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The meaning of love

The meaning of love

What does 'Love' mean?

Love is proactive, not passive.  Love reaches out.  Love is empathic.  'Evil' at the very least is the absence of empathy.  'Evil' is malicious and destructive.  Love is creative and constructive.

To love:

  • Be good-humoured and considerate. 

  • Nurture and promote life.  Do not take life[1], except in the probable defence of life.  Have children[2] if you have the material and emotional strength to cherish and raise them well. 

  • Assume best intent – give people the benefit of the doubt until they prove you wrong. 

  • Do not needlessly speak ill of others.  If you must admonish or criticise another do so face-to-face in private. 

  • Help those in need that are within your reach, are not freeloaders[3], and want your help, especially when this places you at risk. 

  • Be true to your word.  Honour your commitments, especially when at significant cost to yourself. 

  • Do not cheat, lie, steal, damage or destroy in normal daily interactions, whether at work, at play, or at home.

  • Respect the rights of others.  All who meet their responsibilities and obligations[4] as global citizens have:

  • Act as a guardian[10] of common resources.  Where property rights are not defined or enforced, or are held in common, treat those resources as if you were holding them in trust for society and for future generations[11].  Take the vandalism of public property as vandalism of your own property.  Take personally the plundering of the Earth's biosphere[12] as a diminution of your children's birthright. 

  • Know and forgive your enemies and those who have wronged you.  Know who your enemies are and understand them.  Neutralise them with empathy, humour, kindness, indifference, or pre-emption[13].  Turn the other cheek only when you have no other choice.  Don't cower and submit[14].  Don't seek vengeance[15].  Don't exhaust your precious energy in gnawing on wrongs that have been done to you.  If you must strike in self-defence, strike effectively.

Footnotes
  1. Do not take life | The sanctity of life?
  2. Have children |
  3. are not freeloaders | Corrosive charity
  4. obligations | I will love you if you want me to
  5. The Right to Forego Rights | The right to forego rights
  6. The Right to Die | The right to die?
  7. The Right to Communicate | The right to communicate
  8. The Right to Privacy and Data Integrity | The right to privacy and data integrity
  9. The Right to Migrate | The right to migrate
  10. Act as a guardian | The serene guardians
  11. future generations | Be parsimonious
  12. the plundering of the Earth's biosphere | Market failure
  13. pre-emption | War?
  14. Don't cower and submit | The meek will not inherit the earth
  15. vengeance | The drivers of human behaviour

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