August 2005


I remember in early grade 11 attending a debating tournament. For those who are not informed of my past activities, I was fairly active on the OSDU debating circuit in the Thunder Bay region from grade 10 through 12. At this particular debating tournament, there was one impromptu, and two prepared debates (on the same topic, sides just reversed. I can’t remember the prepared one (though I’m sure it was quite boring, as most were) but I remember the impromptu one. BIRT Love cannot exist without laughter.

This is known as a philosophical debate, as opposed to a policy debate. It was a resolution as opposed to a bill (we were doing parliamentary style). I never liked resolutions because you didn’t have the opportunity to bring in plans of implementation and couldn’t discuss the impact of the result of the debate, because you aren’t really solving any issue that is really tangible. Unfortunately I landed on the government side of this, and taking on my usual role of Prime Minister, I set forth in my usual capacity during my short prep time to think of definitions (always my favourite part of prep). I had to define 3 phrases, “Love”, “exist”, and “laughter”. The latter two are quite easy to define, but the former…nearly impossible.

Of course, taking my usual route I went to define things as I usually do in these cases, to pull out my Canadian Oxford English Dictionary and copy the definition that seemed simplest to say. (If I had had access to the Internet I may have looked up “Love” on Wikipedia, as I did today) As with most every philosophical debate I’ve ever done, I failed miserably. I just am not a philosopher. You can’t define “Love” out of a dictionary, nor can you truly vocalize it in language (many have tried and some agree that they actually have done such a thing through classifications, like a common example ofAgape, though I don’t think you truly can) As humans we try to intellectualize irrationality, and emotion, into something we can convey in our highly developed communications like language. But does that really work?

Frequently it is quoted that 50% of marriages fail in the end. What does that say about how we express “Love”? Is marriage not supposed to be one of the most solid expressions of love and commitment? As my closest friends know, I follow politics and current events closely. Most recently we had the historic opportunity to watch the progression of the same sex marriage bill come into existence here in Canada. I am on the pro side, because I believe that people have fundamental rights of equality, but while still understanding that people also have choice. Just because you have the opportunity to act on something doesn’t mean you should. The same thing happens with this legislation. Just because gays have the opportunity doesn’t mean they will all jump on the marriage wagon. Extend this to Abortion. Would I have a women who conceived my child have an abortion? No, but the option is there.

Marriage, with it’s claims of love and commitment, in our modern society, fails at it’s intention. I believe this is partly because of our lack of ability to interpret love in it’s many forms AND communicate it. We don’t have the ability to do so, because it is impossible to express it in the way our society believes is acceptable to do. Infatuation is much shallower than love, and unfortunately for Love, Infatuation is vocalizable, and masquerades as love, confusing people. It takes time for people to realize this false love and act accordingly. This results in a few things, the dissolution of the connection (i.e. divorce) or the continuation due to social decorum. Many couples have very unhappy relationships yet fight (often literally) them out for the rest of their lives. I believe that some people though may continue to be ignorant of the fact that it is just a masquerade and just believe they still have “love”. Which begs to differ is love even exists.

I believe it does, and for the readers who were thinking in their heads that I’ve never been in love, hence the reason I am writing this, you are mistaken. I am in love at this time and will continue to be for a very long time. I just can’t see a mutual love existing for the rest of any ones lives in any case, as time changes things. This may seem cynical, but I am a pragmatist, and believe it to be true. While I believe that I cannot define love, my current working answer (the closest I’ve been able to define it as) is “When you care for one person more than anyone else in the world, even yourself”. I’d be interested to see other people’s opinions, but that is as close to intellectualizing it as I can produce.

I’ve noticed that I have not been making my “Random” Wikipedia links very random. I’m not sure I really care…heh. I’ll continue to call them that because it adds a sense of interest to them. This one is on a specific type of love. One many people have heard mentioned in English class while studying Shakespeare. I think it is a horrible type of love. Such a thing can really cause alot of psychological damage and make someone insane (in all the senses it can mean). It can also bring guilt on the recipient party. While for this type of love to exist, the one party must not reciprocate it, there (in my belief) can be some kind of display of acknowledgement of the imbalance by the non-reciprocating (NP) party. This leads to the NP to induce further insult to injury with their “sympathy case” attitude. I believe that this is the worst possible situation as it adds a further level of pain to the party expressing the strong feelings. In any analogous situation to this where one party acknowledges the pain of the other while not doing anything to really alleve the pain of the other party, it is often considered tortuous and diabolical. The same is true in this case.

Is this obsessive behavior really a type of love, or is it just a obsessive in individual who just really doesn’t understand the concept of love and cannot get over the non reciprocation from the NP? I believe it is a type of love and that such individuals really do believe that it is genuine. They are not someone who can’t get over the rejection of another (note that there doesn’t always have to be rejection in this type of love). I don’t know how such a thing could be alleviated for both parties but my perception is that if the NP wishes the obsession to subside (or at least diminish) that they may have to “humour” the other party. I believe for this type of love to actually be true, that it will not go away and that most of the time there is a level of acceptance in the other party that they consciously know that it will never work. My proposal is that by “humouring” them that may just be all that is needed to diminish the behaviour. I may be wrong and it may backfire, resulting in even more obsessive behavior, but I believe that if it is openly discussed with both individuals and some small alleviating action is taken, it may help the situation.

I have gone off track I believe from my original intention to discuss love and my definitions of it. I apologize, but I believe the last specific type of love is fascinating from a philosophical viewpoint. While I never liked formally debating it (because you can never win in this kind of discussion, as the definition is fluid) I do enjoy talking about it informally. I encourage discussion on topic that I post on my site, and am glad that I am seeing so many different people (some I know, some I don’t) who visit my site. These last few paragraphs have been added to my original post (as was originally intended) and I see “Milldawg” (I know the identity of, but as he prefers to use his alias, I will not identify him) has commented that he agrees with my definition of love. I hope that a few more people are willing to post their comments. (Particularly I would like to hear from Lyle, Kas, Christine, and Mike, but everyone is welcome). I have another topic to write about, but I’ll save it for another day. Bye :)

Currently Listening to: Lady in Red – Chris De Burgh
Random Wikipedia Article: Unrequited Love

Hmm…been a while…I had been writing an entry, but I waited too long and lots of the stuff is out of date…so I’ll just start over. :)

I left Waterloo over a week ago and came home to Thunder Bay. I have one week left and then I’ll be moving to Windsor. I haven’t been able to do any bloggin because my computer is in Newmarket being fixed, I’ve been so busy with friends, and I have dial up internet at home. :S

I didn’t fail any classes! (Well…I haven’t got all of them back yet, but I assume that I passed those ones) I’ll be returning to Waterloo in the Winter. I have a house now with Martin from my class, and two other people I’ve never met. It will be a fun term I think, a new city to explore.

Congratulations to Lyle and Andrea who are now together. :) So happy to see them together! Andrea’s B-day was yesterday (I baked her a Strawberry and Whip cream covered Angel Food cake! I’m pretty proud of myself because usually I really suck at baking). We went to Armani’s, and I think it was the second best club I’ve been too (the best beingLa Boom in Montreal).

Oh, I’d like to thank Mrs. Steele for helping me to move out and get to Pearson Airport to catch my plane. It was very helpful and saved me alot of hassle. I always hate moving days, and her help made it easier.

Christine tells me I should talk about “differences between living away from home and living at home”. Well…everyone is trying to treat me like a guest! Gah! I’ve lived in this town longer than most of them have, and yet they treat me like an outsider? What does that mean? Do I not have a “home” anymore? (Waterloo sure doesn’t feel like home yet) And everyone treats me like I have no money at all! I’m not that “starving student”-like! That means you LYLE! I make more money then alot of you guys combined, so stop treating me like I’m living out of a cardboard box and can’t afford anything!

Well…I guess that’s enough ranting for today…I told myself I wasn’t going to do this on my new domain…oh well.

Currently Listening to: Stacy’s Mom – Fountains of Wayne
Random Wikipedia Article – Gabriele Amorth

I’d like to first direct your attention to my lovely sidebar. As you may notice, there is an articles side bar. I mentioned before that this is my Del.icio.us feed. I constantly add new links to this feed, so keep checking back to see the most interesting news of the day. Also try visiting some of the other websites I have linked to. They are valuable resources and good reads. :)

Today while taking a break from my studying I decided to find some new podcasts to listen to. First off was the Wall Street journal tech report. I love technology and I love buisness, so it was a no brainer. I went to the top 100 podcasts in iTunes and saw a Harry Potter podcast. It was doing quite well so I decided to give it a listen. What I recieved was very interesting. The producer of this podcast was father Roderick Vonhögen, catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Utrecht, The Netherlands. The podcast series is a discussion of themes and motifs in Harry Potter from a Christian viewpoint. While he is a catholic priest, he doesn’t really force catholic doctrine at you. It’s not preachy, it’s informative. How any good radio show should be. :) When I see this kind of evangelical work being done I smile. Makes me know that there are people in the Catholic Church that deserve my respect.

At the end of the podcast, the website, the Catholic Insider, was given so I decided to research him and the series at greater depth. The man is a fascinating character. :) He is a hardcore Star Wars fan, who ran a popular fan website. He covered the ailing pope, and the resulting conclave. Occasionally he will just do a podcast that gives you insight into his own life and hobbies. I personally enjoyed his podcast about his first forays into radio production while at a pontifical university (what a place to learn radio broadcasting!). On top of subscribing to the Harry Potter series, I have also signed up for his Star Wars podcast. He bridges the topics of pop culture and religious devotion very well. He is very adept at using technology and it shows through in his site and production quality. He even created a podcast called “Praystation Portable” which gives twice daily devotional prayers that are downloaded onto portible devices and able to be listened to. This is the approach towards teaching young people and encouraging them to live a devote life that should be taken.

A few weeks back I read an article that indicated that the Pope had made comments in a letter to an author that indicated the Pope was opposed to Harry Potter. The letter said Harry Potter had “a subtle seduction, which has deeply unnoticed and direct effects in undermining the soul of Christianity before it can really grow properly.” Officially the Vatican’s stance is that Harry Potter is okay and one of the podcasts in this series was a rebroadcast of Vatican radio affirming that. It was fascinating; the transcript can be found here and the podcast, here. Fr. Roderick has began to gain notority around the world and if I read it correctly was instrumental in getting the Vatican to produce their own English Podcast. He speaks many languages and from what I’ve read is very well educated. He’s seems like a charismatic and likable character.

The whole point of these series are to get you to think about the books in a different way. One comparison that was made that I found interesting was the connection between “He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named” (Voldemort) and Yahweh (God) (which is not to be said in Jewish tradition). While the connection was dismissed that Rowling meant to imply God was evil and that it was more of a british humour thing (like between spouses), it is interesting to hear these interpretations. Lots of the discussion revolves around Good and Evil and connections to biblical stories. Topics range from characters to plot developments and settings. The latest two apparently discuss themes in the latest Harry Potter (which Fr. Roderick brags he finished in 2 days :) ) book, the Half Blood Prince, so I haven’t listened to them yet. They just encourage me to get on reading it quicker! (Another site with Potter commentary is here. Another good read!)

I’ve decided to begin to post interesting Wikidepia articles that I’ve visited. I frequently just browse Wikidepia for topics and see where it takes me. The links I post will just be one that stuck in my head while I browsed. It also occured to me to link to song lyrics. Enjoy :)

Currently Listening to: “Superman” – Five For Fighting
Random Wikipedia Article: Brain Shivers

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