I consume fiction every day. I live in a society where I love chicken, fish, and dogs, but in reality, I don’t love any of them. I fill my hunger with drumsticks, I hope for prosperity from a fish tank, and a canine glorifies my call for obedience.
The rule of love is simple. There is no trade, no reward, and no fear in love.
1. Love is not a trade:
Animism is still alive. We trade flesh to feed our hunger in the name of animal sacrifice. We consume dead meat to let the spirit transit into an extraterrestrial state. We take care of livestock until their bodies are ready to feed our bodies. A cattleman doesn’t love farm animals; he nourishes them until they are ready to be fed; consuming your loved one or trading them to feed your hunger is not love. It’s a trade of love, and we do it every day.
We consume our relationships every day; we ask for a favor, and then we expect a return. We put our relationship under the label of love, friendship, or intimacy. If the trade of love becomes obvious, we become oblivious to it. There is no room to label the trade of love as sacrifices, rituals, or sacraments- none of them is love. A trade can be consummated, but not love.
2. Reward is in our instinct:
We love instant gratification and label it love. We justify reward as a natural stimulus driven by the craving for Karma or expectation of Valhalla. The anticipation of a return on a good deed keeps us moving to love the unloved ones. We use a tally counter to count and accumulate our deeds and then expect a reward with interest. We feed goldfish and expect prosperity outside the fish tank.
The label of love we place in society in exchange for good deeds is not limited to goldfish in a fish tank. It is visible in our social values and our relationships as well. Feeding a hungry should be done without reward. Helping a stranger should not demand a note of gratitude. Raising a family and then expecting redemption is not love. Love demands no expectations. It has no ROI — it cannot be redeemed. Love is regardless.
3. Fear brings submission:
We love dogs because it empowers us to exercise our authority over them. Not all canines are intelligent except dogs — a friendship out of fear. Dogs are the most intelligent breed out of all canines who have become domesticated because they know how to tune themselves against their owner’s needs. A dog becomes a shepherd, a hound, a companion, a guide, or a K9 to meet an owner’s expectations. The obedience is traded because of fear, not because of love. A disobedient dog is either muzzled or destined to be euthanized.
We only love our domesticated relationships. We don’t tolerate disdain, we don’t allow people to snitch, we don’t let others speak against us, and we suppress the contrary opinions. We muzzle our relationship by staying away from them. We do not invite people who are not submissive to our egos. We weigh relationships based on obedience, which happens out of fear. We use fear to make them love, but it only lasts until the rein of authority remains in our hands. The moment the chain of fear breaks, you lose the obedience. At that time, you realize you can’t make someone love because of fear. Love is fearless.
We have made our lives unnecessarily complicated and turned love into mere fiction. Love has become hostage inside the nexus of trade, reward, and fear. It’s not much different from the Amazon rainforest, where life eats life for survival. We do similar in metropolitan cities by placing a label of love on our consumables. We consume our relationships every day. We eat them without a trade, reward, or fear, yet label them love.
Love cannot be consumed. Love demands submission. A submission without fear, reward, or trade is the supreme act of love. Love is relationship agnostic. It does not need to be named.
Next time you do something good, pass it through the lens of trade, reward, and fear. In your act of true love, none of them should be there. Love is regardless. Love is nonrepulsive. Love is without fiction; it never ends and never asks for anything in return.
Asif Durrani
08 Jun 2022
https://www.linkedin.com/in/asifdurrani
Also published at Medium
Asif Durrani 