Unconditional

    Are you willing to give up reasonable and valid justifications for not loving someone unconditionally? There are so many perfectly good and rational reasons to not. So many. Practically an endless list of things that people do that you would be blameless for not being able to overcome the sheer natural disgust at the inhumanity. To the point I often am overwhelmed by the sense of... how is this reality? All of the infinite potential of humanity to help each other, and lift one another up, yet the energy to do so is focused instead on doing the opposite and worse. So much worse.

    But what does it even mean to love unconditionally? Does it mean accepting others wholly and not wanting them to suffer the consequences of their actions? Surely the fuck not. My hope is that everyone, no matter how horrific their actions, eventually learns to see their true Self, and works out the damage they've done. For many people, it will be a long and painful process of reconciliation. I won't revel (too much) in the suffering they will have to endure, but neither will I feel bad that to find peace they will have to deal with the reality of what they've done. And I will not allow what they do to affect who I am, to alter my determination to be who I choose to be. 

    "Judge not" is a liberating concept. Judging is not my burden to bear. It's a giant hurdle I don't have to jump over in order to come to terms with my feelings towards other people. Things like anger and disgust aren't incompatible with unconditional love, because I can acknowledge I feel those things towards someone simply as my normal human reaction to who they are or what they've done, without suppressing my innate desire that every individual human being some day witness their own innate worth. Anger and compassion, disgust and compassion, they aren't mutually exclusive, unless you act out of anger or act out of disgust without regard for compassion. Or if you take it upon yourself to judge another in a manner that you cannot overcome in order to find compassion.

    So, to summarize, even the worst of people should not be dehumanized to the point they become unworthy of compassion. But worthy of compassion does not mean they should not be held accountable for their actions even if that means they will suffer, and in fact often suffering the consequences of our actions is the best thing that can happen. And loving them unconditionally means doing the hard work of acknowledging your valid feelings towards them, but not letting those feelings wholly eclipse the hope that even they may one day cultivate within themselves compassion and unconditional love towards all things.

    One of the primary driving forces causing suffering in this world, is the vast majority of the people growing up without ever having experienced unconditional love. Certainly not as a constant steady driving force. While at the same time, they are preyed upon or neglected by the world around them. So they grow feeling both unworthy of receiving, and incapable of giving such a thing. It is outside their realm of experience. They crave an affection they feel unworthy of and do not even understand.

    If the natural state for a human being is to give love unconditionally, and the majority of the people feel incapable of giving and unworthy of receiving, then you can only have a malfunctioning society. A malfunctioning society that can only produce more of the same. When begets a even deepening cycle of mental and emotional issues. Which, I would argue, explains a good portion of the current state of society in the modern world. We are both damaged by being cut off from the most powerful expression of our humanity, and unable to heal due to the same.

    But, seriously, loving all things unconditionally is a goal that often leaves me feeling lost in the wilderness. All my ingrained and conditioned ways of thinking. All the horrible things people to do to each other. The callousness of society and its institutions. But, seriously, there is no other goal as worthy of pursuing to me. So all my reasonable and valid justifications not to have to go, because really they're meaningless. And all the ways I feel incapable of giving and unworthy of receiving have to be examined and discarded. And boy is my soul tired. Being human is a strange experience.