Thank you for responding! I appreciate your thoughts and that someone else is thinking about these things - me too.

As you imply, I agree that much of what we say depends on our definitions of 'love', which is undefineable. To the degree it involves time (for attention), well obviously time is limited and therefore love would be limited. But I think that's a distraction, a rationalization, a tool to win a debate but not our intent.

Love at its core is about empathy, compassion, and that social emotion called love; time is a unavoidable factor but isn't necessary - love without time would still be Love (maybe moreso). I once thought Love was limited. I was trying to come to terms with the fear and trauma of evil in the world and to protect myself from it; and much more I was trying to come to terms with the lack of love I received in my past, and to justify or rationalize the lack of love I then currently gave or was involved in.

...

As I grew, I learned some things: I learned that I was avoiding a deeply painful reality - that some very important people treated me badly, I was injured by it, and that was never going to change. For me, to rationalize the limitations of love was an attempt to justify what they did, as bizarre as that sounds, so I could believe they did love me - you see, the injuries were just the natural course of things and my fault, my shameful weakness, vulnerability and resulting needs. Neglect is worse than abuse; nothing is worse than feeling meaningless (that's why people try to befriend their abusers).

Then I learned that love is much greater. I learned from someone who loved me, who showed me.

And the rationalization trapped me - it trapped me in the limitations of those who abused and neglected me. If love was much greater than what they did then they didn't love me, I was nothing (or not much) to them, and then that empty space - that feeling of meaninglessness - and the injuries are very real and cannot be undone. I can't go back and make them love me, or make them love me now.

I had a choice: I could stay in that trap, within those limitations, or move beyond them and face the pain and emptiness. Like the coming of age stories - I could stay in my small town, in the bosom of those relationships and (imagined) love; or having a much greater vision than them, I could leave for the wide world, the big city, and accept the isolation of leaving my roots behind. And then they would never understand me again, and would certainly reject me because of it.

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That's the choice of many of us and I can just tell you my story: I went for it. I chose to accept love not only as much greater than those people in my life, but as unlimited - I was going to try for the best possible result, knowing it might fall short.

It hasn't fallen short, amazingly. IME, it's unlimited. I can love, I believe you can love, without limit. Most powerfully, I can love myself. I can love deeply in an instant, in prospect, people who've harmed me, and those close to me no matter what they do. I'm not joking or exaggerating, though few will believe me.

It's not a fairy tale; life is very hard. The pain and trauma from my past remain, though I handle them much better. Those people from my past do reject me, actively at times. Other people and the world still do horrible things; they beat you down again and again; it feels awful, sometimes terrifying. I do bad things too, of course. Life is very hard no matter what you do - do you have a solution where those things don't happen? There's no pain? Have the emotional walls actually worked? Now I can get my bearings and rise up much stronger and better; there's an undercurrent, though sometimes faint or overwhelmed, of almost magical joy. I never feel defeated beyond the immediate experience:

One key for me is perceiving that many people, unfortunately ~97% of them it seems, don't know this secret. They do horrible things and act badly because they are, very understandably, scared, traumatized, and don't understand there is unlimited love for them and in them. The answer is not to fight them for survival, but to love them, to show them. Some think you must be a fool - in terms of their survival perspective, you are doing crazy things; in that survival game, acting with love can make you vulnerable; you may get knocked down. But that will happen at times anyway and, in my experience, people see and sense the love and very rarely, in my experience, fight you. Most of all, people follow you if you lead genuinely; if you lead with aggression and defensiveness, they'll adopt a defensive posture and fight you; lead with love and they will love.

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Long ago I read many 'great books' - Shakespeare, Aristotle, Confucius, religious texts, etc. Recently I re-read the Gospels, the first four books of Christianity's New Testament. I'd read them back then and my memory is that on a philosophical level - ignoring the supernatural aspects here at HN - they seemed confusing and bizarre, another obscure religious text centered around submission to a supernatural king - grovel and they'll forgive you anything!

With no expectations I reread the Gospels and discovered something shocking: This lesson that changed my life today, someone knew 2,000 years ago! That's what the Gospels are about, for me; the faith in Jesus is necessary, by its internal reasoning, because that is faith in love's power (arguably; I'm not a theologist and others have their beliefs). I refer you to them not for the religious aspects, but because obviously they express these ideas very well - an influential, very popular book for 2,000 years.