
The boy is speaking the
truth, but he doesn’t care for the girl. He doesn’t want what is best for her.
He only cares about himself and heartbreak is going to happen. It’s often the
case that a couple will have sex only to part that night. The common scenario
is the girl is hoping he means the first definition along with the others, but
if a guy can’t wait until marriage for sex, it’s most likely he doesn’t mean he
cares. If anything, it shows he doesn’t have the willpower to make many
sacrifices for her.
My hope
is that by showing you this example, you may see that selfishness produces
pain, sadness, and ultimately victims. Let the first definition rule your life
so that you may become a great hero. When you abide by the pure definition of
love, you may recognize when it is lacking and therefore be able to avoid the
unnecessary heartache. That is my wish, because I do indeed care for you.
I write
to you that you may not worry about being Politically Correct. In my day, it is
politically incorrect to say anything that might be construed as sexist,
racist, anti-semetic, etc. On the other hand, there are no complaints about
insulting Christians, some political parties, etc. This is because Political
Correctness is just that, Political. It changes often and will always be
inconsistent because it isn’t based off Love and Truth. This is why it was
“right” to insult the Japanese during WWII and why they insult Christians
today. The world with its god of selfishness doesn’t care about respect, but
about how it believes it can obtain and maintain power. Therefore it will do
what it can to destroy the message of True Love.
So I
write to you that you instead focus your energy on Love and Truth. When you are
known by these two things, even those you supposedly offended may come to your
defense. This happened recently when a white actress said a racist term. The
media attacked her, but her black friend defended her, calling her family.
Consider also that Jesus was never politically correct. Instead he spoke the
Truth and teachings of Love.
If
someone knows you are trying to speak the truth with no malice behind it, and
they still take grave offense, then they don’t really care about respect.
Instead, they seek entitlement, which is simply selfishness. Honest people want
respect. If they know you care for them, then they will listen to the truth,
even when it hurts.
The
purpose of Freedom of Speech is that people may find the Truth to improve their
lives, be able to express their concerns, and propose ideas. As long as it is
not used to express hatred and destruction, then your words will never violate
or abuse this important right. Society depends on the Freedom of Speech to be
used correctly, not the political tool of censorship.
I once wrote to you that the
meaning of the phrase “be a man” means to be a hero. However, this by itself is
not the perfection of man. A hero is simply a role model who
acts because it is right. But a hero who also acts with love is called a saint. I can be a
hero, but if I don’t have love, I won’t be perfect. In fact, my example would
be less effective. For example, when I was in High School, I went through all
four years working hard to not break any rules. I did this because I wanted to
prove it could be done, but I didn’t have love. While I got better the last few
months of my career, I was depressed and filled with contempt for some people
around me. At this point, I knew that I needed to become a hero, but I did not
yet realize love is what makes it perfect and joyful.
Do you need to perform great
deeds to be considered a saint? Not at all. In fact, some of the greatest
saints are those who do many little things with love. I don’t need to die to
show my love for my wife. I can simply wash the dishes and do the laundry; two
things I hate to do. But I found that when I do them because I love my wife,
I’m at peace doing them. When she says thank you, I’m even more filled with
joy.
When you do things because they
are good and because you love others, you are one of the best role models in
the world. So I pray that you not only become a hero, but that you become a
saint.
To the Truth-seekers,
A valid concern many religions have about Christianity is the concept of "God becoming Man." How can a being, who is perfect, become man, who is imperfect? This would mean that God changed which is contrary to the nature of being perfect. When you are perfect, you cannot change. Therefore, God cannot become man, because that would mean he was imperfect to begin with.
It's an interesting paradox, but the answer makes sense when you hear the explanation, "God did not change." To properly understand this, we need to switch perspectives. To us, it appears that God changed, but not from the perspective of God. Let me bring you back to the analogy of a virtual world where you are a god.
In this analogy, you have complete control of the virtual world. You are its god. You decide to become one of your characters. Are you still the god of that world? Yes. Do you lose any of your "Divinity"? No. Do you still have perfect control and know everything? Yes. If you maintain your Divine Knowledge and stay perfectly virtuous, nothing changed. That is how it looks from God's perspective. And if God is perfect, even as a character in his creation, he would be perfect. There is no change. In fact, it is perfectly God's nature to have become man, because God is Perfect Love.
If God is Perfect Love, he would perform acts of love. A great act of love therefore is to become man, dwell among us, teach us how to love, and give us the perfect example of love. Why? Because that is what is best for us. By us having a perfect model and teaching, we are able to love more and become perfect. Also, by God becoming man, you have the most definitive authority for establishing a religion. No other man can establish a religion better than a man who is God, especially when the religion is about True Love.
With Love,
N. D. Moharo
P.S. The prompt for this topic was how last time I suggested that the mentally handicap from birth are angels incarnate. I don't know if this is true or not, but I wanted to address the argument that "Angels becoming man would lower their nature." It wouldn't because they would not lose any of their angelic nature. Instead, it'd be a perfect showing of their angelic nature as the purpose of their life on earth would be to bring people closer to God. They are God's servants and therefore would gladly accept this task. Of
course, since I am not an expert, I can be completely wrong.
To the Truth-seekers,
Hell is an interesting topic. It is a valid question people have when asking about a God who is supposedly Perfect Love. "How can an all-loving God condemn someone to eternal punishment?"
It's fairly easy to explain hell as an act of justice, especially poetic justice. Do evil and you will eventually be punished either in this life or the next. Also, if you sin against someone who is infinitely good, the just punishment would be eternal. But hell is actually the result of love.
It sounds paradoxical, but hell is an act of love for the sinner. When someone goes to hell, it is because they chose not to love. Since love must be an act of the will, and God respects our free will, God would not force us to love him. Since God is Pure Love, and the sinner chose to reject love, being with God would be worse than hell.
Hell is "Where God is not." It means there is no other love in that place beyond its existence. This also means if someone wants to hate God for eternity, they can do it. Now one may argue that it would be better for God to wipe out the sinner's existence. However, that would violate two things. First is that God sees everyone's existence as good, just like those against the death penalty see that all life is good. Second is that annihilating the sinner would counter hell being an act of love for the rest of us.
Jesus gave us an analogy. We are salt whose purpose is flavor. But if we lose our flavor, then we will be thrown out to be trampled under foot by men. This shows two things. First is that God will still use you even if you fail your purpose of love. Second, though I don't know if they did this in Israel, is to keep the rest of us from falling down. The purpose of salt on the ground is to prevent men from slipping on the ground. Salt is what you throw on ice so that men can walk. God sends people to hell so that we might not.
God wants what's best for us, and that is for us to be willingly united with him. The first step is instilling the fear of punishment. We have a free will, but we don't initially start life by loving God. When we are children, we initially only fear punishment. We don't really care for our parents. But as we grow older, what started as fear of punishment can grow into fear of offending our parents. The punishment is a seed that grows into an act of love. When we reach this stage, it means we have a true love for God. Of course, if you chose otherwise, then you will receive the punishment promised. Being removed from existence would not encourage you to chose love, but the fear of punishment might.
Another argument is that "Good parents rehabilitate their children, not condemn them eternally." This is true, and that is exactly what life is. Our life is our rehabilitation. We are here so that we may become better people by choosing to love. We receive many opportunities to grow in love for God and our neighbor. It is then our choice whether we want to stay in prison or get out for good behavior. Hell is merely the life sentence that we may choose.
Now this revelation might have brought up some concerns, especially due to our fear of wrongful imprisonment. "What about the mentally disabled from birth?" Since they cannot freely choose to love or not, technically the scale of justice is balanced. However, since God is Perfect Love and wants what is best, they will be united with him. Then why should they live on earth at all if they will go to heaven anyway? It's so that we may grow in love by caring for them. They teach us how to better love each other. They live in order that we may live with God forever. I actually wonder if they are God's angels incarnated, because they have already chose God.
So what about those who never learned about God or learned wrong about him? Actually, they can still go to heaven, though they probably would not reach the pure perfection. If they were truly ignorant through no fault of their own, and they tried their best to live with virtue, they simply unknowingly chose God, because he is the source of love and virtue. However, it is far easier for them to live in virtue and chose God if they are taught correctly. That is why I write to you about the message of True Love. It could be said that God did inspire the other cultures' great teachers in order to prepare them to receive the gospel of the Religion of True Love.
So is hell fair? Yes, in terms of Justice. No, in that sinners possibly deserved worse. It is also not fair because God gives us so much to avoid it. Since God is Infinite Love, and forgiveness is an act of love, all we need to do is repent when we are wrong. When our repentance is because of our love for god, it is a perfect act of love in itself. When it's not perfect because it's based off fear of punishment instead, God will still forgive, but we need to do whatever he commands for restitution, which is always another act of love so that we may grow in love.
Hell is the result of Love, because by its existence, we are encouraged to love. If there was no punishment, not only would that violate justice, but also allow us to not care to love. That would not only be bad for society, but also for ourselves. The existence of hell is True Love trying to call you to itself.
With Love,
N. D. Moharo
P. S. Since Hell falls in the realm of Theology, I can be
wrong. This is merely an explanation on how it would make sense, especially
given the purpose of man being to love.
To the People and Missionaries
It's not often that I speak of matters of faith, but this time there's a philosophical element to it: Why do people convert? I'm ignoring the cases of conversion for a spouse and social status as those are not true conversions. The conversion I'm referring to is the total conversion where one's life changes because he or she truly believes the faith. For this letter, I'll reference Christianity because that's what we have the most experience with, but also it's the crux of my theory.
The first part of my theory is that people convert to a religion they see as more Christian. Consider what Jesus said to be the two greatest commandments. The first is "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." The second was "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:28-31). These practices are what people are looking for when searching for faith. You must have both. The interesting thing is that some faiths try to make themselves "open" by relaxing some of their practices. The result is that doing this does not attract people for the long run. In fact, it only causes more people to leave as it goes against that first commandment, which is what people are searching for when examining religions. After all, what's the point of a faith if there is none? The purpose of religion is to "give to God what belongs to God." If people see that this is not being carried out, then they see there is no real faith. At this point, these religions care more about money or influence than about a God they heard about. When groups of Christians find things they don't consider Christian, they will split and create their own denomination. To be honest, I consider each denomination to be a different religion, just as Judaism and Islam are different but believe in the same God and some of the same scriptures. Let me give you an analogy. Imagine there's a bird club. The participation is high and members are very active and excited. However, at some point the management decides it needs to attract new members so it decides to open up the club to dogs as well. After the initial jump in membership ends, management decides to open it up to mice. Next are fish, and eventually cats. Eventually the club is so open that birds are very rarely talked about. The bird club only exists in name. When people come to the bird club, they are seeking to share their love of birds and learn more about them, but these people see mostly cat lovers and dog lovers. "This isn't a real bird club. If I want to talk to dog lovers, I can go anywhere in the world to find them. There's no need for a club," the onlookers observe and leave. This is what happens to religions that relax their practices for the sake of attracting people. It doesn't work. It may attract attention of the world, but at that point, it's just a hollow institution with nothing to offer, but it will still ask for money. People should be nice to each other all the time, but people also want a place to actually praise and learn about God. That's what Religion is for.
Consider this famous verse from Revelation 3:16. Here, God says, "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth." To remove the practices of a faith in order to attract people is to become lukewarm. The idea is that if the people of the world are to be considered lukewarm, we need to be lukewarm as well in order to attract them. However, the people who are lukewarm want to feel cold or hot and so are looking for religions that are so. I'm not sure what the proper interpretation of this should be, but here's an idea I have. To be hot means to be energetic, singing, dancing, and praising God. To be cold means to be quiet, listening, and meditating on God. If you are lukewarm, then you are doing neither of them. I've observed how the youth appear apathetic in daily life but become very passionate at conferences. Why is this? The word lukewarm means to be apathetic, unenthusiastic, indifferent, etc. However, these conferences tend to be "hot" with passion and excitement. These same youths say that they "felt God's presence." However, once they return to the lukewarm society, they no longer care. If church is lukewarm as well, that explains why they leave. They want that "heat" from their church, because Heat causes the lukewarm to become hot. Likewise, a place that can encourage contemplation and prayer, such as a quiet church building, can make the lukewarm cool. This is how people know there is no faith in a particular church. The church is supposed to change people for the better apart from the world's evils, but instead they become part of the world's evils. Religion is supposed to counter the evils of the world. This is why "Christians" may convert to religions like Islam. They see a counter-cultural movement that condemns the evils they see. They see people willingly perform sacrifices. Many Catholics in first-world countries these days say it's so difficult to not eat meat on a Friday while Muslims go a month without food and water during the day. I found this out because I went to a theme park with a Muslim and he wouldn't even drink water during the hot day, but he did not complain one bit.
When people say why they converted to a religion, they tend to say things like: I saw their faith; they really love God; they are so passionate. These things fall under the first commandment. Other things you may hear from converts are the following: They accepted me; I belong here; I'm welcomed. These things follow the second commandment. People are searching for these things. In fact, my boss one day told me his praise for the Roman Catholic faith despite not being one. He told me that he admired that they had not changed their core beliefs despite all of the pressure of the world. That's amazing because so many other Christian denominations alter their core beliefs so much throughout history. I would add that the constant service to society (everything that we take for granted now such as hospitals, schools, homeless shelters, orphanages, and advocating justice) is also something to be admired and why we can condemn those who murder "in God's name." Perhaps this is the key to finding a real religion. A real religion serves God and Man, but the service of Man is to convert him to Goodness and Love of God, not convert God to the evils of Man.
After debating with a few people, I've come to realize that there is another root to the homosexual debate. Before, I addressed one root is how someone views sex. This is still true, but there is also another one that is equally important. This root is the underlying mentality to "follow your heart."
This idea is actually quite controversial. Even though it appears often in movies, stories, graduation ceremonies, etc., people are divided on the idea. This in turn can impact their views on gay sex (being gay is not evil in my opinion and also not important to the logical root of the debate). When I see people saying that people are "born gay," I see that they are arguing for the ideal of "following your heart is right." When people are claiming it doesn't matter how one is born, they are arguing against "following your heart is right." Which side is right? Perhaps we should investigate how both sides are propagated.
As hinted above, culture is the one promoting the idea of "following your heart." When we see people using this idea to determine a course of action, they are the heroes and it's always right. When celebrities speak of their success, they say the same thing. Movies often promote the idea "If you you work hard, your passion will see you through against all odds." It actually sounds a lot like faith. It gives us hope and when are depressed, we want something we can hope for. Also, we tend to think of ourselves as the heroes and as good people. I believe the nature of man is good because the perfection of man is to love. In addition, we want to do what we believe in. Lastly, we don't like being wrong. If we say that we did what our heart told us to do, then we feel like that is a good excuse because we are the valid authority of saying what our hearts told us to do. So who are likely to abide by this opinion? Proponents of gay sex, artists, youth, culture, and businesses. The last two I'll explain later.
In opposition, these people hold that "following your heart" is not a good determinant of morality. They are more likely to adhere to religious morality or the morality I proposed before about love. Now it is understandable that proponents of "following your heart" believe the one about love to be the same as their idea, and it can be. As mentioned before, we like to think of ourselves as the heroes and naturally good. It's not exactly false, but not exactly true either according to the other side. These people see that following your heart can drive to both good and evil.
Culture tends to promote only the heroes as following their heart, not the villains. However, the villains are doing that. Extremists and the mob are following their heart when they commit crimes. So if your heart is ordered towards love, you might go that way. However, if it's ordered towards selfishness, it's going to go toward evil. An apt analogy is fire, as passion is often described as. If controlled, it's beautiful and beneficial. It can light dark caves, cook food, fight wild beasts, generate energy, send messages, keep us warm, save our lives, etc. However, when fire is uncontrolled, you cannot do any of those things. Instead it burns like a wildfire where death is the result. That's why people say you need to guide your heart with reason and discipline.
People on this side also see that passion is not enough to get you anywhere. I can be passionate about tennis, but without well-functioning arms, I cannot play well. Also, if I do follow my passion, I might actually waste my talents and potential. I saw a good summary of this view in a video by Mike Rowe.
Now your purpose in life may very well be your dream. Dreams are good as they give us hope and direction in life, but I've noticed something about a dream. It can not only make you always dissatisfied by being something impossible to obtain, it can distract you from recognizing what is good in front of you. You might have a dream to marry a certain celebrity, but if you are always comparing your date with that celebrity, you're never going to develop a real bond.
Another example is that I used to dream of a fantasy girl who was perfectly beautiful in my opinion. Hair color, height, hair style, etc. were all determined. I found one girl who pretty much fit the description almost too perfectly. That did not work well. However, I happened to get introduced to this other girl who definitely did not fit any of the criteria except in that she was a girl my age. What I realized was that this was the girl perfect for me, and she became my wife. My love has only grown for her as time has gone on. So dreams are those hopeful goals to help us through life and develop ourselves until we find something that is truly good. Some people don't have dreams and they are content. They are happy and enjoying life. When you are satisfied, you really don't desire anything more for yourself.
So who will hold this opinion? I assume Mike Rowe based off his video. Also religious groups that claim man is imperfect. In addition, people who believe that just following your heart will only increase your selfishness, not help your ability to love. It's not a question about whether man is good or evil, but rather that man is corrupted and can become evil if left unguided. Whether it's nature or nurture, it does not matter initially. By the time people can make choices, they are either on the selfish side of things, or loving side of things. However, whatever people are exposed to the most will impact their views. So if they exposed to selfishness a lot, they might adopt that mentality. Kids tend to imitate what they see from both parents and culture, especially the media.
So why will culture and businesses promote following your heart? Because it's an easy sell. Not only does it sound nice, it sets the stage to sell you stuff, including things you don't need. Since it can promote selfishness, the culture of selfishness loves it. It also knows it can create "needs" and therefore force you to buy into them. Also, if you make people feel good about themselves, they tend to do business with you. Therefore, I argue it's manipulation.
Every man has negative inclinations and we cannot let them control us. This is why people oppose the idea of following your heart. Consider what it means to follow your heart. It essentially means let your passions control you. This also means that whatever you are inclined to do is okay. So if you want something then it's okay to take it such as love (in the case of adultery), money (theft), and objects (theft). This chain of logic eventually means that greed is okay, lust is okay, envy is okay, and many other desires which increase selfishness. However, this means this is opposed to the key of morality I have mentioned before as this can hinder your ability to love. It's also not good for society at all.
The idea of following your heart probably had a good intention. It probably had faith that the people who would act on it were the people who are inclined to do good. However, it can also result in uncontrolled and misguided hatred. Every fallen hero becomes a villain because of this philosophy. They followed their passion and got disappointed. But since they were following a passion, they weren't improving their ability to love. Passion is good, but only when controlled to increase your love. In other words, your love should not be defined by your passion, but your passion should be defined by your love.
With Love,
N. D. Moharo
P. S. I didn't link to the first post above because I wanted people to read this one first. Now if you want to examine the idea of sex, you can click here.
To the Concerned over Africa,
When I listen to people debating over the nature of contraception, there are a few words generally spoken by proponents of contraception with hatred. "The outbreak of AIDS in Africa is because of no access to condoms." Now I'm not an expert on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, but I am under the impression the hatred is still in the wrong place. If my understanding is wrong, then please correct me.
Here is what I have gathered about the nature of AIDS. It mutated from a monkey disease that somehow got transmitted to humans. Its origins are unknown and some people think it was from hunting and blood somehow infected humans. Another theory is that some guy actually tried having sex with an infected monkey, after all, it's an STD. However, it also gets transmitted through contact with contaminated blood or needle.
This is what I found on the Aids.gov website on June 26, 2016 In the United States, HIV is spread mainly by:
Having anal or vaginal sex with someone who has HIV without using a condom or taking medicines to prevent or treat HIV.
Anal sex is the highest-risk sexual behavior. For the HIV-negative partner, receptive anal sex (“bottoming”) is riskier than insertive anal sex (“topping”).
Vaginal sex is the second highest-risk sexual behavior.
Sharing needles or syringes, rinse water, or other equipment (“works”) used to prepare injection drugs with someone who has HIV. HIV can live in a used needle up to 42 days depending on temperature and other factors."
So proponents of condoms argue that that condoms will prevent the transmission of the disease. That's most likely as true as that condoms guarantee no pregnancy. However, the issue here is that it treats the symptoms, not the disease. Also, it creates more problems.
If you recall how it's transferred, and how the condom debate is concerned, it's through sex. It's rapid spread is not because of people having sex though, it's people having sex with multiple people. If a person who had the disease had sex only with one person, and that person only had sex with that other person, it would not spread like it did. Now consider who is ultimately advocating condoms. They are the people who view that sex is for pleasure, and are using the negative consequences of that view to attack those who don't hold that opinion. That is unjust. Instead, those who see sex as a responsibility are trying to address the disease, not the symptom.
I mentioned there are other issues with the condom debate. One is that it does not limit sexual promiscuity, which is how the disease thrives. Two, those infected with AIDS are not going to use condoms when they want to have children. Three, condoms will cost the Africans so much money. If these people are in poverty, can they afford another necessity? Possibly four since I don't know much about the manufacturing process, the production of condoms in Africa would taint the little water supply they do have.
You have to admit that the abundance in condoms only increase sexual promiscuity. However, since sexual promiscuity is the actual cause of the outbreak of HIV, they won't help in reality. The real help is to being sexually responsible. Of course, the culture today refuses that for a few reasons.
One is the sex industry worth a lot of money. By encouraging sex for pleasure, it allows businesses to operate prostitution, pornography, and make money off sex toys and contraception. Since it's worth money, they try to encourage promiscuity by creating a need that necessarily did not exist. Advocacy for responsible sex does not result in sexual crimes such as rape or cheating, but promoting sexual promiscuity does. This is because sex is no longer an act of true love, but of selfishness. The purpose of sex becomes to fulfill your passionate desires, not to increase your love for someone else.
The second reason why culture does not want to advocate sexual responsibility is because of contradiction. This is a reality. These people have accepted that sex is for pleasure and therefore do not wish to promote anything that is naturally opposed to the selfish desire. People want to do what they believe is right, but to oppose condoms would naturally condemn their opinion that sex is not supposed to be for pleasure, but instead that pleasure is a side-effect.
I hold that sex is a good thing, but it must be taken responsibly. If my wife is feeling sick, I must endure my passion and wait until she's feeling well again. This not only shows actual love toward my wife, but strengthens my spirit. If we have sex every day for pleasure, it's going to make it hard to stay faithful when we cannot do that. Therefore, the best thing to do is to advocate being responsible and oppose anything that threatens it.
To take another perspective, in an area that isn't sexually promiscuous, I don't need to worry about my wife being raped or seduced. That's a big deal and certainly an ideal. I hope this post certainly diminishes any hatred you might have for some people's opinions. We might consider them to be crazy, but they are actually thinking on a much deeper level. Also note that even if they fail to live up to the ideal, that does not mean the ideal is invalid.
With Love,
N. D. Moharo
P. S. You can technically consider this a sequel to my previous post about identifying the root of the homosexual debate. There I described both sides and what they naturally mean, as well as list some concerns. Here I examine the consequences a bit more.
Now for those who are worried about getting HIV, I also found this picture on the same website.
To my understanding, as long as there is no blood contact or mixing, you are okay
To the Zealot and those talking with Zealots,
The word zeal means "great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective." The problem is that this great energy often has people going to the extreme and that leads to problems. So while you can have an appropriate zeal for something good, the kind we hear about isn't always good. Today, I write to you on how to properly understand zeal in religion, as well as its proper practice.
Religion's negative connotation in the world stems from the over-zealous behaviors of many people. However, when practiced properly, religion is a gift to the world and they stem from 2 important commandments.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, which I believe Islam has some respect for as well, there are two key commandments that summarize the Law. The first is "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength (Deut. 6:5)." The second was "You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:28-31; Lev. 19:18)." Religious Zealots tend to try following the first, but ignore the second, which in turn breaks the first.
Elsewhere in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God says, "I do not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn and change his way (Ezekiel 33:11)." If your god is Goodness and Love, this is easy to explain. In order for man to be perfect, he must grow in virtue. Since true love desires what is best for someone, Love naturally desires for a man to become perfect before he dies. Love wants everyone to love and be good, especially those who are wicked. However, if the wicked dies, then he is forever condemned to be wicked. Love would rather he live as long as possible, so that he may convert. On the flip side, that means Evil itself is what delights in the death of the wicked. Therefore, killing for the sake of religion is wrong. It does not encourage True Love, which is the only way society can reach peace and harmony.
So if your religion preaches to kill those it finds wicked, there is something wrong. If you believe in a god who is good and the author of life, he doesn't need you to do any of the killing. Instead, he would be actually capable of using the wicked to bring others closer to him. If your god is good, then he delights more in the wicked being able to convert than the wicked dying.
Something else we must remember is that true conversion takes place in the heart as well as the brain. It cannot be forced by social pressure or the sword. Otherwise the result is someone who acts like a religious, but truly doesn't care. That means if you want someone to join your religion, you must convert his heart and mind, not his fears.
Lastly, I must make a plea. Come to the Religion of True Love. Here, you will find peace and perfection. The world is certainly corrupt, but massive slaughters and violence will only create more corruption. In fact, it is not uncommon that those who order massive slaughters are actually the corrupt. Those who aren't corrupt are then lost. Honest Love for God entails Love for his creation as well.
N. D. Moharo
P.S. Whatever your religion may be, pray for me. ISIS will probably hate me for this post. At the same time, I hope this reaches to all members of ISIS
