"I love you unconditionally..."

'True love is that free of conditions. It is looking past the faults of a person, and valuing them despite their weaknesses. You, my dear, I love unconditionally...'

Sounds nice doesn't it? Unfortunately it's all a crock. Unconditional love is simply nonsensical.

Think about it. What is it to love someone? This could be defined in many ways, and, in all honesty, I don't seek to define it perfectly at this moment in time. But I think a big part of it that we could all agree on, is that loving someone involves valuing some traits that they have. In essence this means that love, in part, stems from some value you have represented in that other person (ie I love cake, they have cake, I love them etc...).

Let's use an example; I love Vicky because she's smart, compassionate, and positive to name a few traits. Without these traits (intelligence, compassion, and positive attitude) I would either not love her, or love her less. Often when we're in love we're asked the common question 'why do you love x?'. In such situations we easily come up with reasons of why we care about the person. Essentially this question showcases something about love. That being the fact that we should be able to come up with reasons for feeling it, these reasons (hopefully) being based in fact.

Unconditional love is the opposite of this. It is loving someone despite themselves. When a parent says they love their children unconditionally, what they mean to say is that 'I love the fact that I have a child', or perhaps 'I love the idea of my child'. However they can't mean to say they actually love the child. If a parent continues to love a child despite them not liking anything about them, they are not loving that child they are loving something external to the child. As a being (child) is made up of an infinite amount of traits, and if none of these traits are loved that being cannot be loved or valued (this is excluding the concept that he is loved for the collection of his negative parts). The love is instead latching onto something external from the being. Its that simple.

If I am traits.
And if I am loved despite my traits.
Then I am either more than my traits, or I am not loved.

Simply, loving someone unconditionally means loving that person regardless of circumstances. Yet as people are determined by circumstances, loving someone regardless of circumstance involves loving them regardless of their identity. This is not so much 'loving someone', as it is 'loving at someone'. And I would argue that 'loving at someone' is in the category of obsession rather than in the category of love.

The Happy Colour

This being my first post I will keep it relatively simple.

First, you may be wondering what exactly is 'the Happy Colour'? Happy Colour is a term I acquired from an in class session in which a teacher accidentally said 'There are two types of colours in Chinese calligraphy; Soft Colours, and Happy Colours." The term happy colour has stuck with me since then, as it is seemingly absurd, to me, to label certain colours as happy and others as not. It is in some way attempting to place some sort of epistemic value on something so unavoidably relative. I chose to use it as an online alias as the term always seems to arouse thought, even if it is as simple as 'What the hecks a happy colour?'. And as well I cannot avoid the invariable comparison that what is a happy colour for one is different for another, just as what is right for one may be very different for another.

With this aside time for a quick introduction. My name is Nathan Hunt and I am a 26 year old Canadian. Currently I am philosophy major at the University of Calgary. In terms of hobbies I am an avid gamer, a martial artist (currently training in traditional Muay Thai), and free-lance writer working on various projects. It should as well be noted that I am religously motivated and label myself most simply as being of Buddhist thought. For the past year I had been blogging at 'today.com', but due to disagreements with the approach of service I am transferring my blogging from 'Journeyman Philosopher' & 'Intellectual Gamer' to this new blog.

The goal of this blog will be to have a place where I can freely express my own ideas regarding the world, be it my views on philosophy or perhaps even thoughts on modern video entertainment. If you are coming as a previous reader of my old blogs I can assure you the content will be of a similar nature, yet will be more geared at expressing my daily thoughts free of a restrictive theme such as 'philosophy only' and 'gaming only'. This isn't to say however that it will not be philosophical, as I seem to be incapable of understanding the world around me without it.

I'd like to thank you for reading, and I hope you feel comfortable stopping in with a comment expressing your own thoughts every now and then.