↑ RememberLove
Page Created: 6/24/2014 Last Modified: 4/1/2016 Last Generated: 10/22/2024
Being a hypersystemizer, I don't always have my empathy machine turned on, and when my focus is deep into the inner workings of a system, it is especially hard to come out. Like Plato's cave, I am blinded when I come back out into the sun.
Most of my life is spent in the cave, yet I haven't lost my way and can still manage to walk out into the fresh air and blue skies again, and I have enough clarity of mind to convey a message to you, to tell you what truths I have found deep in those recesses.
The more I focused on the structure of the world, the more I neglected its details. To people like me, details are trivial, we store its essence as a compressed skeleton, and lock it tight in chest for when we need it later. The trouble is, our memories are filled with boxes of skeletons instead of colorful imagery of the wondrous life we lived. I distill people down to the principles they stand for, the details of their faces are replaced by patterns of movement. Unless I specifically set out to memorize it, I can't remember what someone actually said, but only what they meant.
I have luckily come to realize that the details are NOT trivial, to ignore the details is to ignore the extreme sophistication and beauty of the living world, not the artificial facade left behind in my memory. It's the difference in magnitude between remembering a beautiful spring day and actually opening your eyes and seeing it.
And the most precious thing in this universe, Love, is encoded in those details. To compress the world into a set of rules strips most of it away. I've encountered this enough times to finally burn a message into my systemizing mind, to Remember Love; it is a detail that must never be forgotten.
There is a power beyond all powers, and its name is Love. I've seen it in the simplest of places, and in the darkest of caves. It is encoded in an ancient and universal language on the walls and in the air, in the microscopic and the parsecs. I see it in the structure too, but it shines in the detail.
It is speaking to you now, reminding you that it is with you.
If you have never met Love, it is waiting for you. If you have and lost it, then you will always long for it to return. It exists in the connections between us, and interacts with the strangers we meet. Every friend you make first begins as a stranger, until you find that connection, and sometimes the connection is profound. Sometimes witnessing this happen to other people makes you feel it--you can even be in the presence of Love, its glow spreads out around it.
What it is, I truly do not know. I can't quantify it. I can't analyze it. But it lives inside us all.
I've experienced it in my dreams for years and never thought it was real, but then experienced it in the waking world and it was there too, and it felt the same. It seems to transcend states of consciousness.
Remember the first time you met that person that you thought was special, that looked back at you and thought you were special too, just the way you were. It may just have been for seconds. Remember that feeling.
Remember the time when you saw someone suffering, and watched as someone appeared like an angel and helped that person. Remember that feeling.
Remember the time when you felt the world on your shoulders, being crushed by burdens that you thought would kill you, and someone unexpectedly came and lifted it off your shoulders. Remember that feeling.
As we live our lives, and come into conflict with people around us, remember that those people are special, as those people are alive at the same moment you are, and on the same planet; they are not simply relics of history. You have the privilege of experiencing their presence and their individuality. They are joining with you to shape the world, bringing life into an otherwise static form. They are you in another form, with a different mind, a different body, a different life, but still you.
There are no god-men. All men have the same type of genetic code, the same limited life spans. All athletes have the same upper limitations, the differences at the top are insignificant. All thinkers have the same brain matter and energy limitations. Men and women are fundamentally the same--the differences are not worth mentioning.
But there is something so important, so valuable about their very being and their willingness to spend some of their time with you.
Remember Love.
Remember that your cells and bones, your feet and hands, your eyes, ears, and stomach are all working for you, taking this journey with you. They are not you, but are employed by you; your little armies. Don't let them down. Don't repay their loyal servitude with vanity. Send your love to them so they know you haven't forgotten them.
And if you are truly alone, separated by time or space, perspective or ideology, and have nobody willing to love you, remember that you are not a single being, but a small part of a Great Being that extends upward into a multitude of levels, a great fractal that goes up into the beyond. It loves you by design, it pays attention, and you will one day be reunited with those that love you. You may be on an island for a long, long time.
But the helicopter is on its way. Someone will come to rescue you. And one day they will reach their hand out and lift you up.
Remember Love.
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