I Love “Like”
To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.
~ Woody Allen
I think we all know what “I love you” should connote.
A thought I have had is perhaps “Like” is underrated?
Intimate love is perhaps the most conditional of all relationships you will enter into in your life. Unconditional love? It exists in only a few places I can think of, such as a parent for their child. You serial kill 6 people with an ax, Mom will probably still come visit her baby boy in prison.
In feudal Japan, when the West first met the East, it was quickly noted that the Japanese didn’t have a word the equivalent for what the Europeans described as “love.” They had words that described duty, honor, respect, however there was nothing that could match the the sheer expanse of the word LOVE.
We all know what we want “Love” to mean. We want it to be shorthand for I really really really really really really “like” you!
I spoke with a happy couple last month and the husband said “I love my wife, of course, but you know what, I really like her too”
“Like” is a word that has been passed by, robbed of its power. “Like” is wonderful, “like” is giddy and playful. “Like” is filled with potential and growth. “Like” is wondrous and enjoyable. The love we long for is really “like” to the 9th degree.
“Virtuous Love” that the Greek sophists spoke of is really more in line with the feeling we experience in “Like.” “Like” is accepting, “like” is seeing the good in things. “Like” is gentle and compromising. “Like” isn’t fleeting. “Like” is the beginning of a conversation and welcoming differing opinions and beliefs. “Like” is without unreasonable desire. “Like” does not long for reciprocation. “Like” is pretty darn pure.
When someone says “I like this color paint for the wall” they are beginning a dialogue, they have created a safe environment for input and healthy debate. They are being inclusive. What does “like say?” “I am not too concerned about the outcome, i am present and engaged and going with the flow.”
Lets change that around. I LOVE this color paint for THAT wall! What does that say? “Anything you respond with that isn’t in agreement with me is putting me down. I don’t care what your opinion is, if it differs from my taste you are just wrong! “
I was telling someone about my father and I said, “Y’know what? Of course I love my dad…but I have to say I really like being around him he is a cool dude!”
“Like” is timeless. “Like” is something that can constantly grow.
If disinterest is the opposite of Love then “Dis-like” is the opposite of “Like.” “Dislike” is very rational. “Dislike” isn’t entirely emotional it is contemplated and it lacks any real intensity. “Dislike” is a preference and it is not too firm but based on experience. “Dislike” is intelligent. “Like” is equally all of these things but in the opposite direction.
“Like” has been overshadowed for so long, but “like” is something that connotes a smile and hug.
“Like,” is a universal emotion that knows no bounds, that is complete without a reciprocal response of “I like you too.” Perhaps “Like” is the simple, accepting, ever lasting notion we all aspire to, and it has been sitting their waiting to be unearthed for eons? “Like” knows no dogma, “like” is not fundamentalist, “like” has no requirements. You rarely find yourself trying to impress someone with how much you “like” them. “Like” is a personal notion that you have just because well…you like it.
Can you feel the like?
I love like.
Meditate on that
