Conditional vs. unconditional love

The largest amounts of unconditional love examples is that of a mother to her child. Biological explanations aside, I find that most cases of true unconditional love is that of a mother to her child. There are exceptions and anomalies in anything though. It's saddening to hear about emotional stories of distorted families with abusive and neglecting parents, as this would defy such a status quo.

We hear sentimental stories of how friends would call one another family, the extent of what one another would go to for their friend or partner. When push comes to shove, how many of these 'promises' will be kept? Do we really mean what we say? Or is it naivety?

Time is really the biggest form of erosion. Time can erode 'feelings' of love. Time can erode 'perfection'. Feelings and emotions are fleetingly temporary. I often talk about how love is constant effort. In addition to this above self-dialogue, I think love is discipline. Love is a commitment to continuously put work in, even though there are easier ways out. Love is incredibly difficult but it is very powerful and rewarding.

What is conditional and unconditional love? Unconditional love is incredibly rare. Conditional love is everywhere. I see many forms of pretense of love, some masked so well beyond recognition from even the mask's bearer. This is because many of us crave real love, even those that would curse it, but we are not willing to work for it. There is no magic, it is a make or break. Like all things, it is the survival of the fittest. I believe this is especially difficult for thinkers, those who overcomplicate it. The formula is very basic, so basic it is very difficult. Within extreme simplicity, the opposite is extreme difficulty. Every road has its toll. Everything has a reciprocal.

Love is repetition. Those who hate repetition and do not see the value in it will struggle. Whether it is love for one another, human, object or whatever, you must learn to love the process or no amounts of forced discipline will work. I came across this interesting metaphor of eggs. When an egg is cracked from the outside, the inside dies. The egg that cracks from the inside is life. These things must be understood intrinsically. Not even the best teacher can force a message onto someone, no matter how dire the message is (not that a good teacher will do that!)

I see some people falling in love, and then say "you aren't the same person anymore, I don't love this current you." People look for all kinds of excuses whether conscious or unconscious, people will look to fault one another. I believe this is because the vetting process, whether it be for romantic or for friendship or business or whatever, was not done correctly. Employers fire employees because they weren't the right fit. They didn't vet these employees well enough. Maybe they didn't vet themselves correctly. We need to cultivate the eyes to see through all forms of conditioning and see the raw/pure soul. As crazy as that sounds (again, the younger me would have laughed at me for saying that) but we need to see through the person's shell and who they truly are. How do you see through them, you ask? You got to see yourself first! How can you teach someone to drive a car when you don't know yourself? How do you see through someone's conditioning, when you can't see who you really are. I don't mean to say this lightly, "you got to know who you really, really, really are." However many 'reallys' it takes to stand through as many tests of character. We must challenge ourselves constantly to find an unwavering version of our true selves.

And this sounds like a copy and paste job of my previous writing but the answers to uncovering your conditioned self, is to look at the childhood. Dig deep. Date yourself. The more I look back, I remember those intense times when my parents were fighting. One of my most fulfilling moments as a young child, as young as 8 or 9 years old, was stopping a fight between my biological father and my ex-step mother. She would call me a hero, of course, biased. These words and fulfilment of stopping an argument from escalating, was incredibly powerful. I felt a strong sense of righteousness. I've done something. I believe a recurrence of more incidents like this, is what lead me to where I am now, helping people resolve conflicts (inner conflicts or outer conflicts) and feeling a strong sense of fulfilment and purpose.

I digress by looking at societies and what keeps them together. Through my travels, it's beautiful to see what keeps people together at the core. When bonds are tested, what keeps people together? It cannot be anything extrinsic like status, an appearance, money etc. That may last a few shake-ups but ultimately, it has to be intrinsic. A powerful, unshakeable reason and purpose: true senses of belonging, comradery and overcoming of hardships, over and over again.

We cannot minimise struggles. Sure, we can work smarter. But we cannot eradicate struggles. No. We need to make our struggles meaningful. We must make sense of the world in our own eyes, not through anyone else. Not through the news, not through a friend... Through our very own eyes. And like all great things, these things take time. Eliminate the distractions.