“You don’t love me anymore!” is a very weird accusation to make.

I have been contemplating this whole subject of love since one memorable evening of an intense Constellation session. These constellations are a very new-age way of trying to understand the world. They are sessions with several people, all tuning into the epigenetic field that connects us all. Each of the participants picks a character from the situation being investigated, slips into this persona, and lives and acts through a scene, in order to understand the situation better.

In this particular session, I assumed the role of my father and found out that he did not have this fuzzy feeling of love towards his children – one of them would be me – but that he just did his duty. 

I don’t remember the details of that session and its outcome but I remember telling my sister about it and she was very concerned that I might be hurt by the fact that our dad did not really love us but just did his duty.

But I was completely OK with that.

For quite a while I had realized that love is not that fuzzy feeling you have towards another person that prompts you to finally whisper “I love you” and which crushes you if you don’t get a “I love you too” back. In my world, love is an action that I volunteer for; it is a decision I make – to care for someone without any expectation of reciprocity.

This fuzzy feeling you hope will be returned in kind is mostly just infatuation, at best ‘liking.’

In the game of “I like you if you like me,” you are not in control because liking will wither when not returned. Loving, on the other hand, puts you completely in control, nothing another person can change.

Stopping to love a person would be wholly your own decision, but if it really was love, I don’t think such a reversal is even possible.

I just recently found out that the bible agrees with me:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13)

I particularly like the “it does not boast.” It reminds me of an early lesson I learned from my parents who pointed out how often my grandmother stressed all the good deeds she did. It was explained that it was not a good thing to do. This still sits strong with me and I really don’t like to remind my fellow humans of the good things I did, among all the alleged crimes I undoubtedly committed. This must be a common sentiment as, in court, it is much better to have a lawyer defend you instead of doing it yourself.

A to be unnamed philosopher once defined Greatness in Man in a similar fashion:

The hardest task one can have is to continue to love his fellows despite all reasons he should not.

The first time I read this definition it created such an emotional turmoil that my water broke; and I have to admit that this turmoil is not quite handled even now, more than four decades later.

Now that we have a better understanding of Love, what is that fuzzy feeling that prompts you to whisper “I love you?”

My current understanding is that it is an expression that you want to be near a person, share things with him or her, that you want the distance between you to be small. As liking is measured in one over feet (the more you like something the smaller you want the distance to be) this fuzzy feeling must be Liking or its short-lived cousin infatuation.

Other than love, liking does make demands; it wants reciprocity.

In my world telling somebody “I love you” is just a statement of fact and the best reply would be “Thank you!” or, as Han Solo said to Princess Lea after she informed him of that fact, “I know!”

In our culture telling somebody “I love you” has become customary but it is, in my opinion, based on a misunderstanding of what love really is. What the speaker really means is “I like you more than others.”

Have you ever been viciously attacked out of the blue by a friend or loved one, and just stood there completely bewildered “What did I do??”

You feel completely innocent!

But let me tell you – you did something, so you are not THAT innocent. Sure, it is not necessarily something you actively did, but you missed to do something.

Let me explain.

I start with the premise that we all never intentionally do something wrong but this does not always work out and sometimes we do things that are not considered to be ethical or right. Maybe we based our decision on false data, or we simply misunderstood a situation and acted incorrectly.

Another premise that I base my arguments on is that we don’t like to be wrong. From this follows that we try to hide any wrongdoing. And the best way to do this is to simply forget that misdeed ourselves. Unfortunately forgetting is not that easy, and there remains an access point to that secret, still very well hidden but not well enough to be triggered by something that resonates with it.

That trigger could be a sound, an expression, the tone of a voice, or even a mannerism. Do you remember a person whose voice inexplicably drives you crazy? – Like That!

Now imagine you triggered such a misdeed in a loved one by using the word ‘rambunctious’ while standing just the right way in the sunlight and looking at him over your left shoulder with slightly squinted eyes. There were just enough similarities in that scene to the circumstances of his or her big unethical behavior.

There is a moment of tension but then you move away out of the sunlight and make a remark about something completely unrelated, so the threat of being exposed disappears for your loved one. But what stays is the question or uncertainty “Does he know??”

You just created yourself a big problem by missing to find out his or her big secret that NEEDS to be kept under wraps at all cost. You now have an enemy because you need to be put down at every opportunity just to minimize your credibility and worth – just in case you know the secret.

There you have it – how to get yourself some enemies without knowing what you did.

I start with the provocative thesis that the act of forgiving is egotistical.

A bit of background is in order. 

Let us first establish the meaning of the words in the title of this essay:

The Forgiver is the one who has something to forgive, and
the Forgivee is the one to whom forgiveness is granted because he is alleged to have done something to Forgiver that should warrant forgiving.

There are two levels to this business of forgiveness. The first is ‘granting pardon‘ to somebody who has done wrong. This “granting of pardon” should only be done if asked for and we are not obligated to forgive if there is no remorse that he as the perpetrator has done wrong. Dwayne, a wrangler turned YouTube celebrity-philosopher argues that point very succinctly.

The second element of forgiving concerns only the Forgiver, the Forgivee does not even have a role. This might be recognized in Jesus’ famous last words “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” At first glance, this seems to contradict the idea, that forgiveness should be only granted if asked for, and those Romans who nailed Jesus to the cross certainly did not ask for forgiveness. 

In my interpretation, how the Forgiver sees himself is essential. Does he see himself as a victim or is he above and beyond being harmed? Jesus was not a victim, God is not a victim, so there is nothing even there to forgive. 

Only if somebody does FEEL like a victim, even for something as mundane as being short-changed at the store, or somebody not waiting their turn in line at Starbucks, could make him BE a victim and demand an apology.

It is always our choice what we are and what effect we allow others to have on us. Looking for an apology is a sure sign that we allowed the perpetrator to turn us into a victim. I must strongly state that I don’t like to be a victim and I do not allow others to turn me into one. I do not disagree with Dwayne that forgiveness should only be granted if asked for, but for your own sake, demand an apology only to help the Forgivee become a more valuable member of society, and not because you “deserve” that  “I’m sorry”.

My conclusion is to recognize that, if I feel that I have to forgive somebody for something, I already went off the rails.

Forgiving in itself, or the realization that no forgiving is due is thus very egotistical, as it makes me more free – and that, in turn, makes it so much easier to “Love Thy Neigbor as Thyself”.