to Love:

 

to Love:

by Craig Willms

What is our purpose as human beings? What is it we are supposed to do, who are we supposed to be?  Most people would say something like - to be a good person. Of course, that means little without context, still most people aren't going to have much more than that. It's not an easy question. An atheist or scientific materialist would likely scoff and declare that we have no purpose, being merely an accident of nature and all. I think instinctively we know that's not the whole story, we know that we need something meaningful sustaining us, something higher than mere existence, without which our lives would be brutal and joyless, ideally, we need to love. 

When we consider that humans are only one of more than a million species to have roamed this earth, are we really set apart from all other life? We are clearly connected to all other living things by our very make up, we are all made of the same things, but are we humans somehow special? If we take a simple look around it becomes clear that we are different in both subtle and profound ways. Harnessing and taming nature being one major differentiator, but we also interact with each other in unique ways. Those of us who can see beyond the simplistic notion that we are just brainy animals driven by instinct can see that humanity has two natures, one being good and the other evil - each of us possess these natures.  This, I say, makes us different than other higher order animals we share the Earth with. A great white shark, a high functioning killing machine, cannot be considered good or evil, any more than a cottontail rabbit can. Can you say the same thing of the human being? No, no you can't. We can be saints and we can be devils. 

Taken as a given that evil is undesirable, destructive and deadly, what is the antidote to our innate evil? An enduring notion that has been present since the dawn of man is that love is the opposing force to evil. What is love? There is that moment when a child is born, when the mother holds the baby for the first time, the feeling she has, the look on her face witnessed by those present. That is a special kind of love borne out by her willingness to care for this helpless infant with every fiber of her being. Skeptics, themselves having been the beneficiary of this kind of love, dismiss it as a natural side effect of brain chemistry that all new mothers feel regardless of the species. Since we are physical beings, chemistry is part of it, of course. Again, it's not the whole story. We are more than just physical beings; we have a spiritual side, something that connects us with all of creation. Every human culture since the beginning of time has expressed a spirituality and given metaphysics a central role in their story. Who are we to just throw that away? We clearly seem to be doing just that in the modern materialistic world. If material meaninglessness is all there is, then who needs love? Well... You do.

It isn't being loved that gives our lives meaning. We can't force anyone to love us. But we have the ability regardless of all else to love. We have the capacity to love others whether they love us or not. It's the only thing we have control of in this life. To love something, to love someone, to love yourself is fulfillment, is success. 

Our human stories spanning tens of thousands of years repeat this theme in one way or another over and over. Even in the stories of evil personified, the antagonist usually has a back story of a love lost that has driven him to seek evil as revenge against the world or God himself. The righteous stories end with the evil one learning to love again and they all live happily ever after. Other stories end in disaster for the antagonist, or worse his victims.  

It isn't clear to me that the ability to love is innate, it needs to be demonstrated and developed, like all other properties of our psychological make-up. Unloved babies are overwhelmingly unable to love later on in life without tremendous intervention. 

Popular music seems to whitewash the culture with love songs, even silly love songs, songs we often dismiss as superficial. I'm not so sure they are. If for no other reason than they seek to instill optimism and the hope of love. They serve to reinforce a universal truth, reminding us of a message John, Paul, George and Ringo used to sing "All you need is love, love is all you need".