At my age, I find myself unable to really understand the true meaning of love. I used to think love is patience, but “patience” is a word of its own. Patience, like many other ingredients of love, is only a catalyst that bonds all the other virtues that make up good character. A vengeful villain can be patient just to avenge on their prey but this is far from loving that prey. After many years of naivety, I’ve come to realized that love is conditional at all the angles you look at it. It rolls on the philosophy of “You have to give something to get something in return” and this is applicable to all forms of human love, even the perpetuated “unconditional” mother’s love.
So What Is Love?
A simple definition of love is; it is a feeling that one feels, like any other feeling of emotion. However, Umm Zakiyyah, in her Book Reverencing The Wombs That Broke You, explained it saying, “while love is definitely rooted in unseen feelings of the heart, love is not merely unseen feelings of the heart. Love, like faith, requires both internal and external manifestation before it can be rightly called love. In other words, love is an action word more than it is a feeling word, though some minimal level of feeling is necessary to make it complete. However, love does not exist simply because someone claims or believes that it does, even if they are speaking of their own heart”. If you keenly look around and evaluate what makes one person love another dearly, you will notice that there is always a thing, action or word that one person constantly has, does or say, that serves as a “love booster” which overtime stimulates a feeling of love from the other party who then reciprocates it back. Love doesn’t happen in vacuum.
Naturally, every human has the ability to give and receive love. But between two individuals, the feeling of love is bound by a condition(s) that serves as an internal stimulant which eventually results to an external expression of love. What most people, including myself, have over the years always been confusing love with is ‘admiration’. What usually happened at first sight is typically deep admiration or just infatuation. You can admire a person at first sight, but that does not necessarily mean that you love them; for there is more to loving a person than just seeing them for the very first time.
Why Unconditional Love Does Not Exist
I do not believe in the existence of unconditional love; but even if it did exist, it can only occur with oneself. If unconditional love is a love so strong that neither time nor circumstance can change; then in my view, no two humans can love each other unconditionally, because man is innately political in nature. Meaning, one always thinks of self-first before others in everything. You will always put yourself first, knowingly or unknowingly. That is why, before you do or say something to somebody, you think of how they will perceive YOU or how you will feel afterwards. If for instance you want to volunteer for a good cause, you consciously or subconsciously, tell yourself deep down that you’re a good person – thus fulfilling the need to feel important, the need to feel like a selfless giver, which subsequently satisfies YOUR ego. If you are giving an account of an incident in which you were involved for instance, hardly do you put all the blame, shame and condemn yourself entirely whilst glorifying other actors. There is always an element of self-defense or self-pity, etc – simply put, you always have a reason for doing what you did nonetheless. This simply shows that in any and everything we do or say, we would always portray ourselves or convince ourselves that we are the good guy. That is loving oneself unconditionally, regardless of everything. But between two people, love always come with conditions.
Now this is also different from being selfish and selfless. A selfless person puts others first, at least that’s how it is defined. But this is not entirely true. For if, for instance, we are in a dessert embarking on a journey of unknown destination and we only have a tiny loaf of bread left which cannot be shared; a selfless person will always say, “have it, I can manage.” or “I will die in order for you to survive.” There is an element of selfishness right there; for selflessness is all about feeling like you’re the giver/savior of others. While to many it may seem like a kind and selfless gesture, but to you the doer of the action, you are simply doing so to consciously or subconsciously satisfy your need to be glorified among others – importance – and or in anticipation for divine mercy/favor. What I am basically trying to say here is that love is selfishness. Never in history of mankind, have a man ever wished to share a woman he so very much loves and cherishes with another beloved man. Even women who have co-wives will agree with me that culture and religion may allow polygamy, but deep within each one of them, they wish they had the man all to themselves if they could. That is love, it is a selfish feeling that always put the giver first and the receiver second. You give love, to get it reciprocated back. A one-sided love is either an obsession or flattery, neither of which can last.
Even A Mother’s Love Is Conditional
I know many of you wouldn’t agree with what am saying but please just read on. Let’s take a look at mother to child love. If you ask me, I will say that a mother’s mercy for her child outweighs the love for that child. Naturally, when a baby is born, upon seeing its tiny features, we tend to admire and show mercy towards it, irrespective of who we are. This is because typically human beings tend to admire and be drawn to creatures that are smaller and vulnerable than themselves thus show mercy. The opposite is also true with larger creatures. Imagine what your reactions will be when you are faced with a lion cub and when you come face to face with a male lion. The former tends to stimulate a feeling of admiration whilst the later intimidates you. Well, that’s exactly what happens between a mother and child. Mercy is always much more, and probably last longer than love. When a child grows older, the more that child isn’t doing actions or saying words (conditions) that invoke or stimulate the feeling of love in his/her mother’s heart, she will not be bonded with that child by love but rather by mercy. Nevertheless, love may lead to mercy but mercy may never lead to love. That is why you see some mothers throwing away or killing their harmless babies whom they are supposed to be loving “unconditionally” due to lack of mercy.
Despite the fact that the compassionate bond between a mother and child is arguably the most powerful expression of love on earth, this fact alone does not make it unconditional. I think a more honest term than “unconditional love” would be enduring love, a love that endures precisely because it meets the conditions necessary for that love to endure and probably the most difficult to disrupt.
Romantic Love Is Also Conditional
Every human has a love tank, which is usually filled by others. Your love tank is filled by a person doing or saying things that are dear to your heart. By constantly saying, or doing these things, your love tank is being filled, thus internally stimulates the feeling of love which you then manifest externally towards whomsoever is doing or saying those things – Conditional. In relationships where we do not endeavor to attempt to do or say things that are pleasing to our partners, we overtime are in turn served with a similar cold or even worst reactions from them. So basically, you have to appear selfless in other to be selfish. Why so? Because by you doing or saying things that are dear to the other person, you are consciously or subconsciously expecting a reaction from them which in turn gives you a sense of fulfillment and therefore satisfies your ego. Not just that, but you also feel like a selfless giver who instinctively craves for the desire to be important. So you’re pleasing the other party to also satisfy your ego or your innate desire to feel important – Selfishness.
In summary, I am basically saying that love is conditional, and should be. All love – whether innate or romantic – is conditional upon some level of effort and dedication if it is to remain alive. But just because it is conditional does not mean we shouldn’t give and receive it. It is a beautiful feeling that one must nurture. However, the earlier we accept that it is conditional, the better we will love and be loved. One must never compare love to materialism; for they are worlds apart. A materialist does not love a person but rather superficial materials attached to that person. Love, on the other hand may be conditional, but it is constantly and genuinely appreciating a person for who they humanly are while in return getting fulfillment for doing so; because when we are observing what we may call “unconditional love,” we are actually observing the positive side of conditional love, the only type of love that exists.