Love in abundance

[thir]

I have had so many - well, not exactly cheerful topics lately, I thought I'd post this one too:

In the program of Spain's lost babies, it was incredible to see how how willing people were to love each other at the merest chance of being kin. It was a ray of sunshine in the whole horrible mess that made me wonder at the quite openended potential we humans have for loving other people. If we dare!

Which makes me think how research has shown that in a crisis (war, natural catastrophies), people start working together and take care of each other.

Which, in turn, made me marvel at how each and every person is really such a treasure chest of potential of all kinds of things. :-) Mostly seen in adversity.

Open up and share :-)

[Thorne]

Open up and share :-)

What? And risk my status as a card-carrying curmudgeon? Not a chance!

[leo9]

Which makes me think how research has shown that in a crisis (war, natural catastrophies), people start working together and take care of each other.

It's more than that: people work together all the time, in the background, but it only gets noticed when the structures fall away and it's all that's left. Then everybody marvels at how this wonderful thing appears out of nowhere.

I think of it as what psychologists call a figure-ground illusion: we see the small striking thing in the foreground and don't notice the much bigger background. So economists can convince us that the world runs on the profit motive, and tough-guy theorists can make us believe that everyone is naturally at war with everyone else, and make us stop seeing the enormous background of everyday friendship and mutual help and support without which the whole society that the tough guys and exploiters live off would fall apart around them.

[ksst]

I've seen love in abundance in my own circle of friends. At times people have lost their families or their homes due to various reasons and have been taking in by friends who give them a room for as long as they need to get on their feet again. I did as well, long ago, gave a room to a person who was temporarily homeless, and another friend took care of his dog for him until he could get a place. And just last year I offered a place to stay for a friend and all her animals when it seemed she was on the brink of disaster, which lucky for her turned around in time. Another time a neighbor's house burned down, and the whole neighborhood took up a collection to help them out with things until the insurance could come through, or to cover things the insurance didn't.