Long Time Commin

There's been a bit of a hiatus between the last two posts and for good reason. I actually made a few drafts of this over the past weeks and even with all that thought I couldn't feel very comfortable with what I wanted to say. I'll instead throw those drafts out the window and just type.
The last post left off with the answer to the problem...love. The question then is raised, how do you even go about talking about love let alone how it can be the answer. You can find love all over the place in books, magazines, music, and TV but do these portrayals give us an answer? No, these sources for the most part are dictated by modern society and modern society, as we've seen, barely has a rudimentary grasp on what love is. Then where can we find it? What I've found is that we can find it in ourselves and in our religion (whatever that may be).
Interaction with our fellow man shows some hope that we still have a grasp of what philosophy terms as agape, brotherly love or better termed as unconditional love. We still stop on the roadside to help someone else out with their flat tire. We still let people in front of us in a long line. But, as morals and morale continually break down we find ourselves wanting to be left alone, secluded away to our own worlds. We're more inclined to flip off the random person in the parking lot than to wave. Empathy has become an archaic word with little value, but it is something that is key to agape. Understanding takes a moment's time but we're in a fast pace world that's endless search is not in helping the other person out. No, it's in finding faster ways to gratify itself and it can't stop along the way. We find this type of love in our churches. We join a group of like minded people and interact with them in the most intimate of ways IE: We divulge into our souls...we open others to our souls and to our very core of beliefs. However, the unconditional love still has strings on it and before you know it you're not so welcome as before....(We can get into greater detail here but for the sake of time just ask me to dedicate a post to it.)
Philia acts in much the same way. Friendship is almost key to true and lasting happiness. Friendship has its times of downs and highs and almost is certain to have conditions. We aren't friends with people who go against our moral/core beliefs or who are corrosive to our nature. We're friends that share some our common goals, beliefs, interests, etc. That common link almost ensures that we have a moment or two at some point to understand the other's perspective either through simple conversation or thought. The problem is that we are too much after our own short term pleasures. Some friendships are based more on a parasitic relationship than anything and unfortunately we do sometimes find ourselves in the corrosive relationship mentioned above.
Eros, often referred to as an intense, passionate desire, is the last of the triangle. This is the side of love we suppose we see most often in our culture. If you don't know that, you need only turn on your radio or open a popular magazine like people...We describe our love for another often by "pouring our hearts out." We convey our emotions because those emotions are what we are driven by. Unfortunately this isn't even love. The basic philosophy of Eros is that it is rationally induced. Since when did emotions become part of the rational realm? We come to a brief understanding of what can happen then when our actions and ultimate goals are then dictated by emotion... Though sometimes it doesn't end up badly! But Eros demands understanding. Without it you fall into a dangerous place where the only guidance you have is your emotions...which can change as quickly as the next moment. I'm not going to go into divorce rates and make correlations with failed relationships. That's completely over simplifying the nature of human relationships.
The point is that this is a start. Each form of love is love itself.... We find this in each other and in our religion. Our basic core of beliefs rest in the knowledge of our God and with the relationships we tend to have with one another. Everything about this takes understanding and understanding takes time...devoted time. As sappy and as highly philosophical as that is...truth or no... is up to you decide. We'll never fix the world as a whole but at least we can stop screwing each other over in the meantime....

Feenix