I think I will offer my definition of love to start: love is the natural state of being with another person. What I mean by this is that when we are with other persons and we are in touch with our emotions, we find kindness, compassion, encouragement, trust, gentleness, consideration, and warm regard naturally arising for others. When we are with others, we can verbally communicate our feelings with gentle declarations, emphatic exclamations, and earnest descriptions, but only when we are truly in touch with our own feelings. Verbally saying, “I love you,” and how one says it, is an …
On accepting a compliment
There are a multitude of reactions whenever I give a compliment to another person, usually along the lines of genuine acceptance, a greedy grab, cold rejection, casual dismissal, or even a minimization to the point of not being a personal compliment at all. I’m talking about an actual compliment, a felt statement of appreciation and respect for another person, not empty praise, which does not truly touch a person’s sense of worth or their impact upon another person. Compliments are our way of reaching out to another person, holding our emotions, giving a place in our hearts, and acknowledging the …
On thinking about sex
I often think about sex, more specifically the complicated way we come to understand ourselves as sexual beings. I think about all the ways that we, as a society, and fellow human beings, talk about sex trivially even as it is sensationalized. Most people are comfortable discussing sex in terms of numbers, timing, and measurements, but rarely in terms of emotions and meaning. However, we must discuss the emotion and meaning of sex if we are ever to think honestly about sex. There are many ways that a person can run away from examining their sexual nature. A person can …
On saying “yes” to “no”
On saying yes to no I think of integrity as the internal place from where we find our own footing in this world. It is how we learn to stand up for who we are. It is how we learn to love ourselves. It is essential for confidence, conviction, and character, not in the sense of thinly drawn personal motifs and habitual euphemisms, but character in the sense of the impression that we leave on others and on the world. Our presence. Our self-worth. Our ability to love. Our footprint. Figuring out what we want is difficult. Declaring what we …