Love

Hypomnemata

No smothering; no superficiality, but deep and enduring caring.

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Nudges; feedback; aim; steadfastness.

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The care and concern - the providence - is present. All you need to do is observe and ponder.

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Love divorced from wisdom is folly or ambivalence.

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Love of country and family tested Ulysses and Penelope and pushed them to be shrewd.

Thoughts

We must love ourselves. Nature loves us; so we too should love ourselves. But as we are not the only individual in the Cosmos, we are to love others as we love ourselves. Learning wisdom, and living according to Nature for yourself, ought to be first. I think we all can go on that journey together and learn to love ourselves and others. But learning to love others does not mean that we are the same; that we must have the same interests and path.

Do we love people and want them to be little replicas of ourselves? Or do we love people and want them to discover what "living in agreement with Nature" means for them? Or is there another kind of love?

A mother who loves her son so much, that she won't allow his heart to be broken by his girlfriend may not be the same as a mother who counsels her son on what kind of girl is "right" for him and she may not be the same as the mother who doesn't care at all for the kind of girl her son ought to marry. At the heart of the matter is wisdom. The wise love is the love that wants wisdom for all and then having the loyalty to others to help them on their journey.

I love my wife, two daughters and two sons. But that love is demonstrated differently for each. I also have to be mindful that I don't foist my solution to life on to them. While I can counsel them and discuss what life is about, ultimately, their life belongs to them and they must be responsible for it. While sometimes I don't want them to make a certain choice, I nevertheless love them enough to allow them to choose for themselves. While at other times, perhaps they are about to make a grave mistake and I'll do as much as I can to help them help themselves. It's tricky and requires a fine balance.

Quotes

The point is that you do not love yourself - otherwise you would love both your own nature and her purpose for you. Other men love their own pursuit and absorb themselves in its performance to the exclusion of bath and food: but you have less regard for your own nature than the smith has for his metal-work, the dancer for his dancing, the money-grubber for his money, the exhibitionist for his little moment of fame. Yet these people, when impassioned, give up food and sleep for the promotion of their pursuits: and you think social action less important, less worthy of effort? (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.1).

My soul, will you ever be good, simple, individual, bare, brighter than the body that covers you? Will you ever taste the disposition to love and affection? (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.1).

Particular qualities too of the rational soul are love of neighbour, truthfulness, integrity, no higher value than itself. This last is a defining quality of law also. There is thus no difference between the true principle of philosophy and the principle of justice (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.1).

you call yourself simply a part rather than a limb, you do not yet love your fellow men from your heart: doing good does not yet delight you as an end in itself; you are still doing it as a mere duty, not yet as a kindness to yourself (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.13).

[25] Few indeed are those who attend the fair for love of the spectacle, asking, ‘What is the universe, then, and who governs it? No one at all? [26] And yet when a city or household cannot survive for even a very short time without someone to govern it and watch over it, how could it be that such a vast and beautiful structure could be kept so well ordered by mere chance and good luck? [27] So there must be someone governing it. What sort of being is he, and how does he govern it? And we who have been created by him, who are we, and what were we created for? Are we bound together with him in some kind of union and interrelationship, or is that not the case?’

[28] Such are the thoughts that are aroused in this small collection of people; and from then on, they devote their leisure to this one thing alone, to finding out about the festival before they have to take their leave. [29] What comes about, then? They become an object of mockery for the crowd, just as the spectators at an ordinary festival are mocked by the traders; and even the sheep and cattle, if they had sufficient intelligence, would laugh at those who attach value to anything other than fodder! (Epictetus, Discourses 2.14.25-28).

I shouldn’t be unfeeling like a statue, but should preserve my natural and acquired relationships, as one who honours the gods, as a son, as a brother, as a father, as a citizen (Epictetus, Discourses 3.2.4).

But if you get caught in a crowd, call it the games, call it a public gathering, call it a festival, [27] and join in the festival with everyone else. For what sight could be more pleasant to someone who loves his fellow human beings than a crowd of people? We look with pleasure at herds of horses and cattle, and are delighted to see a large fleet of ships; so is one to be distressed to see a crowd of people? (Epictetus, Discourses 4.4.26-27).

'Gentleness, sociability, patience, love of his neighbour.’ Bring him to me, I’ll accept him, I’ll make him my fellow citizen, I’ll accept him as a neighbour or a travelling companion (Epictetus, Discourses 4.5.17).

The first thing which philosophy undertakes to give is fellow-feeling with all men; in other words, sympathy and sociability. We part company with our promise if we are unlike other men. We must see to it that the means by which we wish to draw admiration be not absurd and odious (Seneca, Moral Letters 5.4).

Citations and further reading

Aurelius, M., & Hammond, M. (2014). Meditations.

Epictetus, ., Hard, R., & Gill, C. (2014). Discourses, fragments, handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Seneca, L. A., & Gummere, R. M. (1917). Ad Lucilium epistulae morales: London: Heinemann.