Notes to Teico on the Essential Character of Love

Tough love is not the exception, it’s the rule.

Teico. “As you fix your bike be a lover not a hater.”

·         Don’t hate your bike and abuse it.  Don’t call it a piece of junk and kick out spokes.  Like a good artist, respect your material.  Regard it with a certain dignity.

·         Haters love to simplify.  But they simplify from the outset by projecting their prejudices.  Take time to trouble shoot.  Don’t make snap judgments.  Earn your simplifications by effort and study.  Let them be conclusions not prejudices.

·          Lovers are tolerant of complexity.  They know that most things are complex.  Haters want the simplicity of their prejudices.

·         A hater does not want to accept ownership of problems.  A lover accepts the problem as a challenge and even as a way of getting satisfaction from a job well done.

·         Teico, haters never believe in the long run.  They want quick fixes even though it does more damage to the bike.  Doing something the right way is important to the lover.  They believe in eternal verities.

·         What goes for bikes goes for every disciple I can think of.  The modality and methodology of love is everywhere the preferred and most effective course.  Pure Science is based on it…but what about competition, even war itself?  Now we’ve all heard the commandment to “love our enemies.”  I would submit to you that that is the best way to win a war—even a hot war.

·         Ask yourself given the modalities of the lover vs. hater, who would be the better warrior?

·         Who would have the greater grasp of reality, endurance, and commitment?  I wish I had time to discuss them, but I can’t.  But from what I’ve said you know pretty much what I would say.  In short, I would find that “Love your Enemies” turns out to be a pretty precise description of effective behavior.

·         And, indeed, effective behavior is what the modalities of love bring us in the last analysis.  Just the way the world is made—in its complexity, hidden nature, and surprises—modalities of love will take us there, modalities of hate leave us stranded in disarray and disappointment.

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