Raising Funny Kids 45: On Love and Details

I engaged in a highly intriguing discussion with my daughter the other day on the subject of love. As I pondered what specifics it was that causes people to love, my logician's brain hard at work, she responded with something so poignantly simple that it stopped me cold in my deliberation. She said sometimes you just love. There doesn't need to be a reason. 

There doesn't need to be a list of details. All that list does is give you more reasons to love. As I thought about why I love my daughter, none of the details hit my brain first. It was just her. Simple, standing there looking at me with all her loveliness. I had to think about the details, and the details were just lovely. Sweet, kind, extraordinary intellect, regal, edgy, creative... spunky! I could fill blogs on my observations.

Then in dawns on me that sometimes people give off other kinds of lists. You know the kind. They're called problems or things that bug us. And in that moment I saw this kind of illuminated path between the two experiences. One truly is about love. Real love. Whatever it is, it is a force. The other is about the details. That's where all the sarcasm, frustrations, and so-called problems lie. And while the two may resemble one another on the outside, while the two may have a vested interest in each others' lives, they're totally different.

One could argue that the person who focuses on the problems is a realist. But I'd have to remind this person that reality is a matter of subjective perspective. There are multiple realities because there are multiple perceivers. String theory multi worlds hypothesis totally proved when one defines an entity as composing an entire world. Are we not mini worlds in and of ourselves? Existing in a multitude of forms, this one presently conscious of its form. So, the many worlds theory exists because we exist. 

It is a peculiar thing how the mind reasons, which directions it takes after being exposed to a simple truism. The truth of the matter is that my daughter is right. Sometimes we just love. We fill in the reasons afterwards.

If we made love a priority in the world. If we supported the cause of love how would things change? How would people perceive one another? How can we as a world society fail to teach love in schools when most everyone in the world claims that it is love that makes life worth living? If love is so important to us, why isn't it on the approved curricula of every learning institution in the world? 

And what about the other courses? Courses on compassion, on listening, on imagining. Do we not value these concepts? Why do we exclude them? If we fill our days with other details, how are we expected to have time to think about and explore the concepts that every ancient wisdom writer valued above all other earthly experiences? 

It does make you wonder. 

Loving someone is kind of similar. Instead of finding reasons why you shouldn't love them, you just keep wondering about all the things that remind you that you do love them. Every detail becomes a new unique aspect of their very special identity. Instantly you find yourself thinking about the things that make you laugh or smile or feel warm and happy on the inside ... or things that intrigue, delight, or otherwise fill you with admiration or curiosity. 

If we teach children to recognize love, we can teach them how to explore the details that support it. Imagine a pre-school class... "Okay, now children, why do we love people from Australia? Let's look at all the wonderful things about their culture that make them interesting to us."

An education focused on the best things about our world teaches us to see the beauty first, find the solutions faster, and sustain the experience for ourselves and others because we simultaneously mirror that which we perceive. Mirroring the beauty in the world results in our creating more wonderful things for all the world to share.

If we raise a generation of human beings to look out at the world and think about all the things they love about life, the details they encounter will look different. Most of the details will simply inspire them ... when they encounters situations where there is still work to be done, the solutions will be easier to see.

If world leaders came together with love in their heart for all the world's citizens, with the goal to keep everyone happy, things would work out much easier and the details would all just be part of the solution. There would follow true introspection (vs merely analysis) as to how to avoid loosing sight of the whole world's self-proclaimed greatest joy in life: love.