Love hurts?

I was discussing the subject of love with a friend the other day. I was suggesting that love hurts, and she was suggesting otherwise. What I was getting at was that evil relies on the non involvement of others when injustice occurs. Just as the saying "Evil wins when good people do nothing" is so, so it is that we inevitably become victims when we rescue people. No war has ever been won without the unselfish cooperation of caring people. Care is priceless, and as such no value can be placed on it. Society relies on unselfish acts, yet at the same time we're living under the illusion that we're in competition with each other.

This is one of the big issues I have with the idea of "codependence". When the chips are really down, we're all codependent. So the issue of whether or not any one of us is in a "childlike state", dependent on a "parent" (speaking transactional analysis here) we're all potential victims. It's only the illusion that we aren't that sustains our egos. Business relies on this ego based illusion. The values that we hold dear to us, particularly in western society, depend on the illusion that some of us have more value because we have more power or money. Yet power and money are relative, and dependent on ephemeral conditions.

The only reality is love, and the commitment to care for another, even if it means putting your own life at risk. It's altruism. Just as fascism creates fear, and depends on people fearing the loss of their own well being and livelihood, love extends itself so that the collective survive. Hence, "greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for another". But that also means, surely, that there can be no greater love than to live in poverty, to suffer, or do anything else so that another may live, or that one's loved ones live freely.

So, love hurts.

Or at least that's the way I see it.

And it also means that we, as humans, rely on loving others. It's what gives us purpose. In effect, what we are doesn't end at our flesh. Our identity is an illusion, as is our ego. At the core of who we are is the desire to be a part of something greater. And that's the sexual drive. It's a result of the spiritual reality that's who we really are.

Evil only denies that. The nazis were the personnification of that phenomenon. And it was the unselfish love of those who sacrificed themselves, and who defied that evil, that won the day.

But martyrs and sacrifice are all part of this. There have to be martyrs, and there has to be sacrifice. Someone ends up picking up the tab, whether they're just at the bottom of the food chain, or are just people with a strong sense of duty or morals. Ultimately, it's the people who care, regardless of power or image or anything else, who pay the price.

It's a peculiar paradox. Because self sacrifice is, oddly enough, reliant on a belief system that one has little value. The coward's self image, which manifests in self protection, is that he is valuable enough to be protected more than others.

Of course I could be entirely wrong...