Love

Grandpappy loved to talk about Love. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," He always liked to say. But He wasn’t the only one. Nearly every spiritual path ever taught put forth compassion as a key virtue, and very often as THE key virtue. Even science seems to ultimately acknowledge that Love is the governing principle of the entire universe.

But what does this mean, really?

Well, I think for one thing it speaks to the fact that there is real, primal power in the act of collaborating with others. There isn’t really any mystery to it, but I do like to think of it as a kind of magic. The best kind, in fact.

It isn’t impossible to conclude, though, that somehow humanity is the crown jewel of the creative process, and that, perhaps, the supreme goal of humanity is individualism. After all, if individual humans can internalize the feedback loop (and this is, after all, what makes consciousness possible), then it ought to be possible for a human being, properly raised, to eventually have no more need of the universe at all. It ought to be possible for the individual human being to become Love. And if an individual became Love, then all of its desires and behaviors would have to be, by definition, loving things, no matter how destructive they might look to the less enlightened creatures of the planet, those creatures still subject to the feedback loops, having not yet internalized them fully.

An opposing conclusion, of course, is that our duty ought to be to meld into one another as much as we possibly can. Eliminate all ideas of unique gifts and achievements and see ourselves individually only in terms of our value to the greater group. By giving ourselves up to the community, we can become more than the sum of our parts, and a spirit of friendship and sublime justice can govern all aspects of our lives. We must choose to set aside our egos so that we may close the cosmic loop. This is, after all, the way of Loving.

What if, though, there was a different way to look at it?

One of the key things that the feedback loops reveal about the universe is that it seems to always avoid extremes. Human cooperation is a perfect example. In the feedback loop that exists between two humans attempting to cooperate, the universe sees no need to pick which person will dominate the act. Rather, the universe allows the two to become one, for a whole new and more powerful level of organization to emerge.

Subatomic objects never have to choose between whether or not they are particles or waves. For all the forces in ecosystems that are inhospitable to survival, there are always equal and opposite forces helping life thrive. The mind cannot exist without a body, but the body will not long live without the mind. It seems that no matter what opposing concepts we come up with, the Cosmos doesn’t play favorites.

Perhaps we can apply this principle to other questions as well. Communism and Capitalism, for example. When you really think about it, both of these systems of human organization produce the same result: a small group of people ruling a larger group. And yet we humans typically set them up as opposites, where one must exist exclusively against the other. What if, following the example of feedback loops, there was a third alternative? What if there was a way for people to explore and capitalize on their individual gifts while always enhancing and never exploiting the greater community? What if a selfless dedication to serving the greater community led to people feeling a duty to explore and capitalize on their individual gifts?

What if Love, then, is not all about self-elevating OR self-deprecating? What if, in the feedback loop that forms when one considers her obligations to self and other, something wholly different emerges? A picture where the obligations to self and other are actually the exact same thing? A picture of a brave and timeless place where nothing has to be compromised for anything else? Isn’t such a place where Love truly dwells?

I suppose, ultimately, the point to all of this is we all have a choice. Will, in fact, seems to be a dimension of Love. We can choose to pour all of our Love into ourselves. We can choose to pour all of our Love into others. Or we can choose to love ourselves by loving others while simultaneously loving others by loving ourselves… and thereby simply allow Love to flow where it will.

Rationally, any one of the choices is just as good as any other. But I have to think that Grandpappy’s choice is very obvious. Grandpappy has always been a master at going with the flow.