Unconditional LOVE

Oh this word LOVE, this word which has been uttered a zillion times in a zillions ways throughout the course of human history.  And now here I am uttering it a few more times.

LOVE is commonly associated with emotional, erotic elements (and rightly so), but I want to focus on the unselfish facets of LOVE, on the disinterested concepts of LOVE, on the unconditional aspects of LOVE.  This kind of LOVE is not centered on feeling good.  This kind of LOVE transcends feelings.  It goes beyond the internal fluctuations of emotion and mood…  Think of the parents of a newborn child.  I would imagine that it’s not always enjoyable to listen to the incessant cries of an infant, and it’s probably not always enjoyable to be responding to their needs at all hours of the night, but that is LOVE.

Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) once wrote, “If we wish to assure ourselves that LOVE is entirely disinterested, we must remove every possibility of requital, but this is exactly what happens with respect to the dead, if LOVE perished persists not withstanding this then it is in truth disinterested.  If you therefore wish to prove that you LOVE disinterestedly then sometimes pay attention to how you behave towards the dead.  Much LOVE unquestionably, the most if subjective to a sharper testing would appear to be a selfishness, but the fact of the matter is that in a LOVE relationship between the living there is always a hope of requital, at least of a reciprocated LOVE and this is generally what happens, but this hope together with the requital produces such an effect that one can’t definitely see what is LOVE and what is selfishness.”

The Golden Rule says to treat others how you would like to be treated, but that rule kind of bothers me because I’m not so sure I would want others to treat me as they would like to be treated.  I wouldn’t want a Viking to treat me like a Viking or a mobster to treat me like a mobster and so on and so on.  The extreme ethic of unconditional LOVE goes beyond the golden rule.  Unconditional LOVE says to me that we should treat others better than we would like to be treated, that we should love without terms, without reciprocity, without compromise, that we should LOVE others more than we LOVE ourselves.  Unconditional LOVE urges us to break free from the singular concept of “me” and embrace the plural concept of “we.”

___________________________________________________________________________

And on a different note, I would like to thank Mr. David Powers King for bestowing upon me the "Blog on Fire award."  Much LOVE, chief.