The Misunderstanding of Love
Communication lies at the very heart of life because it forms the basis for establishing our connection with ourselves, others, and with the whole of life. And at the heart of communication is Love. This is what binds life together and makes it cohere. Love gives us hope that the whole of life will ultimately find its fulfilment in all its beauty, truthfulness and goodness.
However, we feel embarrassed to talk about Love or to discuss it or even to express it. And even if we do talk about Love we allow our thinking about it to devolve into pedestrian concepts which hardly touch the surface of its depth and beauty. Or we gloss over it in cliches and metaphors which in time become over — used and make no sense or meaning to us anymore. If Love is at the heart of life, then why is it that we fail to experience it in our lives.
Love is reduced to a Contract
The marketization of life has reduced relationships into transactions. And transactions are based on contracts. People become utilities in exchange. I give only insofar as I can perceive that what I am getting is equal to or more than what I am giving. This contractual attitude begins to pervade all our relationships including marriage. Legal conditions governing the contract of marriage become critical because if any of the conditions are violated then one can appeal to a court of justice and shout ‘Unfair” and be given a favourable judgement. Love is replaced with fear of violating the contract. Commitment is squeezed into a box of clauses. Suspicion dominates. True love recedes.
Being on one’s best behaviour
A contractual relationship will survive only if each one is continuously on one’s best behaviour and does not allow oneself to make a mistake by being caught out. Each one will be nice to the other, but the relationship will be empty. Putting on a façade of togetherness, with the relationship sealed in a contract, which cannot last too long.
Feeling Stifled
The reality of marriage or a relationship is the growth of two individuals through their unconditional love for each other. Growth cannot be experienced through conditional love. And therefore, growth cannot be experienced through contracts. A relationship based on a contract where the focus is on the contract is unsustainable. The partners will find it stifling, and gradually loneliness and isolation is bound to be experienced.
A Dance of Masks
In a contractual relationship one doesn’t feel responsible for the other’s total well-being. One is satisfied with being fair to the other. The relationship is built around expectations of approval. Each one is continuously living up to the other’s expectations and this can be truly exhausting. The relationship becomes a dance of masks rather than an acknowledgement and discovery of one’s true self.
A Commodity on the market
A transactional attitude towards relationships also gives rise to a bargaining mind-set. I will give only insofar as you give me. Receiving takes precedence over giving. Most people focus on being loved rather than loving. One needs to become attractive and useful so that one receives love. If one is not attractive or useful, then how can one be loved. This belief arises from seeing one’s utility to the other person in the context of what one can offer. With the focus on making oneself ‘being loved’ one falls into the trap of employing various tactics to seduce the other. A person gets reduced to being a commodity on the market. And commodities lose their value with time. Marriage or a relationship becomes a thing which has diminishing marginal utility.
‘Fall in Love’
The other belief rampantly prevalent is that one needs to ‘fall in love’ to be truly ‘in love’. This belief revolves mainly around the physical attraction between two people. ‘Falling in love’ is a passive attitude towards love and doesn’t last. The orgiastic ecstasy gradually wears out. The couple begin to realize the idiosyncrasies of each other and gradually start getting on each other’s nerves. This is because they have understood love to be a feeling. And feelings don’t last. They are fleeting. So, when the feelings are no longer experienced, then the couple dwells on their memories of when they had that feeling and want the same to be replicated over and over again. They get caught in the trap of living in the past. The original orgiastic experience becomes the benchmark to be equalled and surpassed and therefore if it cannot be achieved with this partner one goes out and searches for achieving it through another partner.
Over dependency
Sometimes we perceive over dependency as a sign of true love. One feels one can’t live without the other. To the extent that if the other goes out of one’s life, one experiences a loss of one’s identity. And so, the only way out is to get another person whom one will not be able to do without. And so, the pattern persists. Such people can’t stand being alone and make inordinate demands on the other. They demand being cared for by the other. They don’t realize that the care which they demand is being passively received by them from the other person. They do nothing to decrease their dependency on the other nor anything to increase the freedom of the other. They cling to the other with all their might and in the process strangle the very thing they are desperately seeking. The assumption by which they live is that their happiness is dependent on someone else.
Love is a verb
We need to understand that love is not a feeling which passively takes over our being and then gradually vanishes from our lives. Love needs to be understood as a verb, where one consciously chooses to love. It requires effort. Love does not mean focussing on the object of love inasmuch as the faculty of loving. It is not as if one passively awaits the ideal person to come into one’s life and then assume everything is going to be hunky — dory. It is an inner decision which one takes to love another human being and therefore even when the feeling is not there, the commitment to love that person remains. It is no longer contract based but covenant based. Because mature love “is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love.” The other person’s integrity and individuality is respected. Therefore, one no longer falls in love but rather stands in love, in fact stands tall and confident and fulfilled.
