Debasement of words devalues their subjects

The modern world seems to be evolving towards faster newer better bigger faster than it ever has. I wonder if that's as much to do with the incredible increase in population as much as it is with the increase communications tools. We strive to give more impact to what we say and do to attract an audience. So greater and greater use of high meaning words is used and it essentially demeans the words themselves.

One such word is love. People are quick to say they "love something" (I love the colour of your shoes) but in their lives there is perhaps no love at all.

Marriages don't last as long, people are having less children, people increasingly don't support their parents, even parents are increasingly wary of their own children.

So in such an environment its hardly surprising that people don't know what love is.

Perhaps in response to an increasing clamor of things to learn about / attract your attention we have debased our values on more long term or permanent things.

The rituals in life are replaced with simply repetition of the mundane, the things we once did that took time also added richness to our lives. Spending 7 hours watching TV does not add richness to your life, nor does several hours on social media.

 Because we are all so busy checking out everything these days we have less time to sit and think and less time to reflect on what has been the progress. A short term view loses perspective of the overall trends.

Sadly people increasingly value convenience over quality. Its part of the 'economic' thinking today. As a result I feel that increasingly people don't even understand love. After all fewer people in western society are married and have family, people are unwilling to work through problems and see dissolution as the solution. As people are increasingly people are isolated from one another such things as permanence seem abstract.

Love and obligation are in some ways related, but of course obligation without love is nothing desirable and so is love without obligation a harmful thing to your spirit.


Once my wife and I were having an argument about a topic (god I can't remember what it was even) and I said something like "I don't want to live my life this way". She interpreted that as a threat to "change or we break up" and later said that aloud. I stopped and said to her something like: No, that's not what I meant at all. I expect that my life with your will be always. I just don't want to always be having conflicts. I want to learn to find a way for us to work things through together so we can be happy together. Not unhappy together.

She saw that I meant what I said (from years of previous working through problems) and that it wasn't a threat but an offer. She wanted us to be together and she saw that was what I wanted too. Importantly she saw that I wanted us to be together and happy ... not just together.


and we were...

Sometimes its important to reaffirm what you believe, to not leave the assumptions unspoken and to follow them trough with what you do. While actions speak louder than words sometimes the words that match the actions go a long way too ... as do some flowers now and then ;-)