At Life Love Illusion, we’re about finding more of the fullness of life that is always all around us but often seems just out of reach…or may seem far out of reach. Surely love and friendship and beauty come into it, yet these are fragile and sometimes elusive. Justice of all kinds — social, economic, moral — feeds our sense of well-being and goodness in the world, but widening chasms in how people define and live justice make it more difficult each day to find a common core to shared life in society. Life Love Illusion wants to find, create, and offer bits of light that show a path forward.
We hope to contribute a little bit to the world chiefly in the form of a few words and a few creations that might enliven and enrich our lives a little bit. You’ll find here explorations in, perspectives on, and reactions to the lives we live, the love we wish for, and the ambiguity that infuses everything we see and touch and feel. Life Love Illusion has a particular affinity for themes relating to art, film, spirituality, and the common good of society and the world.
As we observe the world and try to suss out where things go wrong, we find often it’s the ambiguity that throws people off. Things often look clear to the casual observer and that, combined with a human desire for certainty, leads to undue confidence, even arrogance. We see this manifest in society as the would-be guardians of society engage in shout-downs, trial-by-internet,
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fascist demands for compliance enforced by online and in-person mobs, and summarily dismissing public figures of yesterday from the canons of society because they were not perfect.
We realize that we’re not perfect, just as the would-be guardians are not. We aim for clearer thought and richer access to the heart of a matter. We will not shy from critiquing public figures,2 but we aim to always speak of both what they get right and what they get wrong (as we see it). We want to better see the world and our place in it and, more to the point, live better in that place. We welcome discussion to help us do this better, and especially if you see us forgetting that we’re flawed.
As people, we are who we are, fundamentally, according to the shape of our hearts. At Life Love Illusion, whether we are commenting on a film, writing fiction, or offering a point of view on society or spirituality, we hope to unravel illusions and get closer to life and love. Two questions often come into it:
- How do we, individually and together, craft the definition of “better” that will carry the day?
(Our view: Only in community and only in humility.) - Do people really even want to get better, or do they just want to have fun?
(Our view: We would hope that getting better is fun, actually.)
We applaud folks aiming to make the world better, but not through forced compliance with ideas and slogans — even good ones. Not only is a forced march not born of love, it doesn’t work. If I tell you to do something, it’s head knowledge, not heart change. Yes, thinking is part of changing, but if it’s only thinking, it tends to not last because we are composite creatures, made of heart, body, mind, and (what even atheist leader Christopher Hitchens couldn’t avoid calling4) soul. To get better, we need both heart and mind — emotion and thought — but for getting better, emotion is more powerful than thought.
We would very much appreciate your thoughts on what you find here, and we invite you to comment on, question, and react to the articles, items, and creations on Life Love Illusion. We believe that online discussions are more civil and responsible when people have at least a semblance of accountability, so we require those who participate in discussions to login to our site and to have a verified email.
Endnotes
1 It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So. Accessed February 16, 2021
2 As we critique public figures, we often leave them unnamed, because we are more concerned about critiquing ideas than shouting down individuals.
3 Moriarty's Rumblings From The Lab #14 — Interview with Miyazaki. Accessed September 6, 2020
4 Hitchens, Christopher. God is not Great. Twelve, 2009, p. 5.
Site platform credits
Life Love Illusion is grateful to the following open source projects that have provided foundational elements for the site:
- WordPress website platform.
- WP Dev Shed’s WordPress theme Virality, which was a starting point for our site.
- AyeCode Ltd’s WordPress plugin UsersWP, which served as a good starting point for our user registration functions, as well as its UWP Social, which is the starting point for our social login capabilities.
- Hybridauth, which is the open source foundation behind UWP Social.
- Icegram’s WordPress plugin Email Subscribers & Newsletters, which is the base for our email subscription capability.
- Cerber Tech’s WordPress plugin, WP Cerber Security.