Episode 21: Love

Welcome to wisdom from the aerial view podcast for those who wish to learn to crush their anxiety and find meaning and purpose in their lives. That's a big ask. But on our last podcast, we talked about violence. talked about political violence. We talked about physical violence, et cetera, et cetera. And we ended the podcast with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. And it was a fabulous quote. And it was all about the opposite of violence. It was about love. So I want to start conversation with you today about that very subject, about love. There was a wonderful thing I read. It's by a man by the Henry Van Dyke. And he said, time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice. But for those who love, time. is eternity. I want to talk today about love. I think we don't spend enough time talking about love. We probably don't spend enough time doing it either, but we really need to talk about what is love and is love in fact the opposite of violence?

For those of who are listening, should understand that Enid doesn't often give me an idea of what we're going to talk about. And then she just throws a question at me and she expects me to just fire off an answer. So we never can talk enough about love. Love is the antidote. And it is obvious from the aerial view that love is the antidote, the panacea, because all the things we dislike in our world are impossible in the setting of love. You can't love somebody and be violent. You can't love somebody and hate. To love thy neighbor is from scripture and all religions, I think, embrace that. Everybody gets it. Everybody understands that love is really, really something special. So the question is, where does love come from? And why is it so special? And why is it often pushed aside for violence or hate or these other... emotions that are negative. These are all very interesting questions to me. I've watched people be in moments of extreme love. I'm not talking about me personally. I don't get too personal here. Can I tell you a story about that? Okay. Everybody likes stories, right? My third child got married a couple of years ago up in Maine and

Yeah, I you would. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

It was one of those perfect weekends that you get in life that just everything's right. The weather's beautiful, you're in a beautiful setting, you're with your whole family and friends and it just works. You can't even anticipate it, how good it is. That's what my son's wedding was. My son is a very loving guy. He's a very sweet guy. He's my son. I love him to pieces. I love all my kids to pieces. And I watched him standing next to his, awaiting his bride as she walked down the aisle. And I looked at his face. And you know, if you believe in divinity, occupying the human soul, well, that was it. He was completely overwhelmed and filled with love. I don't think there was a millimeter of space in his body that wasn't suffused with love. for his soon bride, for his soon to be wife. I watched him look at her and I'm thinking, holy mackerel, this, this is love. This is, you know, if we could put that in a package and dole it out, put it in the water even, you know, we wouldn't have a bad day in this world. That's how intense it was. And I was so happy for him because I could feel it. I mean, I've experienced this, I could feel it. And it just, and everybody there could feel it. And you've been in a situation like that. You've been in situation where people are so in love or that you watch them together and everybody in the room feels it. You know what I'm talking about? So I look at this and I think, okay, if we can get there on occasion, then this is something that should be available to all people.

Sure, absolutely.

much more frequently, right? And that's really how we solve so many of our problems on this earth in what I call the street view. So when you said love is so valuable, so important, I couldn't agree with you more.

Sure, that's a universal language. It is. But how does one get from violence? You're talking all the time about from inward focus to outward focus. How does one get from anger and maybe violence, maybe not to that extreme, but how does one get to love? How do you get to love?

Well, I should be asking you this question and I'll tell you why. Because the answer is you get to love when you change the focus from yourself to somebody else. And you have spent your entire life taking care of people, mostly the elderly, the hungry. I mean, you have, you have lived the, you've walked the walk. And I'm going to bet that there are innumerable occasions where you felt an immense amount of love. because of the positive effect your efforts or your group or your organization's efforts had on a group appeal. I'm sure you've been in a room on many occasions where you have felt something like that. Am I correct?

Absolutely, totally fulfilled.

So what was it?

I think it is exactly what you say. It's just, it's not about me. It's about what, it isn't and it is because it's about what I brought to it, I think, without sounding obnoxious and self-centered, but it is, it's not, I didn't do it as an observer. I did it as a participant. And I think that's important. And I think that it was love and passion and commitment. And I think we need all of those things.

Yes, of course.

And I think that we would be in a better place, in a better world if more people, and I'm not, you know, and it takes a while to get there. I didn't just get there overnight. And I'm still not there.

No, my, Pineda, when you were in that room with those people and you, and you saw somebody who was no longer hungry, who had previously been hungry, or somebody who had a place to live who didn't have a place to live, or somebody who had a community where before he or she was by themselves. And during those experiences, you watched these people and you had, and you brought them those resolutions. You brought them through your efforts to either being not hungry, not alone, not, not homeless and so on.

Yeah. Yeah.

you through your efforts, let's say through your efforts, you got them to that point. That's when you I'm sure you felt this overwhelming peace and happiness and love and fulfillment. Right. It was that it was that you brought that to somebody else. Well, that's the answer. So we talked about violence previously.

Yes.

We know the media likes to whip us into a frenzy, right? So that's why everything on TV is bad news, just about. I mean, if you turn on Sunday morning on CBS, you'll see a couple of good stories. And here and there, just to keep us honest, just to get ourselves honest, the press will throw in a good story. At the end of a broadcast of an hour of news where people are getting blown up, terrible things are happening, and at the end they go, here's a nice little story for 30 seconds, right? Right, okay, right.

Sure, sure.

Right.

So basically they spend most of the time whipping us into some kind of frenzy, which is why people get so upset and they're willing to hurt other people who are on the other political side, the opposite side of the political spectrum. But we don't have to take the bait. You are not required to take the bait. You can look at it and say, that's not moving me forward.

Right.

that watching this news or reading this online, wherever you get your news, this isn't moving me forward. I am not more concerned about other people than myself at this moment. am not feeling the optimism that I know I need to feel to maximize the value of my life. So we don't have to take the bait. That's their business model. But once you get to the aerial view and you see what this is all about and you understand what life is about, And let's just reiterate, this is a good time to reiterate the things we learned from the area of love because that drives us to love, right? That's where we get, that's where it becomes so obvious that love is the number one most important emotion we can generate. And the rest of them, the negative ones are useless. And so we talked about the fact that you must release your attachment to the street view. You need to become the disinterested independent observer, just watching.

Okay, good, let's do it.

So you have to free yourself from the street view first, because otherwise you're so bogged down at it, you can't make an independent objective decision. So that's the first thing. And then you have to recognize that there are, from the aerial view, see that there are all these opinions we've talked about, all these perspectives that we talked about climbing into somebody else's head and seeing the world from their point of view. From the aerial view, it's obvious that there are all these perspectives out there and you can choose to at least appreciate the perspective of these other people you're dealing with. Get into their head, see the world through their eyes. You understand what we talked about, that time and our time on this earth is limited. Death is assured. That tells us that our purpose cannot be longevity, nor can it be power, wealth, or fame. Death proves to us that these are not the purpose of life. Okay, now you're in the aerial view. You understand that there's no winning the game. So now you see, okay, what's my purpose? I get it. It's not to be powerful or to live forever or to be rich or famous. It's to make this evolution. Everybody does the same thing. Every life ends the same with death. Therefore, longevity can't be the purpose. Therefore, wealth, the accumulation of wealth, power or fame cannot be the purpose. Okay, what am I supposed to do? I get it. I'm supposed to do what Enid Borden has been doing for years. Turn the camera outward, focus on other people, help as many people as I can. Why? Yeah, it's the right thing to do, but I got a better reason, which you described beautifully. It makes you feel like a million dollars. You light up, you go, this must be what I'm supposed to do, because I feel the best I've ever felt. Nothing makes you feel better than that. That's the answer. That tells you that's the ultimate clue that says you're on the right track. The way you feel that joy, that internal joy that you feel when you've helped other people, that's irreplaceable with anything else, that's the final clue. That's the nail in the coffin that tells you, yes, that's why you're here. You get it. That's why you feel so great. And then what's that feeling you're feeling? What's that joy? it's love.

It's love for that other person to say, I've helped that person. I see, I take such great joy. told you the story, by the way, this is a follow-up story to a story. Remember I told you, we talked about this on one of our episodes about a former employee of mine who was a woman who was pretty large and was generally very grumpy and very unhappy. I'm putting the two together for a reason. And then I left my practice and I came back and she'd been with me for maybe five years, something like that. And she was very good, very smart. And I liked her because I tend to like.

Mm-hmm.

Yes. Right until she lost the weight.

just about everybody. she wasn't, know, the patients didn't love her, the other staff weren't so crazy about it, because she was kind of difficult, right? She was clearly unhappy. And then I came back a year later, hadn't seen her in a year, and she had lost like 100 pounds, right? And she was like a different person. She was euphoric. She was happy. She was optimistic. She was fantastic. And what did I feel? I felt so, it made my day, it made my week. I was so happy for her. that she was able to change her perspective to do something that put her in a much better light. And then, you know, the analogy I love to use is in the movie, you know, Beauty and the Beast, which is one of the greatest kids' movies, or even really greatest movies ever. And, you know, when the witch's curse is on, the castle is dark and it's decrepit and there's no leaves on any of the trees. And all of sudden at the end, when... when she kisses the beast and he turns back into the prince and everything turns, the sun comes out and the building is beautiful and every flower and the birds are singing, right? That's how I felt at that moment, that transition, right? I just went back to my office again recently to say hi to some people and I saw her again and she's just as happy, just as euphoric, just as proud, just as, right? Okay, so.

Yeah.

So now she has gotten to the point where she can then turn her focus to other people. When she was in this rut, when she thought so little of herself, when she was so unhappy with herself, she couldn't make that transition. But finally, she did. And now I see the joy on her face when she helps her patients, when she does her job in such a beautiful way. I mean, once you discover this, once you get out of yourself, and focus on other people, you are liberated. That joy is love and you understand immediately that is the essence of life. That's why you're here. Help other people, feel great, experience love, end of story.

And so, but anybody can, I mean, you can be the sanitation worker and everybody should, shouldn't they? I mean, it doesn't matter. You don't have to feed people as, I mean, you don't have to do anything like that, but you can just exist on a daily basis by understanding that you are worth something. You have the power of worth. And I think that's very important to know your value.

Everybody can, right?

And where does that power of worth come from? It comes from knowing that you can possibly impact the lives of others. You don't have to be a doctor to do this or a psychiatrist or a mental health worker. Anybody can do it. So every day, this is a true statement, every single day I try to do this with somebody. So I'll give you another example. I had a phone call recently with a friend who was down, kind of down, I could tell was down on herself.

Right.

Immediately, my focus was, I was planning to do like 10 other things, right? And I wasn't planning to be on the phone very long, but I realized, okay, this is not exactly a cry for help, but it's like a small plea, right? I could hear it. So what did I do? I turned my focus completely to her and asked a bunch of questions to find out what was going on and then to help her understand that she was looking at her life and her own value is the wrong way.

Yeah, yeah.

that at the end of the day, she's a, and I hate saying that end of the day, but I did. She's got a good heart. She cares about people. That's it. That's all you need. Don't worry about the rest. If you have that, you're a winner. You're absolutely automatically a winner. As long as you are a good person who's willing to help others and turn the camera away from you to somebody else, A, do that, because as soon as you do that, you'll feel better. Once you turn the camera away from yourself, the woe is me. I'm a victim. Oh, look at my life. And you turn it to somebody else. You're going to feel better instantaneously. But my point to her was that you're devaluing yourself because you're not giving enough credit to the things that really count and you're over giving too much, placing too much emphasis on the things that, okay, I get you want to do better, but they're not that important. You you could be, we talked about, we were not talking about the masters yesterday, I think. And we were talking about a specific golfer who we didn't think was like the nicest guy in the world. Right?

Yes.

And if you're a great golfer and you're not the nicest guy in the world, you lose, right? You lose. You can be a great golfer and be a good person. They're not mutually exclusive, right?

Well, no, actually, that guy's won, but that guy that we were talking about, who's not the greatest guy, he did win. He has won tournaments and he didn't win the Masters.

No, no, he's won tournaments. He's won tournaments, but he hasn't won in life. That's my point. Right? Right. That's, know, it's not fair for us to judge him. We don't know him. We kind of, it was mostly a joke. the point is that somebody who who may be super accomplished and super powerful, super wealthy, you know, if they don't know how to treat people, right, then, and then I shouldn't say that, if they're not willing to turn the camera from themselves to others,

I see what you're saying. Enid (16:53.1) No, right.

then they're just not going to maximize the value of their life because all their power and all their money is going to go to zero the moment they die.

Let's go back to this notion of love for a second, the adage, love thy neighbor. Do we really love our neighbor? Do we like our neighbor? Let's talk about the differentiation between like and love. Can I really love my neighbor? Isn't it enough just to like my neighbor?

love it.

totally different. You could love your neighbor and not like him. That's easy, right? In other words, let's say your neighbor is annoying in one way or another. You don't like that his yard is a mess or you don't like that he's very loud or he's very intrusive. You might not like those things, right? But that doesn't mean you don't love him. So why do you love him? Because you care about him. So yesterday I was having

is it.

Was it yesterday? I was having lunch with somebody, maybe not yesterday. I was at a wedding this weekend. And this young guy, who's a friend of the groom, came over and sat next to me. At first I thought he was drunk. He was probably a little inebriated, but not terrible. But he was a very gregarious guy. And he was interested in, and I was, of course, I'm interested in finding out about him. And at some point I said something, I said, look, I said, honestly, I care more, I implied that I cared more about him than I cared about myself.

yeah.

And he looked at me goes, come on, there's no way you, you don't even know me. I went, I don't have to know you. It's not relevant for me to know you. I have to care more for you than I care about me. That's the whole point. So it's not that I don't, that, so my, when I say that to people, they think I'm insane. But it's exactly the right answer. The more you do that, the happier you're going to be. The more fulfilled you're going to be. The more love you're going to experience. That joy that you get from love is going to fill you more and more. Why wouldn't you do that? Because the point is exactly that, to care more about others. You you asked me a couple of weeks ago about, a couple of podcasts ago about teaching my grandchildren this. And I had the pleasure to spend a couple of days with three of my grandchildren. who are the, you they're just the sweetest, cutest kids. I mean, all kids are cute. I actually believe all kids are cute and sweet. You know, but it's a lot of fun. They're my grandchildren. We have a great relationship. And, you know, I was thinking about that. What you had said to me, how, when are you teaching them? What do you teach them? How do you teach them? So when I was with them this time, that came into my mind. And it really brings up the question of love. And they know that I love them.

huh.

unconditionally. When they're all little, when my grandchildren are all little, I always do the same game with them. go, they all call me Pop. So when they're very little and they have language, probably you have two years old, two to three years old, I'll say, does Pop love you a little? And I put my fingers together real close. Or does Pop love you a lot? I'll make my arms wide apart, right? And they go, Pop loves me a lot. And I'll pull their arms far apart, right? Okay. That's the best gift you can give to anybody on this planet. People who know they're loved are not going to shoot people. They are not going to blow up buildings. They are not going to create insurrections. They are not going to do this. If people really know they're loved, they're not going to do it at any age, right? Too many people are under loved. And that's our job. That's why loving your neighbor, even if you don't like your neighbor, is the way to go. That's when you're fulfilling your mission. You don't have to like the guy. You can love the guy and let that guy know. So for instance, There are people I know who I don't particularly think, they're not my favorite people, let's put it that way, but they're never gonna know that, right? They're never gonna know it. And I'm totally interested in what's going on in their lives. And as soon as they give me some inclination that they have a problem, I'm gonna try and help them with it if I can. If nothing else, then to listen about it. But I go into that mode immediately. Why? I'm not a saint, because I'm selfish. I'm actually selfish because I know as soon as I try to help them and I make some progress and I make them feel better, whether I make them feel happier about the situation or about their lives, about who they are, whatever it is, as soon as I make a little bit of progress, I feel fantastic. It's a drug, right? And what is it? It's love. It's that love that comes from I'm doing the right thing. I'm fulfilling my mission. Once you do it, it is addicting, right? That's why this political violence we talked about previously and On a previous episode, it's crazy. None of these people, you watch these people outside demonstrating and yelling and screaming. None of them are happy. They're under loved and they're not happy. None of them really are going to get any fulfillment out of that. Right? You want to get fulfillment, somebody care about somebody else. So if you hate, give an example of people that were protesting against Elon Musk, you should love Elon Musk. You don't have to like him. Right? You don't have to approve of everything he does.

but you should love him because when you love him and you care about it, if you think, because if you think he's doing something bad, then you're extended by definition, you're saying he has a problem. He thinks he's seeing the world the wrong way. He's making a mistake. He's got a problem. Okay. Well then your job is to help him with the problem, not shoot him, not hate him, love him. Try, so you see the point. The more you do that, you know, we're talking about love. The more you do that, the more love you generate, the more joy you generate, the more fulfilling your life is. It's not that hard, right? You don't have to like your neighbor, but if you love your neighbor, you're gonna feel so much better in your life every single day.

It sure would good to like them at the same time, however. Well, well...

I don't care if you like him or not. You don't have to like him. Supposing he's a New England Patriot fan, you're not going to like him. You're Buffalo Bills fan. You see my point. You don't have to like him to love him. It's better to do both, obviously, but you can't like everybody. mean, that's naive. But you can love everybody.

Well, I sure I did.

So can you only love someone though in the area of you? Because in the street view, but I don't like them in the street view.

No, you have to love them in the street view. You don't have to like them in the street view. You have to love them in the street view. You see the point? The point is when you're focusing on other people and you have all people in it, this is a cakewalk for you. You've done this your whole life. You know this. You know this is true. When you focus on other people, right, and you give to other people, when you give them love, because when you're feeding them or clothing them or housing them, you're giving them love, right? That's what you're saying. I care about you. When you do that, you feel fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I can't love Elon Musk in the abstract or even if I ever met him, wouldn't, I can't, no. Tell me how.

you can, you can. Let me tell you how to do it. Okay, first of all, this is not a new thought, right? You know, this is like, you know, go back to the origin of every single religion. Okay, this is not, there's nothing new. This is not a Mark Klein thought, right? But when when you know, we say to love thy neighbor is to love thyself or love thy neighbor Jesus and so on. Okay, I'm not a Christian, so I don't know all the exact phraseology, but you get the idea, right? So when you think about that, you go, why is that?

Yes.

Why is that in the Bible? Why is that taken as a truth? Hmm, I have to think about this. Love thy neighbor as thyself. You know, turn the other cheek. You know, make your enemy love thy enemy, whatever, all those things, right? So why are these things, why are these sayings, have they existed for eons? There must be some truth in them or they wouldn't have lasted. Okay, so the answer is I'm supposed to love my neighbor, but I don't really like my neighbor. Okay, what I'm trying to say is the message is you don't have to like your neighbor. To love your neighbor is to understand that your purpose in life is to turn that camera away from yourself to others. That's love. That's the definition of love in a sense. You care about others more than you care about yourself. You know, I love my wife to pieces. If she's ill, I'm a hundred times more upset than if I'm ill, right? I love her. I love my children. I love my grandchildren. I feel the same about you, Enid. When you have an issue, I'm going to do everything I can to help you. Not because I like you, which I do, and you're my friend, which you are, because that's my job. And when you do your job, when you focus on others, you win. That's the answer. You're not going to feel happy on a picket line screaming at Elon Musk. I can guarantee you that. You're not going to feel happy

And you have.

setting a tessera on fire. You're not gonna be happy burning down Josh Shapiro's, Governor Shapiro's house, right? Or slamming, know, Nancy Pelosi's husband with a hammer. You're not gonna get joy from that, right? It's exactly the opposite. You wanna get joy, you wanna feel great about your life, turn the camera. Turn the camera and love the other person. Even if you don't like them, that's what these great biblical sayings are telling us. That's why they've survived all these years, because they're truth. That's the point. Love other people selfishly for yourself because you're going to feel so much better. You're going to have a fulfilling meaning of life. You're going to complete your mission. You will be prepared. That's the reason. And love is really, we say the word love like it's a four letter word. just throw it out there, right? But it is the ultimate four letter word because it tells us, I'll give you another something else. When you fall down and you hurt yourself or you pull a muscle, and you have pain and pain gets so bad that you are brought to tears. Okay, so that was you're crying, right? Now, go back to when you're in the most, the best happiest situation of your life with another person where you actually felt all that love. You were so moved by love that tears came to your eyes. So in both those situations, you're crying. Are they the same? The tears, are they the same? Here's my opinion. My opinion is no. The tears of pain come from connections to your neurobiology, to your nervous system. The tears of love and ultimate joy come from the divine. They come from someplace that we all share. They come from that common hub of humanity, that the essence of the universe. That's where it comes from. And that's why you feel this unbelievable warmth. and completeness and that sense of utopia that people feel when they're in that situation. It comes from what we know to be true, that our purpose in life is love, that we are here to love. And when we exemplify that, we actually act on that and it happens, that's when we feel the maximum joy of our lives. That's how you know it's the real thing. That's how you know that's what you're supposed to do. That's how you know that's the purpose of your life.

know, one of the reasons I didn't let you know what we were gonna talk about today was I wanted you to just sort of, and I can see, I wish people could see your face right now. You're happy. When you're talking about, when you tell stories about your son and your wife and your grandchildren, that's love and it's beautiful. I wanna end this today from a book that I love and it's called Wisdom from the Area of View, the Superpower that Can Change Your Life and This World. You didn't know I was gonna do this, but I'm gonna read some passages because I think it's important. You said, love of the highest magnitude has been experienced, the world no longer looks the same. Night is never quite as dark. Sorrow as inescapably overwhelming or despair permanent. Limitless love is the light that never dims. You wrote that. You also talked about your son's wedding. You said, I watched my son and his beautiful bride shed tear after tear all weekend long. My own eyes rarely dried. We understand tears, pain, sorrow, and loneliness. Why do we shed the same tears at times of great happiness? We do not. The tears we shed during joyful events are different. They are the result of a connection to something deeper. They emanate from the center of everything. Those tears are the recognition of the profound nature of love, the greatest power on earth. and the salient message that there is something greater than us and that our lives have meaning. You said that. I'll end with this, profound. Love widens the circle, the radius perpetually increasing until it becomes obvious that we are all a single family. Love is how we get to the other side, where we reject contentiousness, division, and violence. and recognize our common bonds. You said it, and I say, amen. I love it. I love what you said, and I love you. Thank you for a great show.

you too. Thank you so much Enid. See you soon everybody. Thank you.