@SeekingPlumb

"You can't love what you can't understand." πŸ€”

And I'm wondering, I'm sort of stuck on this can we truly love that which we don't understand? They talk about the double empathy problem with respect to people who are autistic versus holistic, ie. People who are not autistic because there are such different ways of perceiving the world. There's a difficulty of how to show empathy or receive empathy when the other group does it so differently from the group that we are part of
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@OwenWilsonsNoze
Lindsey Morrison
@OwenWilsonsNozeΒ Β·Β 2:48

πŸ’žπŸ€·β€β™€οΈ

I've always been really empathic to the point my grandma would be like I may be singing these songs are like seven heartbreak and just gut wrenching things and I could really tap into those types of things without of course knowing or experiencing it. My grandmother would be like how the heck how do you know that? I'm like, I don't know. I watch Oprah. I don't know but anyway yeah I don't know if I've added anything here, I'm sorry
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@SeekingPlumb

@OwenWilsonsNoze

And I don't know that I can necessarily nail down a definition of love because that word is so woefully inadequate and is used in so many different contexts. I mean, even bringing in the idea of empathy, I learned this past year or so that there are two different kinds. One is cognitive and one is effective
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@Binati_Sheth
Binati Sheth
@Binati_ShethΒ Β·Β 4:58

@SeekingPlumb

Hello. I think you are having difficulty with this because you are not considering time as a variable. Because one of the things that I think we all get massively wrong about love, in my opinion, is that we assume that it is permanent and that it is universal and that everyone understands what it is and has the ways and the means to express it the way we expect them to. So I think one, you touched upon the latter bit for sure
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@SeekingPlumb

@Binati_Sheth

And I think that that's all the more true when we're talking about people because there's so many moving parts from the way that we from love being a choice to it being a neuro chemical thing. To the words we use to describe what it is we're feeling. To the ways that we express it. The capacity we have for expressing love in action or word. The way that it's received. The language that they use. Or the understanding that they have
1
@iamatopodcast
Shehla Faizi
@iamatopodcastΒ Β·Β 4:30
And I have seen this that people who fall in love from different cultural, religious backgrounds, they stay together because even though they have so many differences, things that they might not understand about one another, language, linguistic differences that they come from different language backgrounds but then they're like no, I want to be with this person. Let me see if I can grow as a person to find out more about the other person. That's what love is
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@SeekingPlumb

@iamatopodcast

I know we talk about love being a choice, but for whatever reason, in the way that you frame this, it hit home a little differently. It's a choice. But there's also this desire or effort to make that choice, to invest, to evolve with that other person. And it may require different effort or different endeavors or attempts or this or that because the person is different. Let's say, however that might be
1
@iamatopodcast
Shehla Faizi
@iamatopodcastΒ Β·Β 2:48

@SeekingPlumb

And whether they want to make that effort or not is on them. It's not on the person who should be on the receiving end. Like, there are so many people, so many parents who say they love their kids, but their actions speak otherwise. And that's not the child's fault. It is the fault of the parents. 100%. Not all kids are easy, but it is our duty as parents to love them
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@SeekingPlumb

@iamatopodcast

If the choice is already difficult, I'm blending these ideas of rejection by strangers and love for whatever reason, but if it's already requires additional effort to love me, if I'm creating in this other space with strangers, not about love, but if I'm creating a more unpalatable interaction, is it something I'm doing that I want to change about myself? Right?
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@iamatopodcast
Shehla Faizi
@iamatopodcastΒ Β·Β 4:50

@SeekingPlumb

Ah, Christina. Yes, the micro rejection, I know that too well, especially after a long weekend when you have to pretend to socialize with other people. That happens a lot. Here's the thing about that. You have to excuse myself cat. The thing with that is, again, you have to figure out from where are you approaching other people if you are approaching other people in your social interactions with them from a place of honesty and doing no harm, not being arrogant
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@SeekingPlumb

@iamatopodcast

And there's no rhyme or reason to it. And it's not necessarily anything to point out. It just is. And I think I got lost there in the leads. So thank you for that reminder. And also, that was a great point that in some ways it's irrelevant about love coming into my life. I'm content, and if it comes, it comes. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But there's nothing I can do to change that
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@AbsolutePhenom
Karen Kimberly Pickering
@AbsolutePhenomΒ Β·Β 4:41

To understand love vs to have your love understood

So the resonating with those things that bring you joy is how to understand your love, to quiet yourself and feel it instead of rush around trying to gather a lot of it, you'll know, when it's enough and it'll sit well with you. And I wish everybody all the love, all the love that I know. Thanks for posting. Think, Christina. This is a great topic
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@SeekingPlumb

@AbsolutePhenom

But I think that's not the entire picture and it's our completedness if there's even a thing of being loved, also is relational and having someone else see us, someone else quote, unquote understand or seeking to understand us. And I think you're right. There is no state of full understanding. It's just constant seeking as we get closer and closer. And that's all we can really ask, right, is for someone to try to quote, unquote see us. Thank you
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@countryswell
Carey Braidt
@countryswellΒ Β·Β 4:48
Or I guess when I'm describing my love for my children or my love for my husband, the word love doesn't even seem to be enough because we use the word casually in so many other ways. So being that I don't think I can truly completely understand and describe the definition of love, I would say you, of course, can love without understanding. But when you switch it to that dynamic of you can't love what you can't seek to understand, that's a little different
article image placeholderUploaded by @countryswell
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@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardesΒ Β·Β 1:07

@countryswell

For me, being in the process of wanting to know and love something or someone as opposed to being tied down to the concrete aspects of the knowledge and understanding, it's secondary to the experiences of being in it and feeling the experience of being in it. Love that is yes, very provocative
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@SeekingPlumb

@countryswell

But as I look at it and I just appreciate the bumps and texture on it, the lighting, the color against the green of the bushes and so on, I can only imagine what's going through with mind. And anyway, the entire thing created this beautiful imagery around these ideas of love and understanding. And you made me wonder about the idea of whether understanding on the whole, whether it would be about or always be an act of love
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@countryswell
Carey Braidt
@countryswellΒ Β·Β 0:31

@SeekingPlumb

So very glad that you enjoyed the picture I shared and my response continued to probe your thoughts. Just a great discussion and thank you for the feedback and wishing you just a wonderful thought provoking and positive day wherever you are
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@AbsolutePhenom
Karen Kimberly Pickering
@AbsolutePhenomΒ Β·Β 2:39
He'll look back on that and remember what probably seems to him this huge red door, or gate rather well. I can't imagine actually the magical places he goes to in that garden. And that makes you that magic grandma. And there's your love. There's your love. And I don't think anybody really needs to understand that. Just be in love with that whole thing. Anyways, it's a beautiful picture. And I bet he is just the most charming little man
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@countryswell
Carey Braidt
@countryswellΒ Β·Β 3:21

@AbsolutePhenom

Oh, my goodness. I absolutely love that. I sparked a memory of you and your grandparents and your memories of swinging on the garden gate and eating warm cherry tomatoes. I love picking the cherry tomatoes right out of the garden and eating them almost as if they were grapes. Same with sugar snap peas and string beans. I think I eat more of those within the fence of the garden than I do in the kitchen
article image placeholderUploaded by @countryswell
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@SeekingPlumb

@AbsolutePhenom

Thank you for your kind words. I'm sorry that I'm causing brain pain, but on the other hand, I suppose it's enjoyable pain, so you're welcome. I don't know, but I enjoy the the teasing apart and the tugging of ideas. Ideas as well. And I'm living vicariously through you when you enjoy your ice cream. Thank you for adding your thoughts to this. Well
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@AbsolutePhenom
Karen Kimberly Pickering
@AbsolutePhenomΒ Β·Β 1:29
Okay, Carrie, now you've done it. Where do you live? I have to come over. I need some beans. I love beans in the garden. I love them. I'm I live in Iowa, so garden here
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@countryswell
Carey Braidt
@countryswellΒ Β·Β 1:14

@AbsolutePhenom

Yes, this has been a wonderful thread of lots of love and understanding and imaginative thoughts and personal reflection and memory stirring. So, yes, it's been great. I'm located in southern Vermont and it is really a peaceful, little slower part of New England and truly blessed to have neighbors to love and family within an hour or two to visit and all the things a small rural community can provide, which includes lots of love and understanding
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