Concepts

Concept #1:

Reading Eckhart. Talking about love and why so much of it is painful.
His theory is that most of us use love to make up for holes in our own psyches. To fill gaps. Like Rocky Balboa. It worked for Rocky but it doesn't for us.
You are feeling inadequate, someone comes along that dazzles you and you feel complete in their company. You fall in love and make some sort of commitment.
But because you are not whole and the only thing that can make you whole is you, the love becomes inadequate. And when feelings of inadequacy return, you blame your partner. You get mean and attack them with words and attitudes and moods. And, if you are a real a**hole, with fists.
They react to protect themselves and the whole thing spirals out of control. The classic love/hate relationship.
This makes sense to me and it comes down to the cliche "You have to love yourself before you can love someone else."
Loving yourself being defined as living for the moment, forgetting about the past, not worrying about the future, dealing with this moment and revelling in the peace that that brings.
Step by step, baby.
But it is harder than it sounds because all of us are so damaged. Some are good at hiding it but I believe we are all damaged. And a lot of us are more damaged than we realize or are so caught up in the playacting that we don't even realize or won't admit that we are damaged.
So you can't love.

Concept#2:
Listening to NPR yesterday, a discussion on presidential campaign speeches and whether or not we really want to know the truth. The focus was on how both campaigns take snippets of speeches or comments out of context and use them to make the opponent look bad. Then they each argue about the truth.
A study was done suggesting that we are not looking for truth. We are looking for something to support our own opinions.
In other words, if the snippet supports your belief that President Obama is a communist, that's all you care about. You will accept it and don't care to get at the truth.
This is what is dangerous about the juvenile American campaign process. And about our laziness as Americans and as humans.
I believe this concept. It makes sense to me. Truth is hard. Truth can hurt.
It is easier to keep believing what you believe.

Too much to deal with here. Gotta take a walk.