Responsibility - A necessary but not sufficient condition for Love

What is Love? There is a decent biological understanding of this term. However, according to me, it is one of those terms which people excessively use without a clear understanding of it is. And NO. This post is not going to attempt to define love but will only discuss one feature of love - Responsibility.

I had a student whose father was an extreme alcoholic who drank himself to death when my student was just 13. While talking about her father, she mentioned that he loved her very much. That unsettled me. I did not quite know why but I was sure something did not fit my world view. Later, I was able to put things into perspective and this post is about that.

According to me, being responsible is an absolutely necessary criteria to love someone. Let us talk about this father who drank himself to death. He could have done that by all means by not giving birth to his daughter. It is his life to ruin if he chooses to and he is not accountable to anyone. However, choosing to marry and giving birth means he is entering into implicit agreement which involves other people and their well being too. I just cannot fathom the possibility of how a father can claim he loved his daughter when all he cared about was his indulgence. If the daughter was okay with him drinking himself to death, that's understandable. But obviously she did not want that. Loving someone is not just about having a surge of irrational emotions. I do understand the importance of irrationality in love but that's not it. It should involve a cognitive aspect where a person consciously introspects and mends his/her ways (if necessary) for the well being of the loved. Otherwise, what is the difference between love and selfishness? That day, it was crystal clear to me that responsibility is an absolutely necessary criteria for love. I cannot ever come into terms with a worldview which accepts a feeling devoid of responsibility as love.

P S - Though my understanding of love changed many years back, I am writing this post today. Because on this day, I had to desert someone because of their so called love lacked responsibility. In my worldview, it is not love at all. And I got tired of trying to clap with one hand.