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“Agapē (a’gɑpeɪ) (Gk. αγάπη ), is one of several Greek words meaning love. The word has been used in different ways by a variety of contemporary and ancient sources, including Biblical authors. Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, thoughtful love. Greek philosophers at the time of Plato and other ancient authors use the term to denote love of a spouse or family or affection for a particular activity, in contrast to philia, an affection that could either denote brotherhood or generally a non-sexual.”
The idea of an “auto-ethnography” is something I’ve been giving thought to. It’s been a long time since I’ve had thoughts about myself that aren’t either contrived or self-ridiculing, or both. Lately, I’m just thinking in the normal train of thought and then something comes into my mind that is wise, that helps me understand myself. And it feels that these thoughts are new in my mind, completely new. For example, I realized last night that I always look for a better version of myself in the men I’m attracted to. Although I think I’ve acknowledged this before as a sort of retroactive analysis/ confession, I’ve rarely caught myself in the moment doing it. Last night I saw myself doing it and then I stopped myself. Self control – as approaching the self becomes ethnographic as opposed to egotistical, it becomes easier to notice what I do and gently let it go without judgment or self-hatred.
Another example of my noticing behavioral patterns is my need for external reinforcement of my self worth. We all look for this, most of us anyway. Whether we desire affirmations that are positive or negative, we are always looking for the right voice or gaze to say the right thing or give the right look, so that we are sure we know who we are.
driven right now. I want to create something. I want to do something. I want to make something. I want to do something for the world. I don’t know what that might be, but I feel shitty about not doing anything. I want so badly to be contributing and not just consuming, But what am I doing? I know there are opportunities, but I have avoided them. Maybe it is because I have never contributed to the world and I am afraid of the changes in my life that it will require. I feel that something fundamental must change. My whole life I have fought for myself, and this fight, I think, has been more or less a good fight, a just fight. But I’ve outgrown the battles of my adolescence. Now, when I feel immature yearnings and pains rise up I am aware of them as humorous, as passing distractions, as clumsy old ghosts. They are known, they are predictable. But they are still so potent.
Yet new battle is something greater and beyond me. It is not a battle fought well with the self. It’s a battle fought with selflessness. This is what I am having trouble with. Selflessness is not something I know. Perhaps I have been charitable before, but is always through myself. I have never really know agape, the love of all loves, the love of the saints and the gurus, the love which goes in all directions but comes from no single source. The love the flows like neutrinos from the sun, indiscriminately through all things.
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