Conditional Love

Meaningful Conversation Series

This is from a collection of topics from meaningful conversations with friends over time. Right now I define a Meaningful Conversation as a spirited sequence of stated opinions amongst wine-induced friends, sometimes with someone listening. This definition does not necessarily take into account any meaningful substance or general human progress. I hope to get some of the topics out and revisit my favorite ones over time.

About ten years ago over dinner a friend asked me if I believed in Unconditional Love. My instant response was "No." Conditions affect all our conscious actions, including our ability to love, and conditions can be strong enough to completely wipe out love - for someone or something, I said. I struck strongly to kill every counter-example that was suggested - so strongly that I don't even remember what they were.  "Unconditional love is impossible!"

I was a little slow. What was supposed to happen over the span of that conversation - thinking, reflecting on counter-points, jointly moving the topic forward, rewiring of a few neurons perhaps - happened over the next few days. At the end of it I called my friend urgently.  I reported the mathematical opposite of what I had said before. "I was completely wrong - what is impossible is conditional love," I said. Love is something that happens to us, not something we do, so we have no control over it. Conditions only affect actions we control, not things that happen to us. That was my new decision on the topic. I am sure it was not an original thought at that point - but it was the end result of my own processing. "All love is unconditional."

About the same time, another friend of mine had mentioned that there was no more original thought. Most fundamental concepts were already established hundreds if not thousands of years ago, and most new thought was a rehash or application of models from one topic to another - primarily for better understanding and communication. But she and I had both agreed that thankfully that did not stop us from thinking. The fact that she was in leather pants at the time did not make me take her any less seriously. In her defense, earlier she had a matching leather jacket on. She should have left it on, so others that came to that party later would have seen the reason for the leather pants, such as it was.

Going back to conditional love - or unconditional for that matter - the root of the topic remains. Is love something we do, or is it something we experience? Like a breeze, or sunshine. We do not control those, but you could argue we could hide from them. We could plainly choose to hide from sunlight and avoid the breeze, with or without conditions. Pushing the metaphor, you could argue that conditions, like clouds, could hide the sunlight. But those are external conditions, not caused by the subject. Yes, external conditions can wipe out the opportunity for love. The term "conditional love" suggests a decision by the subject - whether to to love or not, and how much, but not the opportunity to experience it. We can still choose to hide from it, with or without conditions. That does not make it conditional.

In this holiday season, I wish everyone the decision to not hide from the abundant love that exists in their lives. And yes - regarding the very few negative ones - they are only acting out of insecurity. Focusing too much on their negativity is like hiding from love. Recognize the love that shines on them too. After all, it is unconditional!