No not a crossword puzzle or an exercise to stretch your neck but your soul. This looking is a metaphorical stance of how we see other outside of ourselves. There is no up and down, there is no scale that puts some above others. There is a network, an interconnected web of being different and it is quite tempting to start to perceive people as we’ve been taught to perceive things in hierarchies.

So you’ll have those you admire and see things in them that you would like to possess, be able to do, achieve or enculturate into yourself. You will love them for it but this love is a distant one, one which is self-serving with you having to keep them on a pedestal in order to be able to love them. They are not allowed to slip up or fall, they are not allowed to become real without you holding grudges for their reckless shattering of an illusion. This is why so many relationships fail when in love starts transforming into love. You don’t want them real ,you never did, you wanted them to stay a figure, an unattainable standard you can then be flattered to spend time with. By putting people in a space you can look up to them you’re effectively taking away the chance for them to be authentic, vulnerable or imperfect. You’ve left them stagnant and opened to your own interpretations. This is selfish kind of love. It is beautiful to find inspiration in another, but not at the cost of wanting them just to be a continuous superhero that can do no wrong. Perfect is too much responsibility for any one person to bear.

The same moral imperative that kills deep connection by idolizing extends to the other pole of not looking down on people. You don’t know enough to judge, you never know enough. You have no idea why they are doing what they are doing, taking care of the land instead of revenue does not make him/her less than, having a different goal does not diminish the importance of the goal. What you might deem as primitive in reality only means doing less harm on the way, what you see as futile is futile only from your vantage point.

Don’t look up and down on anything or anyone. No one needs you to agree on everything, to approve of everything and real love is the one that sees the other as a whole, flaws and all, and decides to love them anyway – even if they decide not to stay, even if they don’t need you, understand you or want the same things. Love is – that is its only truth and it’s an eternal infinite plane – there is no up or down.