Unconditional Love - My Thoughts

A certain Reverand J Jones wrote a little thought provoking post about the subject of unconditional love.

I was going to leave a comment but got caught in that somewhat dangerous no man's land, the one where I'm never sure if I should comment or answer by way of a post.

At this stage, unless you're really quite stupid and think that I might stop the post in a sentence or two and point you in the direction of my comment on Java's blog, you'll have figured out that I'm going to do my own post.

I guess there are no clear answers, no rights and no wrongs to this issue. My view may be different to your's and your's may be different to her's.

But, I do believe in unconditional love. I believe that it exists and I believe that it can exist in all of us. I have a strong feeling that, were you to ask any parent about it, they'd agree with me.

Love can be conditional for sure, it depends on the specifics of the relationship. For example a person can cease to love a former partner, a friend or a particular snare drum. (unlikely I know) People fall out of love. Fact.

"Like" and "love" are two similar yet very different emotions and somewhere therein lies the key.

I reckon I'll always love my daughters, whatever they may do and however they may behave, but that doesn't mean I'll always like them. I think that love is a far more unconscious choice than like is, that we can grow to love a person if we like them first, as is often the case with a partner, but love can also begin of its own accord, without that like thing happening first.

When both of my girls were born I loved them immediately. I didn't know about their characters, I didn't know how they'd be as people, whether they'd be people I'd like, but those things didn't matter, I loved them from the word "push".

With friends and partners I've had to like them first in order to grow to love them. It's a different type of love, one that can die as well as exist. Java says in one of the comments that

"It’s a pretty subjective issue depending on one’s value systems and one’s logical processes."

and that's got to be true, but we all have a few unconditional love relationships with certain family members, it's just the way of the world, or of the mind, that we have differing boundaries. For example I might feel a sense of unconditional love towards my brothers, even if I might intensely dislike them at the same time. It's a concept that sits quite comfortably with me, though I happen to like both of the idiots in question.

But, another fellow, let's call him fellow B, might genuinely not love his brothers because they're arses of the highest order.

In the theoretical scenario where one of Java's dogs savagely mauled someone, I suspect Java would still love the dog, but would cease to like the beast. However perhaps Darwin, in the same position, would cease to love the dog. It's not often I get to talk about Darwin and the doggie position either. Then again, I wonder how Java would feel if said dog had savagely mauled Mervyn Silva. It wouldn't be as straightforward then would it?

So, after a bit of consideration my conclusion is this:

Unconditional love exists, but varies from person to person.

Conditional love also exists and it's as subjective as the other type.

Like is a very different, but similar thing.

All like is conditional, there's no such thing as unconditional like.

Why do you think there are no songs called "Unconditional Like"?

Thanks to JJ for the thought provoking post. There's another post / response to it by metheblogger here.