The "other" four letter words....

[FlamingoBlue]

They are love and fear. In my opinion. they are the basis of all human emotion. I know it sounds simplistic, but when I reflect on my own experiences, I either act on the fear side or the love side.

blue

 

[CreamyLady]

I burned out my brain on the Zen and the Art of Rogaine thread. I think this is something Felix should address.

 

[Expertise]

You forgot about hate and pain. Sorry kind of a black mood i'm in this morning. True though.

 

[Hecate]

And I always thought

the other "four letter word" was HATE

Never thought about fear ...

 

[KillerMuffin]

Lol, Tao cooks my noggin too CL. I don't blame you in the least. It would be interesting to see what Felix has to say about Zen and the art of Rogaine as well.

I have always wondered if fear and love were the basis for the id, the ego. They drives me as well as you Blue. The origins of the instinct to fear is rather easily puzzled out. Fear releases adrenaline. Adrenaline gives us heightened sensory awareness and the ability to move from danger fast. Love however? That one is a different kettle of philodendron. We see animal behavior and some call their nurturing and care towards each other love. Some call it base instinct. Is love instinct? Or does it transcend into something else?

 

[Myrrdin]

Perhaps we should all count ourselves fortunate,

that the basic human emotion that drives us on is

not hunger.

 

[Patryn]

I'm sorry, that's just not possible. We can react of out love, fear, hate, pain, or lust, all of which are distinctly different emotions. Not to mention jealousy, or anger, or joy, for that matter. You cannot debase something as complex as the human mind into two basic emotions.

 

[FlamingoBlue]

Think about it...

What is hate, but fear. Get behind the feelings to the root.

blue

 

[CreamyLady]

Hate is not necessarily rooted in fear. Hate does not have to come from a fear of something; hate, rather, can come of revulsion -- a different feeling altogether.

 

[Expertise]

I can attest to the fact that there are people, situations and organizations that I hate but certainly don't fear.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

I "hate" the word hate.

Here's some math for you all - (Math amongst the Literocracy?) (I love making up words!)

YES!

HUMIG + J + G = H

The human emotions of jealousy and greed - greed and jealousy (The cart before the horse or hand-in-hand?) - those two single emotions, born strictly from human ignorance, actually "create" hate.

It's a simple equation: HIMG (human ignorance) + J (jealousy) + G (greed) = H (hate)

And anyone who hates, or is capable of hating and denies that this equation exists, denies that they are ignorant or jealousy or greedy - well….

THEY'RE JUST FUCKING STUPID….. aren't they.

 

[CreamyLady]

I must disagree with you, Sparky. I don't think it is just jealousy and greed that lead to hate, anymore than I think it is just fear.

I also don't think that people who deny their motivations are stupid. Misguided, certainly, and possibly self-deluded, but not necessarily stupid.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Okay - Ms Lady - I'll bite

What else fuels hate? I realize that I oversimplify - simply for the sake of brevity. But I seems to me that no matter how complex a certain, personal, experience with hatred may be (and humanely understandable to a large degree) it would still boil down to these simple elements. I didn't even come close to indicating that I may be above hate - I'm not. I could hate easily. Fortunately I have not been damaged that severely - yet.

 

[CreamyLady]

In the case of hate being the flip side of love, I would have to say revulsion of feeling. Something has occurred which has caused the loved one to become the hated one.

It need not be founded in jealousy, because, perhaps, the loved one did nothing to excite it. Greed? Again, maybe that isn't the trigger.

How about hurt? The loved one has done something which hurts the lover on some level so badly that he, or she, cannot entertain the idea of love.

It may not last forever; it might actually last only a few secons, but the emotion of hate would be definitely present.

 

[Samuari]

Now we have Sparky's Pseudo-Psyco Calculus. A whole new field of resurch for the inquiring mind (its a terrible thing to waste).

Seriuosly, the tradional understanding is that the basic drives are reproduction and power. Emotions like love, hate, fear, etc. are attempts to rationalize "I want this man'/woman's genes in my family", or "I need this hunting area so I won't go hungry"

[Edited by Samuari on 08-28-2000 at 09:28 AM]

 

[Expertise]

Try stepping into the courtyard of a convent school where the bodies of 78 children and thier parents lay butchered and bludgeoned with machetes knives axes and clubs and see how your fucking equation stands up to scrutiny.

Was I ignorant of the "human" condition that drives people to such acts? Possibly. Was I jealous of their fate? Or was I greedy for their possesions? They had thier last one, however intangeable, taken away from them that morning. That being hope.

Everybody thinks they have all the simple fucking answers to life. Jesus.

 

[FlamingoBlue]

I may not have the answers....

But I sure got lots of questions.

blue

 

[CreamyLady]

The answer, Blue, is 42. As for the question, well . . .

 

[Boo]

Personally, I think my emotions are characterized by a fear of love. Been working on it but there it is. As far as the emotion hate is concerned, it seems to me that it doesn't exist without love. My personal experience is that in order to feel something as strong as hate for another, I must have first truly loved that person and then felt terribly betrayed. And then, since its all tangled up with my love emotions, the hating is really not true hatred but dissapointment. Remember the Pretenders song with the lyrics "Its a thin line, between love and hate...."? So, so true.

Boo

[Edited by Boo on 08-28-2000 at 09:53 AM]

 

[Lasher]

I Gotta Agree With Patryn on this one...

You cannot debase something as complex as the human mind into two basic emotions.

You've got some kind of goofy calender on your desk, don't you Flamingo??

What is it??

365 Incomplete Thoughts??

(oh, wait, this is leap year, so we've got an extra one to look forward to, don't we?)

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Yeah - well...

I don't think I ever said "hate was wrong." Well, let me clarify - I do think it's wrong but highly understandable.

And - it's my strong hunch that ignorance and greed played a strong role in the deaths of those children you mention Exp. War is hell (c'mon you know that) - and hell, most often is a time-honored (well maybe not honored exactly but accepted) strategy. So a soldier must "condition oneself" no matter what side they find themselves on. Condition oneself toward surviving atrocity. Sure, sometimes gleeful, evil, joy (as in insane gleeful killing) seems to play an overt role in such atrocities but it is rare to find so many, "innately sick individuals, especially in a group" (even considering mod-mentality) who actually like killing, except in the moment of fog. The "joy" a soldier might feel when he kills - is a sickness, conditioned though it may be - steeped in some deeper social trauma. The trauma of war itself. Vengeance, as joyful as that may be is the same. Am I capable of both? YES! You think I'd put some flower in some bad guys (I mean a real bad guy's) rifle? HELL NO! You think I wouldn't gleefully and remorse free - off the fucker? Of course I would - I'd just know, in the end, that it wasn't quite right.

It's nothing Jesus would do anyway.

Hate is understandable - it can even be survivable - but ultimately, it is not right. Only the heart felt, even logical, attempts toward love and understanding - are in the end right. And they are absolutely right.

And understandably so.

PS - Boy, you all will find anything wrong with anybody with a history of wild histrionics - maybe it's my name. Hmmm?

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

PS - I killed a crow.

Not long ago I killed a crow - don't much like crows - could be argued that I hate crows but not really. But I killed one. After I shot it I left it's body to rot out in the open so the other crows (his/her family?) could witness it and stay clear. DON'T COME IN MY YARD! was the message. Now this is not the same as war but just an example of killing and strategy. Where was the greed? I want my yard and I don't want fucking crows in it. Where was the jealousy? Harder one that. Hell I'd like to fly and squawk and tear peoples trash bags apart with impunity too. Where's the ignorance? I'm fucking stupid about lot's of stuff - especially about the Eco-world and it's relative food chain in suburbia. (Too bad I don't eat crows.) But in the end fuck'em - I hate crows and I murder'em and let'em rot on display. Would I do the same to a hated enemy? Sure! Am I a psycho? - you betcha - but I know it. There's a difference.

Who knows how many young crows I'd cut down in the prime of their hopeful lives?

Where's my ammo?

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

What if?

Somebody simply - loved to hate? Or hated to love? Or was jealous of folks who could? Or was greedy and wanted all the love and hate for themselves? Or was vengeful of folks who asked such stupid questions as these. Or was hopeful that they'd just shut the fuck up? Or was....????????????

 

[FlamingoBlue]

Well, Lasher,

I always said I was a "simple" country lawyer. I will leave it to you and the other members of the intelligentsia to
deal with the more complex issues.

I truly respect and accept your opinions, as well as others who contribute. I just have opinions that differ from them. You can call them what you will, ie. incomplete thoughts, etc. I still believe that, for me, love or fear, is where it's at.

blue

 

[Expertise]

Point taken Sparky. Your theory/equation does not however explain my hate for them or the evil that they perpetrated. It might, quite adequately, explain their actions but not my reaction to it. Hate can be a pure and base emotion without the mitigating factors you mentioned. There are, in fact, several emotions that are lowest common denominator in nature. I believe hate is one of them along with fear and love.

I think i'll let this be the end of my comments on this thread.

Sometimes the strangest things can bring up bad memories.