In pursuit of “Unconditional Love”…..

Friendship, Love, Colleague to Colleague relationship and many other types of relationships that exists amongst human beings are conditional in nature. Or symbiotic in nature. Nothing can be entirely altruist in nature. Not even a mother child relationship (after all, the child is spreading the genes of the parents ;-))though it is the closest which appears to be unconditional in nature.

A nice take on altruism in the TV show House, MD.

(Benjamin – Patient who is very altruistic: House - A diagnostician : Park and Adams: Assistant Doctors)

(In the Clinic)

Benjamin: I started with 10 million, and I couldn't think of a reason not to give 20. Or 40. I figure I could live off $25,000 a year. One-room apartment. Bus pass, thrift stores. Bare necessities. I still have my software company. And when I make more, I'll give that way too.

(In House’s office)

Park: He's nuts.

Adams: He's generous.

Park: There's a neurological issue. He's getting rid of everything.

Adams: His echocardiogram is negative for cardiomyopathy. Head CT showed no signs of stroke or hemorrhage.

Park: He has one pair of pants.

Adams: Most people with his kind of money are commissioning oil paintings of their Yorkshire terrier. Benjamin is sacrificing his own comfort to help others.

House: That's because helping others is his Yorkie oil painting.

Adams: That's good. Not sick.

Park: That's naive and sick.

A take on conditional love in one of my favorite movie “A”. (Watch between 54:31 to 1:01:18)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TlqjncRpNE

So what/whom am I in Love with??

I have always struggled to love the “person” more than the “Idea of a person”. People often say they are in love with a person unconditionally meaning irrespective of what happens or changes in the person, love towards him or her remains unchanged. But in my understanding, one loves a person for certain characteristics and those can be anything, persona, attitude, money, looks etc etc etc.. Now these can continue to remain the same or change. Sometimes the change will have causes which are very reasonable and it never comes in the way of relationship. Suppose I like someone ONLY for looks and get married, I can't except the looks to remain the same after 40 yrs ;-) (Also here, my looks would have deteriorated too.. Magically if I always retained my 20's looks even after 40 yrs, how would I look at the person whom I have liked only for looks??). The same logic applies to the character of a person. We like someone else because we see somethings in them. Either those things should continue to exist for us to keep liking or if changed, the reason for change should be justifiable. Random unjustifiable changes always comes in the way of relationship and rightly so because the relationship was based on certain desirable characteristics to begin with. Also, what is a person without the characteristics which one is identified with?? It's just flesh and blood and I find it hard to be eternally in love with just flesh and blood when the persona is changing.

The above idea is not always used to judge/evaluate others. It very well applies to self. I like myself for certain characteristics which I have and certain other things which I try to posses and so work towards it. If I fall short in those, I tend to dislike myself for those shortcoming though the only difference is we tend to have much more tolerance when it comes to ourselves than others (As in the movie clip, the protagonist says “We love ourselves more than anybody else.”)

So being unconditional according to me is a state of mind in which everything (likes and dislikes) gets equalised and in that state of mind one is either a saint or dead. Living with some conditional and some unconditional relationships hasn't come to my comprehension still. Either every relationship is conditional or everything is unconditional in nature and I am in the pursuit of “Unconditional Love”.