Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Reciprocation, or mixing metaphors, philosophy and math, oh my.

There are few things that feel as desolate as unrequited love. I certainly recall that feeling as a Young Teenager In Love (capitals required). But isn't all love unrequited? When we love, we don't attach strings - or rather, we shouldn't. Because it's the attaching of strings that makes the pain. Consider the central tragedy to the classic unrequited love scenario. Is it "I love her!"? No, although ironically that's the part we often blame or try to change. It's the followup "...but she doesn't love me!"

Hunh. Look at that string, or more often and accurately, that high-test steel cable. The expectation of reciprication is the single most common condition we attach to our love. Love is, simply put, placing the well-being of a person (or thing) above all other considerations. So if you truly love someone, you will not let your desires and wants place those strings on them - because that is restricting their freedom, which modern philosophy links rather intrinsically to well-being - you will simply let them follow their own path until and unless that path becomes destructive.

So where does that feeling of desolation come from? My christian roots bring me back to that old biblical command "Love your neighbor as yourself" and my modern education makes me take a closer look at that statement than is often given. It's an equation, and as mathematics has taught us, both sides of an equation must be equal. So you may well be loving your neighbor - but are you loving yourself?

James
(re-run: originally posted February 2005)

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posted by James at 7:40 PM

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