Even, if you’ve already seen this. Maybe it’s time to revisit. Maybe you’ve forgotten the lessons you learned. Or maybe you would benefit from remembering good times.
I’m reading her book right now and I’m thuroughly enjoying it.
“It is flat-out strange that something—that anything—is happening at all. There was nothing, then a Big Bang, then here we all are. This is extremely weird.”
-Ken Wilber
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality
I’ve just started reading The Art of Loving
- That humanity progresses - that is we evolve, learn, and transcend through our timeline.
- That Love is an action, an art which is probably why he uses the term “Loving” instead of love. As an art, Loving must be studied and practiced and mastered.
He says there are several premises that people hold to be true which lead them to conclude that love does not need to be learned, but is in fact very easy. The first being that people believe Love is about being loved rather than loving.
I’ll buy that. I’d say that most conversations I have about relationships are focused on how well my friend’s partner is loving them, not on how well my friend is loving their partner. Think of all the complaints - they don’t treat me right, they did this or that wrong or don’t do it well enough, I’m not attractive enough, how can I make myself sexier or more lovable?
If we believe love is about being loved, then we turn our partners into performers and we turn ourselves into commodities. The groundwork is laid for unhealthy expectations and unhealthy self-image. It denies the worth that is inherent in our humanity and the respect that should come from that. It denies the depths that lie within ourselves and those around us.
I believe that every person is worthy of a basic (and strong) level of love and respect simply for the matter of them being human. This respect cannot be lost to character or crime. It cannot be weighted. It cannot be tapered or buffered. It just is. Any affection or relationship - positive or negative - has to be built on top of that basic love and respect of human life. From what I’ve heard so far, that’s the basic direction this book is headed and I’m excited to read what Fromm has to say.
K - I didn’t get memed, but I’m gonna meme anyway (and verb some nouns while I’m at it).
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
Find Page 123.
Skip the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people (if you want, I don’t care).
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
“Savings furthest downstream will have the greatest leverage in making the upstream equipment smaller, and this saves not just energy but also capital cost. Downstream saving should therefore be done first in order to save the most money.
Downstream-to-upstream thinking is this a special case of a more general rule: Do the right things in the right order.”
That was a fairly dry section, but the book has some really interesting ideas. Natural Capital consists of living systems, resources, and ecosystem services. The idea is that natural capital needs to be taken into account along with human, financial, and manufactured capital. There are some pretty amazing ideas in this book and it would probably be a good idea for us young folks to be aware of as we head into the business world.
Oh, and I’ll tag Nick, Amy, Josh, Matt W, Chris, Ty, Alan, and Ashley
One of my favorite companies, the RIAA, is now maintaining in court that it is unlawful for a person to copy a legally purchased CD onto his or her computer. I’m just about ready to stop buying albums that are connected to the RIAA. You know, sometimes I listen to songs and write out the lyrics in my journal. Do you think I should stop that? I don’t want to get sued. I should probably stop singing out loud too. That might be stealing. Since when did corporations get to write laws in the US? Oh wait…
Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Christian maintain or even suggest that there are actually multiple gods and that some of the authors of the Bible may have believed this. Scott McKnight reviews chapter 3 of God’s Rivals where the author writes about this idea and (judging from the comments) Scott seems to think this is a fairly easy conclusion to make. That got my attention. It seems an idea that would be quickly shot down in discussion.
While we’re on controversial Christian ideas, go vote for the more provocative title: Sex God (Rob Bell) or Pagan Christianity (Frank Viola). I would like to read both, but I don’t know which would sound more shocking to the general church.
One of my new favorite comics:
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net