Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

The Reality Of Love And Kindness

The Reality Of Love And Kindness

The reality of love and kindness is that they are similar, but not the same thing.

For kindness is a necessary component of love. But kindness is not love.

Maybe one could draw it out by saying:

Kindness + Devotion + Relationship + Grace = Love

You are kind to the lady in line at the store, but this speaks little to how you are kind to your children.

I might, indeed, have learned, even from the poets, that Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness: that even the love between the sexes is, as in Dante, ‘a lord of terrible aspect’. There is kindness in Love: but Love and kindness are not coterminous, and when kindness (in the sense given above) is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a certain fundamental indifference to its object, and even something like contempt of it.

-C.S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain (Amazon)

Never Assume A Pig Loves You

Never Assume A Pig Loves You

Never assume a pig loves you, because, well, they are just animals.

Stop humanizing your pets.

Animals do not have feelings in the same way that people do.

I get it, your dog or cat – or whatever – is special.

But they still aren’t people.

And cats and dogs will do this too, if given enough time.

Gross:

This news came from a fellow with long experience in the swine business. He told of a farmer who had been having some heart problems. On his way to feed the pigs one morning, he fainted by the pen. By the time someone found him, he had lost a lot of weight. My informant’s sad comment was, “Never assume a pig loves you.”

-John Erickson, Story Craft (Amazon)

Sterling Terrell