I was thinking that...

If love and vanity are incompatible but love is invariably tied to shame, and therefore intimately linked to pride is love then not the very enemy of love?

venus was vain. in fact, she had a vanity mirror. so how are love and vanity incompatible?

The opposite of Love is not Hate.. it's Indifference.

"so how are love and vanity incompatible?"


Well, love requires a certain subordination of the Self/and or/ swallowing of pride from time to time in order to maintain harmony, or in some cases please the recipient. This would be naturally opposed to vanity, or behavior stemming from it.

you should read up on aphrodite/venus in mythology.

"you should read up on aphrodite/venus in mythology."

No, you??re right, aphrodite was vain. But what I'm saying is that the mix of those two things is what creates romantic catastrophes, and their mixing is one way or another inevitable.

Posted by Pesca2

Posted by XV

If love and vanity are incompatible but love is invariably tied to shame, and therefore intimately linked to pride is love then not the very enemy of love?

i would think jealousy is the enemy of love.....

click to expand

Yeah, I would say jealousy would be a factor too. But it's love that *believes, that hopes, that blinds, that idealizes, that sacrifices, and if it does achieve a certain intimacy, is it unnatural for it to desire to be honored as IT honors when it is truly devoted? Breach of that -as is generally the case- could, I suppose, be viewed as a certain possessiveness, or jealousy, but I think beyond that it's more the rupture of that dream (the belief in what could be*) what brings forth the shame. Then whatever form of pride sets in to mend the wounds, whether it be extreme pride, or simply healthy pride takes the actions necessary to dim/extinguish the flame in the name of survival. Doesn't this lay a greater blame on love? It fails to see, it overlooks, not just it's own experiences but those of the world around it. The somewhat repressed realization that the whole of history is for the most part a gigantic streak of infidelities, on both sides. Perhaps human nature is simply unfit for such expectations.

Posted by Pesca2
pride was not put on the list of the seven deadly sins by accident - what people have done in the name of pride (hurt or not)- should be enough to teach us a lesson.....but it is so deep within us i suppose; some cannot overcome it.

so we fear what could be. instead of enjoying love and life we often think of the more sinister factors of love and life. building up scenarios in our head and looking for signals that indicate that we were right, that love cannot last; that one is unworthy of being loved....like a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Yeah, excess pride clouds the judgment and can lead to bad decisions but without some degree of healthy pride it would be virtually impossible to function. Seems interesting to imagine an absolute absence of pride. Wouldn't that be something similar to numbness? Nothing could touch or hurt you, at least not psychologically/spiritually.

Hmm, personally I have visited both extremes. I had a relationship with a Leo once, and I felt so afraid of losing what I thought we had that I just alienated her completely, so I went in the completely opposite direction with a capricorn a couple of years later. I dared to love and to accept that I was loved in return. That just led to overwhelming pain and a period of darkness. Emerging from that has made me rethink a lot of things. Is it fear? Perhaps, though I??ve come out from that bottom several times. Beyond that I guess it's just a need to understand where the dynamic fails, not just with me, but also with those around me. I don't know, I thought it was interesting...

I do tend to think it would, on the whole,make people indifferent. In the sense that if you can't be hurt, you can't relate, and so you can't really bring compassion forth. Perhaps that is the function of pain, to allow other variations of feeling to exist in contrast to it. I do think varying degrees of pride motivate our actions accordingly. And there are a wide range of valuations around which they wrap, but without that valuation there is just self neglect. I??ve seen how detrimental it can be. With regard to people, it has related effects, those characteristic we admire in those whom we allow to get close to us -or were born close to, mother, father- shape what sorts of behaviors in ourselves make us proud, and in contrast, which of them bring us shame. (the makings of a certain "moral" conscience?) I do agree that in many cases materialistic prides take hold more than they should, but that aside, if we isolate something like a good deed you committed at some point in your life, even when it is a selfless act, doesn't even this bring forth pride in ones behavior? act? And of course, the opposite acts, shame when we do something that doesn't fit that. Even in order to learn from past experiences there has to be a certain valuation in order for it to be edifying. Absolute avoidance of that (complete selflessness) would require absolute isolation from all the harsh realities of existing or would be, in effect destructive, even if we didn't care that we were being destroyed. So in that sense, being as they are inseparable,-love and pride- they are also mutually detrimental. Aren't they? Love in that it has idealized a valuation or series of valuations which can't sustain themselves upon the realities of human nature, and pride in that it compels one to act in the defense of what is ultimately also an illusion, albeit one necessary for survival to some extent.

I tried to touch on a bit of everything you said from the way I see it (you covered a lot of ground there, hehe) but in any case I found it very interesting. 🙂

Hehe, I think it does.

I noticed you have one of Klimts?? works in your profile. I have a replica of "philosophy" in my dining room, I love it! 🙂

It's a real pity that "philosophy" along with a few others were lost at the end of WWII! But at least we have photos.

As for art, I don't think it's coincidence about the relation between the beautiful horrors and pain, because in a way pain conveys a more raw aspect of reality. Perhaps something we are realizing at a given moment that has been long repressed? That awakening can be very intense, and I guess it's hard to rival that intensity and at the same time portray a reality.

I wrote something that touches on this around 2008, I can share it with you if you like.