I think I see what tripped you up in my comment. I said

> if it costs me nothing, then the love it represents is nothing.

You could read this as meaning that every action has to be super costly or else the love isn't there. I admit that it's poorly phrased and it's not what I meant.

What I should have said is that if it costs you nothing, then it doesn't in itself indicate love. It costs me nothing to say "I love you" on its own, and you wouldn't believe me if I just walked up to you in the street and said that. But your mom has spent thousands of hours and liters of blood, sweat and tears caring for you, so when she says "I love you," you have all that to back those words up. It's the cost she paid before that imbues the words with value: high cost, deep love.

Hopefully that makes more sense.

He uses cost in a context of time and effort not directly financial

I can't help but be baited into responding to this comment too lol

You are obviously willfully misinterpreting what the OP meant by "cost".

You say "the thought is what matters" - this is 100% true, and "the thought" has a "cost". It "costs" an hour of sitting down and thinking of what to write to express your feelings to someone. That's what he is saying is "proportional" to love.

It "costs" you mental space to love your mom, and that can definitely happen with $0 entering the equation.

And with respect to "extra worth on people struggling to do something meaning more love" - if you spend the time to sit down and write a poem, when that's something that you don't excel at, someone will think: "oh wow you clearly really love me if you spent the time to write a poem, I know this because I know it's not easy for you and so you must care a lot to have done so anyway". If you can't see that... thats... ya

> You say "the thought is what matters" - this is 100% true, and "the thought" has a "cost". It "costs" an hour of sitting down and thinking of what to write to express your feelings to someone. That's what he is saying is "proportional" to love.

So if you sit down and thinking of what to write to express your love to your mom for two hours, then you love your mom twice than the person who only sit down for one hour loves his mom?

It's what "proportional" means. Words have meanings.

I never said that spending two hours means you love someone twice as much as spending one hour, I'm not sure where you're getting that from.

You also may be shocked to learn this, but "proportional" doesn't mean 1:1. It can mean 1:2, 5:1, or x:x^e(2*pi). All of those are proportions. Words do have meanings, and you'll note that - while I didn't even misuse the word proportional - the quotations also indicate I'm using it more loosely than it's textbook definition. You know, like how a normal person might.

I'm getting the vibe from you and the other commentator that, to you, this is about comparing how much two people love their respective mothers. That's not at all what this is even about? You can't compare "how much" two people love a respective person/thing because love isn't quantifiable.

I'm really not sure what you're even taking issue with? The idea that more time and effort from the giver corresponds to the receiver feeling more appreciation? That is not exactly a hot take lmfao

Consider this scenario: Your friend sends you an image of some art they produced. It looks very impressive. You ask them how long it took them to create. They say oh, only a minute or so, I made it with a MidJourney prompt.

Do you feel disappointed in that answer? If yes, then surely you see that appreciation of something can be relative to effort.