Cardboard Cutout Love

Although I was expecting a verse or two of prose detailing how the human existence is devoid of all meaning without love. :)

How's this:

All I need is love,
All I need is love,
All I need is love, love
All I need is love.

How do you spell "woo ooo ooo, oo-oo-ooo?" :-)

Would human existence be devoid of meaning without love? Or would its meaning be tragically different? I honestly don't know.

I struggle with commenting on this because I'm not so sure I fully understand what it really means to "love" someone. I know lots of words that relate to the subject, but I'm not sure I fully understand the concept at its core. I'm not trying to sound like someone saying, "Woe is me ... poor me." Honestly, I'm not. I'm honestly surveying my heart and what I'm finding is that I have lots of intellectual concepts that are like cardboard cutouts -- they appear like something from a distance, but up close they don't have any substance.

I'm doing a lot of self-appraisal of late. :-)

* * *
I've been thinking a lot about faith and life and such. I'm coming to realize that a good deal of it is willful mind control. That's a loaded term, and many flee from it. But there's great truth in the notion that what one chooses to dwell on in the mind matters.

Example: if I were to spend considerable time dwelling on the stories of treating others most definitely in ways I would not myself want to be treated ... if I saturated my mind with such things ... then the idea of "Treat others" becomes very difficult for me. I've allowed my mind to be "marinated" in a bad concept. My mind then takes on the flavor of that bad marinade. I can't live my life dwelling on the concept of hurting and cheating others, then with the blink of an eye start doing it with my own self.

The Bible is actually full of this concept. If I weren't so darn lazy I'd pull up the various references. But the Old Testament has quite a few references to "keeping the law before me daily." And the New Testament speaks of "putting out of your mind" various bad thoughts and notions, and "taking on the mind that was in Jesus."

I'm wondering ... the concept of "mind control" has been, I think, improperly maligned. There is such a thing as good mind control, correct?

* * *
I'm in Sacramento, CA this week. I am offering the SOA workshop sans labs to a group of State of CA people, at the request of the lead architect for our employer who covers the state. He seems to feel the message I deliver is of some value. :-)

* * *
I will definitely see "The Simpson's Movie." It'll be a hoot! No attempt at realistic animation there!

* * *
Yes, I do recall Frank Bruno. A name like "Bruno" is a natural for a boxer, wouldn't you say?