In grade school, it was fun to play with the girls until the boys shamed me into playing with them.
As well, I was subtly bullied by a girl in Grade 6 when in Grade 2, due to her frustration in teaching me math that was simple for her but mysterious to me.
Though that never stopped me from excelling at math.
Then after Grade Three I spent the summer holiday with my first crush.
However, he teasing in Grade Four after my classmates found out I had a summer crush led me to realise romance has to be discreet ie not in my hometown.
The fact that my mother put a stop to it due to being late for supper makes me cautious lest I ruin my relationship with my roommates.
However, the best kind of love is between friends. This love has many names, but two of them are familiarly known as Agape and Eros.
Both Agapé and Eros are two sides of the same coin called human love.
Human love is so fickle though.
Unconditional love demands us to stop placing conditions on love. This is why friends love each other dearly: their love is unconditioned.
However, the only rule in friendship is remain loyal to each other, though it is loyalty with discretion.
Yet friendships rely on each of us to respect each other's right to be free, and to grow as individuals.
However, do not expect a friend to do anything for you, since it may lead to conflict. Such an expectation is unreasonable since it expects too much of a friend.
Do expect a close friend to be there when you need them but remember: friends are not slaves to be toyed with.
If you want anyone who is your friend to become reliable, then be reliable to them. Do anything for them as is necessary, and limit yourselves accordingly.
A good friend is a loyal helpmate. You are that friend.
My first crush was my best female friend, not a girlfriend but a friend who happened to be a girl.
I am happy that such a friend exists for me.
It can only be platonic though, for a man ought to be mature enough to call BS on the myth about platonic friendships.
Indeed it is a pernicious lie to assume a platonic relationship has a subtle sexual ambiance to it.
This lie is based on the error about the mythical libido, which is misinterpreted as the sex drive.
Libido actually is related to life and its propagation, and can be successfully sublimed into service, be it work or play.
Returning to my first crush, it was play that brought us together. Yet duty to my family nipped that in the bud.
Thus the libido must often be tamed, lest friendships be threatened by its excess.
So, my mother helped me to tame my libido by putting a curfew on me.
I suppose the cruelty such as beatings and burning moxibustion only showed the dark side of mother love - but because it was child abuse, it only served to make me fiercely independent when I was younger.
Yet here I am today realising that social isolation might be a side effect of the strong impression at a young age that I ought not associate with anyone lest they learn how dysfunctional I am.
However, the friends that I have show me that they tolerate whatever eccentricities I may have, which helps to moderate my behaviour accordingly.
For that is what unconditional love is actually about: accepting each other, warts and all.
Through daily meditation and prayer,
I daily sublimate Eros, and thus transform its motivational energy into Agapé, the vital essence of unconditional love.
Based on your life experiences, which love is the original love?
Remember: the libido is a manmade construct to explain sexuality, which too is manmade. While Eros and Agapé are two sides of love, the libido, Eros itself, is the subconscious call of the wild to propagate the species, which originates in each living being's survival mechanism.
In contrast Agapé is unconditional love which is the subconscious call from God Almighty to be of service to him by being a standing minister to worldly Gentiles and the apostates in the world today, often by being like an angel in disguise.
IMHO I feel that a healthy balance between Agapé and Eros is not often possible.
It is my contention that the gross energy of Eros (the libido) has often been sublimated and thus energizes Agapé. However sex is not love.
Therefore the sublimated libido energizes unconditional love. At the same time, that Love helps each of us through the grace of God to tame the libido.
I remember as a young boy how I was slowly growing out of control due to family strife due to my birth defects being used by my paternal grandmother shaming my mother because of those defects.
When it turned out that one of her sons, my uncle, had died of complications due to epilepsy, that foiled my grandmother. It is sad when a parent mentally abuses a daughter or son like this, and tragic especially when the same is done to an in-law.
Yet unconditional love is something we experience so little of in the world but have the opportunity to practice in the meetinghouse.
Still, it ought to be shared with the world, often without mentioning God Almighty, who made the world in six days not that we love Him only on the Sabbath, but also for the rest of the week from Monday to Saturday.
By sharing unconditional love with the world, it is then possible for standing ministers to share the Gospel with like minded Gentiles, so that they may come to know the truth about the LDS church.
For example, I have recently found Mormon cosmology to be almost like a light version of Buddhist cosmology, without the cycle of reincarnation and lacking the fullness of its Buddhist counterpart.
Of course, I attribute this to my ignorance of the richness inherent in Mormon cosmology due to my apostasy before baptism and LDS membership.
However, Buddhist cosmology contains a multitude of Buddha worlds of which the Pure Land is one.
IMHO the worlds awaiting the LDS members bound for celestial glory are like the Pure Land.
Yet the LDS literature is vague about the many worlds that those celestial latter day saints inherit.
With an understanding of Agapé and Eros, and of their respective commonplace terms, unconditional love and the libido, it is likely to help put human love into perspective.
Firstly, Agape is Love unconditioned and uncorrupted by carnal love, Eros.
Through the grace of God, after consistent prayer and meditation by a Mormon, Eros is sublimated which subtly energizes Agapé.
Thus is carnal love sublimated into unconditional love. However love is not sex.
Overall the Christ's call to love one another is tempered with his command to love your enemies and also to turn the other cheek ie accept the mental cruelty of zealous anti Mormon cultists without complaint.
As well, I was subtly bullied by a girl in Grade 6 when in Grade 2, due to her frustration in teaching me math that was simple for her but mysterious to me.
Though that never stopped me from excelling at math.
Then after Grade Three I spent the summer holiday with my first crush.
However, he teasing in Grade Four after my classmates found out I had a summer crush led me to realise romance has to be discreet ie not in my hometown.
The fact that my mother put a stop to it due to being late for supper makes me cautious lest I ruin my relationship with my roommates.
However, the best kind of love is between friends. This love has many names, but two of them are familiarly known as Agape and Eros.
Both Agapé and Eros are two sides of the same coin called human love.
Human love is so fickle though.
Unconditional love demands us to stop placing conditions on love. This is why friends love each other dearly: their love is unconditioned.
However, the only rule in friendship is remain loyal to each other, though it is loyalty with discretion.
Yet friendships rely on each of us to respect each other's right to be free, and to grow as individuals.
However, do not expect a friend to do anything for you, since it may lead to conflict. Such an expectation is unreasonable since it expects too much of a friend.
Do expect a close friend to be there when you need them but remember: friends are not slaves to be toyed with.
If you want anyone who is your friend to become reliable, then be reliable to them. Do anything for them as is necessary, and limit yourselves accordingly.
A good friend is a loyal helpmate. You are that friend.
My first crush was my best female friend, not a girlfriend but a friend who happened to be a girl.
I am happy that such a friend exists for me.
It can only be platonic though, for a man ought to be mature enough to call BS on the myth about platonic friendships.
Indeed it is a pernicious lie to assume a platonic relationship has a subtle sexual ambiance to it.
This lie is based on the error about the mythical libido, which is misinterpreted as the sex drive.
Libido actually is related to life and its propagation, and can be successfully sublimed into service, be it work or play.
Returning to my first crush, it was play that brought us together. Yet duty to my family nipped that in the bud.
Thus the libido must often be tamed, lest friendships be threatened by its excess.
So, my mother helped me to tame my libido by putting a curfew on me.
I suppose the cruelty such as beatings and burning moxibustion only showed the dark side of mother love - but because it was child abuse, it only served to make me fiercely independent when I was younger.
Yet here I am today realising that social isolation might be a side effect of the strong impression at a young age that I ought not associate with anyone lest they learn how dysfunctional I am.
However, the friends that I have show me that they tolerate whatever eccentricities I may have, which helps to moderate my behaviour accordingly.
For that is what unconditional love is actually about: accepting each other, warts and all.
Through daily meditation and prayer,
I daily sublimate Eros, and thus transform its motivational energy into Agapé, the vital essence of unconditional love.
Based on your life experiences, which love is the original love?
Remember: the libido is a manmade construct to explain sexuality, which too is manmade. While Eros and Agapé are two sides of love, the libido, Eros itself, is the subconscious call of the wild to propagate the species, which originates in each living being's survival mechanism.
In contrast Agapé is unconditional love which is the subconscious call from God Almighty to be of service to him by being a standing minister to worldly Gentiles and the apostates in the world today, often by being like an angel in disguise.
IMHO I feel that a healthy balance between Agapé and Eros is not often possible.
It is my contention that the gross energy of Eros (the libido) has often been sublimated and thus energizes Agapé. However sex is not love.
Therefore the sublimated libido energizes unconditional love. At the same time, that Love helps each of us through the grace of God to tame the libido.
I remember as a young boy how I was slowly growing out of control due to family strife due to my birth defects being used by my paternal grandmother shaming my mother because of those defects.
When it turned out that one of her sons, my uncle, had died of complications due to epilepsy, that foiled my grandmother. It is sad when a parent mentally abuses a daughter or son like this, and tragic especially when the same is done to an in-law.
Yet unconditional love is something we experience so little of in the world but have the opportunity to practice in the meetinghouse.
Still, it ought to be shared with the world, often without mentioning God Almighty, who made the world in six days not that we love Him only on the Sabbath, but also for the rest of the week from Monday to Saturday.
By sharing unconditional love with the world, it is then possible for standing ministers to share the Gospel with like minded Gentiles, so that they may come to know the truth about the LDS church.
For example, I have recently found Mormon cosmology to be almost like a light version of Buddhist cosmology, without the cycle of reincarnation and lacking the fullness of its Buddhist counterpart.
Of course, I attribute this to my ignorance of the richness inherent in Mormon cosmology due to my apostasy before baptism and LDS membership.
However, Buddhist cosmology contains a multitude of Buddha worlds of which the Pure Land is one.
IMHO the worlds awaiting the LDS members bound for celestial glory are like the Pure Land.
Yet the LDS literature is vague about the many worlds that those celestial latter day saints inherit.
With an understanding of Agapé and Eros, and of their respective commonplace terms, unconditional love and the libido, it is likely to help put human love into perspective.
Firstly, Agape is Love unconditioned and uncorrupted by carnal love, Eros.
Through the grace of God, after consistent prayer and meditation by a Mormon, Eros is sublimated which subtly energizes Agapé.
Thus is carnal love sublimated into unconditional love. However love is not sex.
Overall the Christ's call to love one another is tempered with his command to love your enemies and also to turn the other cheek ie accept the mental cruelty of zealous anti Mormon cultists without complaint.
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