Boundless Love?
Tick tock, tick tock
When you see a clock, what do you think of? What comes to mind?
We could talk about making the best use of our time, as each one of these seconds ticks by. For you, for me. We know we’re not getting them back.
We know we have a limited supply -- of unknown quantity. Sit back for a moment, and watch a clock. Look at those seconds tick by. They’re gone. For you. For me.
We know this. But we also know there’s nothing we can do about it, so most of the time, I think most of us just kinda shrug it off, right? It is what it is.
Here’s what I think of when I see a timer. Couple time-related factoids. We toss “million” & “billion” around all the time, we know they’re big numbers, but it’s easy to lose the sense of the scale. So how old are you when you become one million seconds old?
Answer is 11 Days, 13 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds. Just a newborn, and a million seconds go by, just like that. Not even two weeks.
But you become one billion seconds old, when you are 31 years, 251 days, 7 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds.
Really shows how much bigger a billion is than a million -- well it’s a literal order of magnitude, of course, but to experience that on the human scale really illustrates the size difference.
And so dealing with billions on a human scale makes me think of another clock: the world population clock. As of this writing, we’re at 7.6 billion peeps.
So you can quickly see here, that for one person to live for as many seconds, as there are living people, currently... well, let’s do the math and see: if you were to give every person one second of your time -- the smallest, most insignificant thing, just a moment of your time (and look, of course this isn’t even feasible, it’s silly to even entertain it, it could never happen, but indulge me) -- how long would you need to live to give every living person one second of your time?
Never mind the logistics of getting every single person to willingly gather together in one place on earth just so that you could look them in the face for one second -- because waiting in line for you would take their entire lives, and then they’d die, and of course by the time you’re done with the whole line there would be a whole bunch of new people, that have been born, to look at for a second -- the whole concept is absurd, I know, but just to drive the absurdity home, you’d need to live
241 years, 76 days, 12 hours, 13 minutes and 20 seconds.
And that’s without sleeping, ever, or eating, ever. No bathroom breaks, no vacations, ever. Of course this could never possibly be done, obviously an absurd exercise to even entertain, and it’s abundantly clear that we have way, way, way more people than we have time.
And so it’s at this point I’d like to point out, that you don’t know what love is.
We could talk about making the best use of our time, as each one of these seconds ticks by. For you, for me. We know we’re not getting them back.
We know we have a limited supply -- of unknown quantity. Sit back for a moment, and watch a clock. Look at those seconds tick by. They’re gone. For you. For me.
We know this. But we also know there’s nothing we can do about it, so most of the time, I think most of us just kinda shrug it off, right? It is what it is.
Here’s what I think of when I see a timer. Couple time-related factoids. We toss “million” & “billion” around all the time, we know they’re big numbers, but it’s easy to lose the sense of the scale. So how old are you when you become one million seconds old?
Answer is 11 Days, 13 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds. Just a newborn, and a million seconds go by, just like that. Not even two weeks.
But you become one billion seconds old, when you are 31 years, 251 days, 7 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds.
Really shows how much bigger a billion is than a million -- well it’s a literal order of magnitude, of course, but to experience that on the human scale really illustrates the size difference.
And so dealing with billions on a human scale makes me think of another clock: the world population clock. As of this writing, we’re at 7.6 billion peeps.
So you can quickly see here, that for one person to live for as many seconds, as there are living people, currently... well, let’s do the math and see: if you were to give every person one second of your time -- the smallest, most insignificant thing, just a moment of your time (and look, of course this isn’t even feasible, it’s silly to even entertain it, it could never happen, but indulge me) -- how long would you need to live to give every living person one second of your time?
Never mind the logistics of getting every single person to willingly gather together in one place on earth just so that you could look them in the face for one second -- because waiting in line for you would take their entire lives, and then they’d die, and of course by the time you’re done with the whole line there would be a whole bunch of new people, that have been born, to look at for a second -- the whole concept is absurd, I know, but just to drive the absurdity home, you’d need to live
241 years, 76 days, 12 hours, 13 minutes and 20 seconds.
And that’s without sleeping, ever, or eating, ever. No bathroom breaks, no vacations, ever. Of course this could never possibly be done, obviously an absurd exercise to even entertain, and it’s abundantly clear that we have way, way, way more people than we have time.
And so it’s at this point I’d like to point out, that you don’t know what love is.
Wait, what's love got to do with it?
So, what do I mean by that? What is love, anyway?
Well, I’m not going to define it, actually, I don’t think that’s my place, I don’t think that’s right. A pastor of mine once said, “we don’t get to define love. That’s God’s job.” And so, yeah, I don’t think it’s my place to define love. But we need a common, shared definition, right? We can’t all just individually decide what love is and expect other people to abide by our understanding, right?
And I think one thing that complicates the simple question of what love is, is that in English in America, when we use the word love, there’s a whole range of things we might mean by that. Multiple, distinct concepts, but we use that same word, and people pretty much get what we mean. And we have this thing where separate words in other languages -- like, say, Greek or Hebrew, the languages of the Bible -- they both have 4 separate words, 4 separate concepts, that we usually translate all into love.
And then I guess it depends on who you ask, cuz I’ve found other Greek scholars say there are 6 or even 8 words that each possess something that in English we’d call love. So, you know, point being: we call multiple things love.
But that’s not the reason you don’t know what love is. That’s one complication, but that’s not the reason. The reason lies in: which category of thing do you put love into?
Like, do you think of it as an emotion? Some do; many know it’s not, or at least that it’s more than that.
Some say it’s a decision -- great way to think of it. I think just telling someone to marinate on that, alone, is a great point to make. That love is a decision.
But I’m taking this in another direction. And I’m not here to sing the Bette Midler song. But 🎶 Some say love 🎶 is an action, or at least that love is measured by action. Again, I’m not here to define love and call it an action.
But.
If we were to measure your love by your actions, well, how would you measure up?
Now, I don’t want to just challenge you and suggest your love is inadequate and then leave you there. So open your Bibles to the verse where Jesus says to love everyone.
Ah-ah-ah, trick question, he never said that.
Or did he?
Now I *could* actually just leave you there -- and I think it’d be a good exercise for you to look it up yourself, independently of anything I say; get out the concordance and study every use of every word that English Bibles call love, and see what you can figure out. Actually, I encourage you to do that, I think it’s a great exercise. So I’ll just leave that there. But what really did he say?
You’re probably thinking of the verse that says “love your neighbor,” right? Now THAT one he definitely did NOT say. Cuz he definitely said, anyone can love their neighbor, that’s not special. So he said to love your enemy.
So I guess we could be the kind of people who says there are two types of people in this world, and say everyone’s either a neighbor or an enemy, and contend that effectively, Jesus said to love everyone. I guess that works.
And look: I am NOT trying to use some technicality here to claim it’s OK to hate someone if they don’t match either description, or anything like that. Not saying don’t love. I don’t think anyone truly says that. Not out loud. And yeah, MANY of us don’t live it right, sure, but I’m not even making such a squishy, unsubstantiated criticism of *no one in particular* just to emphasize that love is good. Like, everyone knows that. That’s not even interesting, that’s boring. We all know love is good.
And we all know that we don’t love enough, right? Do we?
I think many people would agree, but, well: would YOU agree that YOU don’t love enough?
Or let me ask it in a better way: do you ***love everyone***?
I think you think you do. But I’m here to tell you, no, you don’t.
If you say you love everyone, what you’re REALLY saying is “oh, look how virtuous I am, **my love knows no bounds**.” What you’re really saying is you have a POLICY of loving everyone. Not that you actually do love every. single. living. person.
And I can say that, because since you started reading this, about 960 people have perished from the face of the earth.
They’re gone. You will never get to know them.
Over 150,000 individuals leave us, every single day. So. How many Netflix series have you binge-watched?
Well, I’m not going to define it, actually, I don’t think that’s my place, I don’t think that’s right. A pastor of mine once said, “we don’t get to define love. That’s God’s job.” And so, yeah, I don’t think it’s my place to define love. But we need a common, shared definition, right? We can’t all just individually decide what love is and expect other people to abide by our understanding, right?
And I think one thing that complicates the simple question of what love is, is that in English in America, when we use the word love, there’s a whole range of things we might mean by that. Multiple, distinct concepts, but we use that same word, and people pretty much get what we mean. And we have this thing where separate words in other languages -- like, say, Greek or Hebrew, the languages of the Bible -- they both have 4 separate words, 4 separate concepts, that we usually translate all into love.
And then I guess it depends on who you ask, cuz I’ve found other Greek scholars say there are 6 or even 8 words that each possess something that in English we’d call love. So, you know, point being: we call multiple things love.
But that’s not the reason you don’t know what love is. That’s one complication, but that’s not the reason. The reason lies in: which category of thing do you put love into?
Like, do you think of it as an emotion? Some do; many know it’s not, or at least that it’s more than that.
Some say it’s a decision -- great way to think of it. I think just telling someone to marinate on that, alone, is a great point to make. That love is a decision.
But I’m taking this in another direction. And I’m not here to sing the Bette Midler song. But 🎶 Some say love 🎶 is an action, or at least that love is measured by action. Again, I’m not here to define love and call it an action.
But.
If we were to measure your love by your actions, well, how would you measure up?
Now, I don’t want to just challenge you and suggest your love is inadequate and then leave you there. So open your Bibles to the verse where Jesus says to love everyone.
Ah-ah-ah, trick question, he never said that.
Or did he?
Now I *could* actually just leave you there -- and I think it’d be a good exercise for you to look it up yourself, independently of anything I say; get out the concordance and study every use of every word that English Bibles call love, and see what you can figure out. Actually, I encourage you to do that, I think it’s a great exercise. So I’ll just leave that there. But what really did he say?
You’re probably thinking of the verse that says “love your neighbor,” right? Now THAT one he definitely did NOT say. Cuz he definitely said, anyone can love their neighbor, that’s not special. So he said to love your enemy.
So I guess we could be the kind of people who says there are two types of people in this world, and say everyone’s either a neighbor or an enemy, and contend that effectively, Jesus said to love everyone. I guess that works.
And look: I am NOT trying to use some technicality here to claim it’s OK to hate someone if they don’t match either description, or anything like that. Not saying don’t love. I don’t think anyone truly says that. Not out loud. And yeah, MANY of us don’t live it right, sure, but I’m not even making such a squishy, unsubstantiated criticism of *no one in particular* just to emphasize that love is good. Like, everyone knows that. That’s not even interesting, that’s boring. We all know love is good.
And we all know that we don’t love enough, right? Do we?
I think many people would agree, but, well: would YOU agree that YOU don’t love enough?
Or let me ask it in a better way: do you ***love everyone***?
I think you think you do. But I’m here to tell you, no, you don’t.
If you say you love everyone, what you’re REALLY saying is “oh, look how virtuous I am, **my love knows no bounds**.” What you’re really saying is you have a POLICY of loving everyone. Not that you actually do love every. single. living. person.
And I can say that, because since you started reading this, about 960 people have perished from the face of the earth.
They’re gone. You will never get to know them.
Over 150,000 individuals leave us, every single day. So. How many Netflix series have you binge-watched?
OK, look, that’s not fair of me
OK, look, that’s not fair of me, and I don’t want to just guilt you out and try to claim you’re a bad person, or something. I honestly don’t think this makes you a bad person. The death rate is just a fact, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. We all die. We all know we all die. And by no means do I think there’s some karmic obligation to spend every second of your life trying to extend the volume of seconds in other people’s lives. If that was the ultimate purpose of life, then it’s kind of, like, tautologically meaningless, isn’t it?
So this is not a guilt trip. But I hope this is an awakening. I hope you read my words and stop the self-deception that you actually love everyone -- unless you’re like, feeding starving orphans or something. And just be present in the recognition that your love *is* limited, that it’s not boundless.
And that the now 1,140 people who have passed on since you started reading, left this world entirely untouched by your love, no matter how we define it. Emotion, decision, or even action.
There’s just too many of us existing at one time, for any single one of us to even be able to process, much less take the meaningful time and effort to reach us all. And of course that’s not even speaking of all the humans throughout history, or all the humans yet to come in the future.
It’s overwhelming to even try to process this. We don’t love everyone. We don’t. Just own it.
And again, I could just leave you there, but I won’t. Becoming aware of our own self-deception about what wonderful people we are, by itself, is a good thing to do, but I think here below is a good helpful response to recognizing the limits of your own love.
So this is not a guilt trip. But I hope this is an awakening. I hope you read my words and stop the self-deception that you actually love everyone -- unless you’re like, feeding starving orphans or something. And just be present in the recognition that your love *is* limited, that it’s not boundless.
And that the now 1,140 people who have passed on since you started reading, left this world entirely untouched by your love, no matter how we define it. Emotion, decision, or even action.
There’s just too many of us existing at one time, for any single one of us to even be able to process, much less take the meaningful time and effort to reach us all. And of course that’s not even speaking of all the humans throughout history, or all the humans yet to come in the future.
It’s overwhelming to even try to process this. We don’t love everyone. We don’t. Just own it.
And again, I could just leave you there, but I won’t. Becoming aware of our own self-deception about what wonderful people we are, by itself, is a good thing to do, but I think here below is a good helpful response to recognizing the limits of your own love.
How big is YOUR world?
It’s called Dunbar’s Number. It’s the average number of people that most people know during their lives.
Now, the anthropological concept for the number is about the number of active, stable relationships in a person’s life. It came up when anthropologist Robin Dunbar found a correlation between the number of relationships in a primate’s social life, and their brain size. So we’re human and we have big brains, and this definition based on the active & stable relationships, that number is on average just 150 to 250.
It’s way smaller than you might have guessed, and it’s certainly significantly smaller than the number of living humans on earth.
But I think we all recognize that we know, or know OF, a bunch more people than just the ones we keep active & stable relationships with, however we want to define that. And yeah, this is a fascinating part of studying the social graph, but even if you are some networking powerhouse, or if you’re, say, in sales, or a barista or something, I think the realistic max for anyone, just in the number of faces you would recognize if you saw them, still runs around just a few thousand, max.
What the figure is exactly, is not important. What is important, is how small that number is. Or the inverse of Dunbar’s number: how many people know YOU? How many people know who you are?
For celebrities it’s different, of course, and that’s kinda weird, and there are even these YouTubers that come from no where and gain millions of subscribers....AND YET not only hundreds of millions in America, but even billions across the earth, have zero idea who those YouTubers are. Or who the latest pop music megastar is. Or whatever.
So our social circles are super small, even at their very largest. And I think recognizing how insignificantly small they are compared to all humans that exist is super useful in context of love and what love is.
Because love lets you focus in.
The world is huge, but your world is small.
And the beauty of that is your small world is on a scale where love matters.
The size of our world, and the number of people, and our statistical insignificance within all of it, is overwhelming to even comprehend. But in your little world, you can make a big impact.
And I don’t even need to define love, or tell you what you should do -- chances are you already know cuz it’s been nagging at you since I started talking about all the love you don’t have.
So maybe there’s a decision to be made. An action to take. An impact to make.
And even though the impact you can make is limited, that’s perfect, cuz your world is limited.
Oh and, don’t forget, so is your time.
So whatcha gonna do with the time you have left?
Now, the anthropological concept for the number is about the number of active, stable relationships in a person’s life. It came up when anthropologist Robin Dunbar found a correlation between the number of relationships in a primate’s social life, and their brain size. So we’re human and we have big brains, and this definition based on the active & stable relationships, that number is on average just 150 to 250.
It’s way smaller than you might have guessed, and it’s certainly significantly smaller than the number of living humans on earth.
But I think we all recognize that we know, or know OF, a bunch more people than just the ones we keep active & stable relationships with, however we want to define that. And yeah, this is a fascinating part of studying the social graph, but even if you are some networking powerhouse, or if you’re, say, in sales, or a barista or something, I think the realistic max for anyone, just in the number of faces you would recognize if you saw them, still runs around just a few thousand, max.
What the figure is exactly, is not important. What is important, is how small that number is. Or the inverse of Dunbar’s number: how many people know YOU? How many people know who you are?
For celebrities it’s different, of course, and that’s kinda weird, and there are even these YouTubers that come from no where and gain millions of subscribers....AND YET not only hundreds of millions in America, but even billions across the earth, have zero idea who those YouTubers are. Or who the latest pop music megastar is. Or whatever.
So our social circles are super small, even at their very largest. And I think recognizing how insignificantly small they are compared to all humans that exist is super useful in context of love and what love is.
Because love lets you focus in.
The world is huge, but your world is small.
And the beauty of that is your small world is on a scale where love matters.
The size of our world, and the number of people, and our statistical insignificance within all of it, is overwhelming to even comprehend. But in your little world, you can make a big impact.
And I don’t even need to define love, or tell you what you should do -- chances are you already know cuz it’s been nagging at you since I started talking about all the love you don’t have.
So maybe there’s a decision to be made. An action to take. An impact to make.
And even though the impact you can make is limited, that’s perfect, cuz your world is limited.
Oh and, don’t forget, so is your time.
So whatcha gonna do with the time you have left?
Comments
Post a Comment