~ Giving Without A Gift ~

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Ah. You’ve decided to continue. Good. I'd like to explain again that this site, is about embracing the unexamined so you can have the power to protect those that you love. Still, the purpose of this specific book, is to examine a specific anomaly or abnormality. I feel each piece of the unknown is important enough that it must be given its own segment within the site. I am starting with this particular piece of novelty out of its sheer importance and relevance to your future progress. In the next chapter, the concept we'll be starting with will be a valuable tool. I'm hoping that you will find enough power, that you may be able to lend some of it to those you care for, before it's too late, sooner rather than later.

In the end, there are many "examples" of where my philosophy appears wrong. Still, if you truly look, nothing we have has come from nothing. There will always be a cause to this effect. Whether the effect is a gift, a mystery, or even misery, in the end, there will always be someone, or something, to thank for it. While people may not have grown the flowers themselves, those blossoms that have been given to you, by your friends, by your family, or by the universe itself, all had to come from somewhere. Perhaps you mistake the senders. Perhaps you mistake the amount, or the ownership; but the one giving you anything, be it a blessing, a curse, or the seeds to both, has had it on themselves to give. After all, they at least had it long enough to give it to you.

In the end, you need not only to understand something about my philosophy, but to internalize and accept it, first and foremost. You can't give what you don’t have. You cannot empower those around you without having any power to give. Just as you can’t lend money to your dying grandma’s bills if you have no money on you, you can’t bring attention to a worthy cause if you have no attention on you. This is the way of the world. One’s generosity is only as good as one’s fortune. Before you can truly choose to love another, platonically, romantically, or otherwise, you first need to love yourself. I always aim for unconditional love, or as close to it as possible.

But please note this is not written to suggest that you cannot love without learning to love yourself first. It merely means that, if you cannot contain and hold onto that love, no matter where it came from, you will always be unable to choose where it'll go in the future, leading to the downfall either of you, or of those that you wish to empower. The same can be said of anything you wish to give or keep. The first step in giving a gift is to notice that you have something worth giving. The second step is keeping your hold on that gift until it's in the receiver's hands. Trying to bring a dying fish new water is a kind and honorable gesture, but it will be useless if the water slips through your fingers before you can get there. People who cannot control their generosity will never be a reliable source of empowerment for those who need it. They cannot keep their valuables on hand specifically for those they love, or even those in need. As you journey onwards, through your life, you will come across a day where the ones who love you, will need you, and when that day comes, I hope that you will be prepared. I hope that I, myself, will have prepared you, and so it's time to begin the training for that, and we will begin in the next chapter. For now though, we move to a key debate.

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Now, the main argument I hear against my philosophy for giving is that someone my opposition once knew personally loved very much, without loving themselves. I once knew a person whose father was an alcoholic. They told me they didn't believe in my ideas because their father didn't seem to feel much love for himself, but seemed to love his children unconditionally, including the speaker in question. We had a bit of an argument, and as we talked, a realization hit me in the brain. I, however, did not speak it out loud, because at the time, they were going through some significant changes in their life, filled with at least some uncertainty. Since my point may have been invalid (At the time it was just a newly formed hypothesis, after all), it felt wrong to discuss it with its various interpretations, some of which were very negative. I had not yet acted on my plan to investigate further. I had not yet accounted for as many interpretations as I have now, and so I remained silent.

My point towards their argument is that, while their father may not have grown that love within himself, he still had found unconditional love. His child, the one speaking, clearly loved him nonetheless. In fact, that ability to love this alcoholic seems to have torn the child to pieces, and shreds, on certain future occasions. In the end though, the family loved their father, at least as a family member, and he willingly gave this love, outwards, to his children. Perhaps it was not unconditional love that was given to him, but even in such a case, you cannot prove that his love for his children was unconditional either. Perhaps they just never found the condition that would make him stop.

You may state that he had no extended love or excess amount of it. You may be right, but that does not mean he could not give his love away. He may not have loved himself enough, but what little love he did have, he gave to his children. He may, very well, have sacrificed his own love for someone he deemed more important, or with more potential, than he himself. This could very easily lead to a spiral (a clearly negative interpretation). The more you love someone, in comparison with yourself, the more often you'll be willing to sacrifice for them. If you start out with very little love, and give what's left away to your family, then you will have zero, and your family will have more than that, leading to you feeling a need to sacrifice more, outwards, towards your children, to make up for seeming like a lost cause (to yourself) and so you sacrifice your self-love for your kids, making them more loved, and you're willing to sacrifice more the next time around, and so on. After all, how can you feel a need to take care of yourself, if you hate yourself in comparison, to your children? Especially if you cannot choose where your love will go.

This is not to say that the family is to blame for an alcoholic or depressed father. This is his choice, even if he can't control it, or doesn't realize that it's the one he's making.

And I don't know if he was truly unaware...

But it was his choice to make; not the son's, not the daughter's, not the wife's. At the end of the day, it is very easy to give love, but it's nearly impossible, to take it by force, even if you're taking it from yourself. And if we're being honest…

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That's why you're here, isn't it?

Because you feel that you need to prove something, anything, to someone else, anyone else?

But most of all, you need to prove it to a single person,

And you know who it is because of your own feelings, and how you feel like you're incomplete as you are right now.

Tell me the truth. Are you here to run towards something, like a goal,

or are you just running away?

In truth, you don't need to answer that, because the point is that you're running. You’re moving, you’re progressing. You’re doing whatever you wanna call it, and you’re doing it because you can’t stop, and you can’t stop because it hurts to stay still and just be…

Most of all, it hurts to just be ”you”.

running,

You're always running, and you always have been.

My point in making this the first book, is to let you rest. For the first time in your life, I want you to be at peace, to not need to distract yourself from feelings of guilt, or of shame, or of a need for ambition.

Because without even knowing you, I can bet 10 to 1 that you are worth loving, even if you can't prove that fact to yourself yet.

And if you need more proof from me...

Well... why do you think that some of these pages are free to read?

Good luck.

And I'll see you in chapter 3.