Here’s a Dark/Lofi House track for today.
What can we say of love in today’s society,
in a generation that presents us more ways than ever to “conveniently” pick out the details of our lives,
for the newcomers and leftovers that remain on the battlefield,
for those who haven’t cashed out early as high school or college sweethearts with a model of love not affected by modern paradigm?
With major aspects of our lives moving progressively faster and attention spans getting drastically shorter, the current scene has exposed how ill-equipped we were to deal with an offering of unlimited choice.
Trying to feed the insatiable appetite of consumerism, we produced too much.
Alas, too much dwindled quality. Too much overwhelmed and crippled our psyche. Too much prevented us from settling in simplicity.
The problem with options for us mammals limited by time, death, and space is that we will always feel like we’re missing out on opportunities no matter what we choose. Careers, social groups, even what to watch or eat on a godforsaken Tuesday night, we hesitate to invest our choice in.
Why try so hard in one grueling activity when so many end rewards are provided on a silver platter? Why toil away for months on one complex project when you can have a quick fix at the click of a button? Why marry yourself to one identity, when endless possibilities are open to you?
While we may be browsing at lightning speeds, we’re actually stagnant with zero advancement in most of our ventures, keeping one foot out, never locking the door behind. We never reach the deeper riches of pursuit because we’ve been trained out of putting in effort.
This freedom is a paradox for it paralyzes us.
WHEN EVERYONE’S HOT, NO ONE’S HOT ENOUGH
A rising grass-is-greener mindset has inevitably influenced how we approach partner selection.
Online and casual dating has become more mainstream. Non-committal labels, dancing around the shackles of a conventional relationship status, continue to find new fads to describe our love lives. With so many people of interest accessible nowadays, you never know when a chance to trade up will pop in.
Itchy feet, runaway brides, and wandering eyes always existed, but now it’s expected with everyone swiping and double-booking Friday night.
With the new norm, no one wants to risk being blindsided and thrown away into the recycling bin.
It has become practical to remain a free agent,
which sucks because we’re still dealing with a whole array of human emotions here, protective measures evolved from an extensive history of a social species, an entire collective where trust and bond are crucial for survival and growth.
We only have eyes in front for Christ’s sake. You need to rely on at least one other to watch your back.
Lust for novelty, which helps us thrive by pushing us to seek out new frontiers and adapt to rapid change, has taken the pilot’s seat, attempting to override all else. We’re persuaded to discard each other like candy wrappers. Prospects are seen as a means to an end, not multifaceted people. Interactions focus on quick transactions, not lasting connections.
Relay that through our old programming to stick together, jealousy, and fear of abandonment, and we produce more hurt individuals, who reenter the dating pool withholding their commitment, only to do the same to another.
Ignoring that which made us “us” perpetuates a vicious cycle of hurt.
We’re messing with engrained firmware that hasn’t caught up yet.
RELATIONSHIP INFLATION
Just as an economic boom drops the value of cash, the boom of choice cheapened the once exclusive rituals that made particular relationships special. Milestones and tokens of intimacy have less of an impact as they’re distributed without reserve.
Date nights are essentially formalities.
Gifts merely add to the pile.
Sex is nothing more than a handshake.
Admissions of love, which have become so hard to say to a partner you’re “just seeing,” are now thrown around like jellybeans at menial things: I love this restaurant. I love this song. I love this. I love that.
One could utter the most profound declaration of affection, only for it to mean nothing.
Or are we kidding ourselves, evident with each awkward post-entanglement conduct?
Throwaway actions and exclamations are most likely a symptom of lack, a desperate need for a real outlet. They are Freudian slips, indicative of deeper desires.
I believe we’re in a dating bubble close to bursting from all this pressure to put on a front while disregarding our innate needs for affection and belonging.
It’s evident when today’s love-starved and love-confused anxiously clamor for a way out of this catastrophe, when they hurry to check out before it’s too late. Envying their friends that paired off early to create seemingly happy families, grieving their reflections that exhibit not-so-covert wrinkles in their ever-deteriorating youth, they make a Hail Mary play, reassuring their latest partner:
“I swear I’ve never felt this way about anyone else.”
To make sure this one doesn’t run for the hills, they try to convey love in a way that differentiates it from the other loves that are supposedly no longer sacred.
It’s not the short-lived love for a hot and dangerous person, the passion-that-I-thought-I-had-for-an-ex-but-in-hindsight-not-really-as-much-as-I-think-I-do-for-you-now type love, the restrictive love with terms and rules that everyone else appears to be caught in.
It’s the latest love on people’s tongues: unconditional love.
WHAT IS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE?
Unconditional: without conditions.
Out of all of the Greek concepts of love, it is Agape, or that which a benevolent god would provide.
It’s a love where the loving is given freely, no matter what, without expectations, infinitely, and without measure. Complete and altruistic, it requires nothing in return.
I’m sorry, but that’s just as bullshit as the weekend warrior saying “I’m only having one drink.”
Motherly love is said to be the best example of unconditional love, but I’d argue the threat of death might skew even that a tad.
There is no such thing as unconditional love, at least in the most literal sense. Anyone who claims they do either can’t admit they are just experiencing massive attachment, are a victim of their volatile and fleeting emotions, or are a sheep of popular trends.
At worst, they are guilty of the complete opposite: manipulation.
At the worstest, they are people pleasers without any sense of self-worth and healthy boundaries, sacrificing their dignity for unrequited devotion.
Those who preach that they embody unconditional love are simply testing a new angle to desperately get you to validate them or sneakily convince you give them what they secretly want.
It’s love-bombing. It’s obsessive and immature. It’s fake and holier-than-thou.
It’s hidden narcissism.
Pause…
Why am I so damn cynical?
Because a rich man does not need to announce that he’s rich. A master guitarist doesn’t ever need to brag. He picks up the instrument and plays it.
Proof is in the action, not the words.
ON ONE CONDITION
I’m just as guilty as the rest of you participating in today’s mess. I’ve been in all positions of the hurt cycle, but I still have faith in a highest form of love. I’m only wary when someone talks too much after biting off more than they can chew.
My barometer is simple:
Do you care more about being separated or the person dying?
If you were about to have a head-on collision on the highway, would you swerve towards the driver’s side or passenger’s side?
Being a bit more serious, do you understand them at their deepest core, fully aware and accepting of their entire existence: past, present, and future? Do you wish to unlock the best path in their life, enabling them to reach and actualize their potential?
Then, I concede you may be able to call it unconditional, but there is still one major criterion to fulfill before you can even express this kind of love:
You must come from inner abundance first.
Are you providing the same love to yourself? Did you come to terms with who you are as a whole? Are you making the most of this brief episode of life?
While you can easily say you do, you won’t have to.
The truth will be in the nuance.
Others will feel it emanating from your being, not your words. It’ll be in the essence of the tone, body language, and actions you carry inherently.
That self-love you’ll naturally provide others while establishing moral standards that protect you from tainting such spiritual wealth.
These values innately acknowledge there should always be some set of conditions. Not to say they must come from needy or unrealistic expectations, but it’d be in your best interest, your right, to make sure you are being respected as an individual, even if that is the bare minimum of you being safe and alive.
For life partners, a mutually beneficial relationship is ideal, and a relatively equal give-and-take conveys the proper reverence and trust towards each other. If both parties come from inner abundance, they honestly won’t look for anything less in the other. The exchange will be seamless, and it will appear to be unconditional, sacrificial even, but in a powerful aura.
So for me, it’s not really unconditional love,
nor is it really conditional love.
It’s an equal exchange love, or better, a positive feedback loop style of love.
With so much choice, it just might be best time to find this “unconditional” love. It takes a lot of self-work that most will have trouble getting through, but if you find yourself at the other end, a real reflection will stick out in a sea of same.
With that person, you’ll share a freedom that doesn’t paralyze, but rather allows the both of you to express who you’re meant to be.
Because what is love but the poetic evidence of a life worth living.