“The Complications You Could Do Without”
My apologies to Mr. Sufjan Stevens who didn’t make my top 10 artists on the previous post. He is easily #4 or #5… so the song of this post is “Casimir Pulaski day” by Sufjan. You’ll hear more from him come Christmas time. 
Anyways. I am going to be very random tonight. My mind is on overdrive because too many things are happening to me at once. You can tell when I’ve had an exceptionally unnerving day when I pull my frozen yogurt out of the back of the freezer.
And sure enough, my yogurt is right at my side. There is something about a good brain freeze that makes life so much better.
And I was serious about the randomness. Here you go:
1) I don’t believe in Love anymore. At least from humans.
Shocker, I know.
But I’m serious. Read 1st Corinthians 13:4-8 real slow.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails.”
Ok, now name someone - anyone - that you have loved that much.
So, sometimes I feel that way about some people. But Paul just had to add in “ALWAYS” only five times at the end. Oh yeah, and let’s not forget the wonderfully poignant reminder that “LOVE NEVER FAILS” tagged on to the end.
Oh bugger.
When I read it I could only think of one person who I kind of sort of loved that much… myself.
Is this just me?
Anyways, I decided that I will never get married until 1) someone manages to convince me that love exists and 2) said guy convinces me that he actually loves me.
2) I don’t think it’s possible for humans to do any one deed that is completely unselfishly motivated.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be shoving everyone else in the same category as me.
But I feel like everything I’ve done in my past started out with “me”.
It bugs me. Is there any way for me to just forget myself?
Is it just me?
3) I find people who are nothing like me so darn interesting.
I imagine myself to be someone who has a raging, ambitious outer shell with a truly calm and contemplative inner self.
There is something about people who seem to have a calm outer appearance and a raging inner being that make me crazily intimidated.
I actually hope that I marry someone who is like the latter, because I’m pretty sure I’ll never get bored of him.
4) I have been vegetarian for three days now.
I’m surviving beautifully.
But it’s only been three days.
Ok… I have a lot more random things I can talk about, but that’s good for now.
But before I go… I want you all to know that I truly appreciate this sister of mine:
Beautiful picture, I know. It’s the only one I had on my computer. 
(Sorry Rachel)
Ok, have a good few days all of you blog readers out there. (Aka, here’s looking at you, Mom)
Love,
umm.. I mean
Affectionately,
Deedles
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I hope you can find more to eat than just yogurt Diane. Maybe you can make up a nice ratatouille with your roommate Kim who is vegetarian. That’s one of my favorite vegetarian dishes. MOM
Well, here’s my whole take on the love thing, and the selfish motivations thing… don’t take this as law, this is just my own thoughts based on my own experience…
I think you’re mostly right about humanity’s selfish motivations. I think that we are very broken people, and that a lot of that brokenness comes out as self-focus, in a lot of different ways. I think it is possible for a person to do something which is entirely un-selfish, however I also think that this happens VERY rarely.
Now… on to love. I think that what is described in 1 Corinthians is what the perfect, ideal love is like - let’s say it describes love as God loves. I would also say it describes love as we were capable of loving prior to the fall. You are right that no human now matches that description of love. BUT, I think that just because we aren’t capable of loving perfectly, it doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of loving truly. Similarly with communication - you will never completely understand exactly what I mean when I say something, because it’s tainted with my experience and my personality and everything that goes into making who I am - but that doesn’t mean there is NO communication going on when we talk. We live in shades of grey in a lot of ways.
I know I probably won’t convince you by logic about this one, but I know that I have experienced something that resembles that passage from people, and that, while never perfect, does nourish and change me. And the pursuit of being that to other people changes me as well, it exposes me and breaks me and holds up a mirror for me to see myself. And in the end, if two people, albeit imperfectly, strive to be that passage to one another, they tame each other - they become unique in all the world to each other - they are tied together at the core of who they are, and I believe they begin to see more deeply what that passage really means, and where it comes from.
Anyway, there’s your daily Dave ramblings. Again, if you need any more vegetarian recipes, feel free to let us know, we have some good ones (maybe Trina already gave you some, who knows)
One more thing… I really understand the feeling that nobody cares to live deeply, to love, to really care for each other - I understand what it is like to get frustrated to the point of hopelessness with humanity and with myself included in that.
All that to say, I didn’t mean in my previous comment to at all downplay the way you feel and tell you that you shouldn’t feel that way, I hope it didn’t come off that way.
You wrote:
“I don’t think it’s possible for humans to do any one deed that is completely unselfishly motivated.”
This is exactly how I feel. I just wrote a post on my website that kind of expressed a similar idea.
Dave I definitely follow what you are trying to say, and I agree with a lot of it. I especially like the difference you make between “loving perfectly” and “loving truly”.
I think where I am coming from is a disappointment of today’s culture for “love”. What our culture has reduced “love” to is something that isn’t even qualified to be called “loving truly”. I believe that many of the people people who use the term “love” need to rethink the term that they are using.
Love frustrates me. People who supposedly “love” each other tend to be the people who cause the most pain on each other. They tend to be MORE easily angered with each other than they would be with a complete stranger.
Family “love” is a big example of this - siblings are much more likely to insult a family member than they are a friend (I’m including myself in this one). Why isn’t this? Shouldn’t we be more likely to compliment than insult?
But then there are people that make me want to rethink about Love… You and Trina (as far as I can see from half the country away) seem to be going above what the world seems to claim as “love”. I am jealous of what you have.
IN all, however, I’m sick of this world. I’m sick of the flippant “love” relationships. I’m sick of seeing so many divorces.
And, as Andrew shows in his latest blog http://illusoryfollies.com/2007/11/06/patently-pretentious-people/ , “people are so good at making themselves look stupid” . Humans suck at being unselfish - or having “pure motives” as Andrew said. What is it that we think is so great about ourselves anyways?
Thanks guys, I hope I made some sense. And, as always, I appreciate the feedback Dave & Andrew.
Liebe Deedles;
Was denkst du denn an der Liebe? Liebe ist nicht Zufälligkeit. Aber auf Englisch ist die Liebe wirklich vier Dinge. Lese bitte C.S. Lewis “The Four Loves”. Mann musst nicht die vier Lieben undeutlich machen. Zum beispiel, eros liebe ist nicht wie Liebe für Gott. Ebenso ist est vielleicht änlich? Vielleicht.
Auf Englisch… can we love exactly like God loves? I don’t think so. I tend to be Van Tillian here, if you know what I mean. Our love is similar to God’s love, but never exactly as God’s love. We cannot love comprehensively or perfectly, because we are neither perfect nor comprehensive. Those are traits limited only to God. It is unfortunate that the English language forces us to use the word love for four different things. When John says “God is love”, he certainly doesn’t mean love in the “eros” sense, or even in the “philadelphia/brotherly love” sense of the word. Yet, those forms of desire/attraction/”love” give us a reflection of the true love, which is love for God.
Your discussion of self love is exactly what God’s love is not. While God is permitted to love himself (and He does), we are not permitted to love ourselves in the same way. Indeed, self-love is the antithesis of love, as I Cor. 13 makes clear, that love does not seek its own. Self-love is nothing but narcissism. It is the endless gaze into the pond on one’s own reflection.
If one cannot love as God loves, and tends toward narcissism, what is the solution? –>Quit looking into the pond!!! “One thing I have asked of the Lord, that I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple” Ps. 27:4. This is the only real love. As you love the Lord more, you will love others, including yourself, more. As you keep your mind in Scripture, and seek the Lord, your question of love will disappear. Look up!!! Set your affection on things above.
I am worried about your love for cow. Cow is good. Eat cow. Stay healthy, kid.
vater
I don’t know who is still reading this - but I just had a conversation with a friend of mine who’s Christian influence I admire.
Something I haven’t thought of - LOVE is a DECISION, NOT a FEELING. I think what is wrong with our love today is that we are so grounded in thinking that love is the feeling of infatuation - rather than making an active decision to Love someone as an image bearer of Christ.
As for romantic (and other kinds of relationships too)- the feeling will possibly go away - and that is when so many couples fall apart or so many friends split up. Our culture would say that they “fell out of love”, when in reality love is something that possibly never even existed.
I don’t really know if that translates from my brain correctly… but I hope my point is clear.
And Dad - you’re right - I wish the English language broke the word “Love” into different words so that we don’t have to cheapen the meaning of it in the first place. (How is it in German? Is there separate meanings for different loves?)
And I do love Cow… but I don’t get to eat cow for another 2 weeks.
Love, Deedles
Yes… exactly! So many people in the world (both Christians and Non-Christians, by the way) have completely forgotten that love does not just mean a nice feeling about someone or excitement or lust or whatever we tend to say love is. I have a couple blogs about this exact topic… if you’d care to read them, they are here:
http://spindulys.blogspot.com/2006/08/love.html
and here:
http://spindulys.blogspot.com/2006/10/love-part-ii.html
I don’t think this only happens in English speaking countries either, so I don’t think we’re at THAT much of a disadvantage, though I can think of plenty of other reasons I don’t like English as a language
Too many tenses, too many homonyms and homophones, no sense of phonetics, etc
I could keep going at length 
Have a lovely Thursday evening
I am sorry but i am not going to get involved in the above convo.. but i love the picture and I love you even more!!!
have a good night!
hey
its very unconventional point of view.
Nice post.
realy good post
thx