Unilateral Love...

Just the other day I read a line that got me thinking: “I love you far too much to be bothered by what you say or do to me.” This, as with a lot of other things, got me into the philosophical mode. Now this is either un-human or a simple plain harmless white lie!!! Can any human being actually love someone and not be bothered by what they say? Doesn’t it talk of unilateralism? Can any love be unilateral? To this extent? And again, as with everything else, I tried to reason the philosophy with logic.

Emotions always have the potential of being unilateral. Many people hate George Bush. But can he hate them? I’m angry with the Indian Government for so many things – to the extent that I might try to evade as much tax as possible. But is it angry with me? It’ll still continue to offer me what it always did – the citizenship of a “free” country. While all around me is misery, I can be the happiest person in XLRI or even on the face of the earth and probably beyond. And the converse – while all around me are partying, I can sit on the table and hope I could disappear or rather disapparate to the small hole, 40 ft below the surface of an ice island, in Tundra.

But wait, all these emotions I talked about were my relations with the group. What about individuals? Can I have unilateral emotions towards individuals? And such Extreme? I could hate, really hate, someone but when they help me, I would not be able to stop the feeling of gratitude. I could be angry, furious, with someone but when they came to me with a sorry written on a sullen face, I will relent though I might not absolve the other person of all their crimes.

But love behaves quite different from these human emotions. It is, after all, divine. I reminisced how many times in history/mythology has love led to people being irrational. Love has caused wars and ended them. It is the single most potent weapon in the hands of a poor soul on the other side of anger. I finally concluded – love – more than most (or should I say, all) other emotions – can be unilateral. Next time, when it comes to it, I won’t hesitate to say, “I love you far too much to be bothered by what you say or do to me.”