With the “season to give” upon us, let’s consider this fact about “love:” We find loving others more than ourselves impossible to do (here so much giving is required), loving others as much as ourselves difficult to do (even breaks are not what we want), and loving others less than ourselves the easiest to do (here are all the great deals in life). Now, from everyone’s testimonial and preference, we can define what love is: It’s giving more than taking in the ultimate “bottom line“reckoning of our relationships with one another: Love exists only in giving. By thus simplifying it with arithmetic, we can at least discuss the vexing subject of love more sensibly. So, let’s discuss love — with pluses and minuses.
When what is given is greater than what is taken, the difference results in goodness, which makes love possible. Jesus of Nazareth is the greatest example of this as he gave all and took nothing. All saintly people, like Mother Teresa, follow this maxim. A smaller example around us is what we do as parents by raising our children with love and care, giving all we have and demanding nothing from our children, up to and sometimes beyond their 18th birthday. As Jesus and parents teach us, love is nothing but our willingness to take a loss in the balance-sheet of relationships we carry out in life.
As a general rule of life, then, why is giving so much more difficult than taking?
For the answer, we must start with our commonsense notion of “human nature.” By nature, human beings are born apart from one another (unlike Siamese twins) and, being separate from one another, we begin our lives in this world naturally interested in our own wellbeing. From birth to death, every moment of our lives we spend thinking about ourselves, our survival and our comfort. It is not in our average biological or social capacity to feel the pain of another person. Even the best anesthesiologist cannot feel the pain of his patients; even the most sympathetic politician cannot internalize the pain of his constituents. Other than in superficial functionality, we have no deep connections to other human beings with whom we share our living space on earth. Very quickly, friends become enemies and coworkers become competitors. If you are rich in America, you don’t have to give anything to society. If you are poor, you take very little from society but must give many times what it gives you. For us Americans, it’s a struggle that never ends. We fight, compete and argue every day to get that little (or big) advantage in life — just to take more than we give.
Under such circumstances, giving is not in our nature; “taking” is. Hence, love (which is all giving) is an inherently difficult thing to learn and practice as we love ourselves more than anything else, by the sheer force of nature. We are all born that way and generally live and die that way. What we call “investment” is nothing but a gamble to give cheap and take dear or give little and take a lot, like stumbling onto a gold mine for nothing. This logic of love is so inhumanly impossible that even great teachers, like Jesus, tell us to love one another but never show us how to do it in some generically easy way. Even professional “givers,” such as priests and social workers, still take more than they give. As human beings who live in society, but having never shed our selfish nature, we are tested on our goodness for each other every step of our long lives as if we are still in the state of nature. Unfortunately, this is more so in America, the first and only “natural” society created for pure selfishness. In fact, Americans are the only citizens of a nation on earth who have ever existed to pursue their self-interest, with little or nothing to give each other. (What’s more selfish than wanting “freedom” as their sole national and personal creed?) To fill love’s void, we invent Hollywood, Disney and advertisement arts.
All human societies recognize this inherent defect in humanity, and, using their tribal origins where blood is thicker than citizenship papers, make sure that “social” connections are made among their members who have no inborn connections among them. We call this invisible connection “social consciousness,” an awareness of one another through the workings of our minds and subconscious togetherness.
Historically and collectively, America’s so-called “exceptional” society, however, tries to survive as a society without human connections (in the name of “freedom” and “the individual”). Just now, we are all participating in this “American Experiment,” a grand human test of whether a society without love can possibly exist, just on gains-losses calculus, while still remaining “human.” During the frontier days, Americans learned to live with freedom and equality as substitutes for “love” and “happiness.” Love and happiness being so alien to the frontier landscape, political freedom and economic equality would be good enough as rewards for the new nation. This “exceptional” system came to an end when agriculture was replaced by industrialization, and democracy by capitalism.
Yet, in this era of post-industrial dehumanization, we still cling to the idea that there is love somewhere, maybe in the movies, maybe in psychotherapy, maybe in virtual-community — maybe in white utopia. But, sadly, all the flowers blooming in America’s fabled Garden of Love, although pretty, are artificial flowers: Our souls are not fertile enough to grow anything true in them.
Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, lives in Greenfield.