What's the Point of Love in Life?

Life asked Death, “Why do people love me but hate you?” Death responded, “Because you are a beautiful lie and I am a painful truth.”
— Anonymous

There are times in life we ask, what's the point of it all? Kingdoms rise and fall. Lifetimes come and go. Life goes in the blink of an eye. Are any of us even here long enough to make a difference?

When we take a look at our world today, corruption and injustice plague our world now more than ever. Sometimes we feel like merely a consumer in the system, like cattle to corporations and world banks, and some grumble about conspiracies and secret societies behind a new world order.

Literally trillions of money goes to fighting wars, while millions of children die from hunger related diseases across the world. We feel the global quality of life is on a continual decline as food and resource prices continue to increase. And where even people in abject poverty will cut back from food, just to buy a little pleasure in life. The experts call it "a balance" between survivalist behaviour and pleasure-seeking behaviour, explaining that as human beings we need both.

Meanwhile, developing countries are still exploiting the world's natural resources. As forests are destroyed and resources exhausted, we'll all pay the price for the world's uncontrolled consumerism as we slowly run out of air to breathe. We've been taught for as long as I can remember that rainforests are the lungs of the Earth, but despite this, I don't see anybody linking their destruction with rising carbon emissions. Am I missing something, or is profit more important than humanity?

Is this the life we imagined - where our future, and our children's future, means nothing to corporations in the face of profit? Where we live in little boxes, are put into little boxes, with brands even advertising the fact to lead you into their own little box of profit margins - filling our brains with musical earworms. But should the only desired outcome in life be maximum profit obtained with the least possible expense? Doesn't it cheapen life to put a price tag on it?

Put like this, life hardly sounds like the "beautiful lie" from that popular saying we've all heard. And it's not surprising then, if we live in a world intoxicated with greed, monetary gain and material conquest, we'll inevitably come to ask what the point is to it all.

And that's where love comes into life's equation. Love refuses to let human life be outweighed by profit, fuelled by self-promoted consumption. Can you honestly tell me that you are happy with life when it's defined for you in terms of the most profitable investment? In situations like that, who are you? Do you know? While we chase what we think is the dream life with the ideal house, car and inflated bank account, we lose our connection with others, with our community and family.

The absence of love endangers survival.

So, instead of showing obedience to the market place, allowing it to tell us what to do, what to say, how to feel, how to dress, how to be who we are - we need to open our eyes and let love guide us the way back to some real purpose in our lives.

The truth of life

There will be those that say love is the lie itself, or at least the reason it makes the lie palatable, but I believe love uncovers the truth of life.

I sometimes liken the truth in life to be like the truth in those untrustworthy Wikipedia articles - where the truth is in the edits, rather than the surface article.

The "finished piece" - the latest version of a Wikipedia article - is in fact just the view of editors that we cannot verify, but what is most illuminative is the back-and-forth that occurs between a topic's many editors. There is a lot to be learned by studying the points of dissent; indeed the "truth" is likely to be found in the interstices, where different points of view collide.

Like Wikipedia, life needs to be read in a new way. We need to stop focusing on our differences as being problematic, and start building on and acknowledging our common grounds. We need to start sharing, connecting, teaching one another and learning from each other as well. Build our bonds as human beings, find strength in unity, find our voice and then let it be heard, because what we have to say does matter. When people say that some must suffer for the greater good, who decides what that is? Having the powers that be hide things from the collective view for the good of society no longer works as an argument for me, or at the very least, they have to be held accountable when things go badly wrong.

It's time to start seeing things in a new light. Those that govern our societies need to be reminded that we do matter, and that we want a decent future where life is cherished rather than spent worshipping money - where justice, fairness and liberty is doctrine. A world invested in education, ingenuity and creativity, rather than war and conquest.

We've been given the gift of life. It's a fragile gift, and one you can't keep forever. But it's the most precious gift in all the world, and we need to use it well.

In the end what matters is not how long we've lived, but how fully we've lived. The good we've done, the friends we've made, the love we've shared along the way. It's the journey we take, not the journey's end that defines us. We're all leaves in the wind, here and then gone. But while we're here, let's live to the fullest with love. And that saying about life being a beautiful lie? Well, if we live with love, then death will be the lie.

Regaining the true balance in life with love

Love is about working in harmony with the delicate balance of life. When we achieve harmony - in music, in love, in sex - it's a beautiful and powerful thing - and it allows the bigger picture to emerge, that love is the portrait we're all attempting to paint. And when the harmony of the universe is out of tune (as it seems to be at the moment), that's when we need - and should reach for - love the most.

You don't have to be a tantric guru to feel the power of love, but when love is used as a force for good over evil, then it can open our eyes to see what we're not seeing in times of crisis - the bigger picture that love is the divine design of life.

In its own way, love gives us hope - and if hope is an illusion, then why can't we let go of it, why does it not shatter? Why does it make us struggle even at the end? Love is also our supercali-fragilistic-expialidocious, sometimes allowing yourself to think about fun things that actually don't matter, to help you face the things that do. But mostly, love is our composer - we know that old song - and if we let it, it will be the old friend that stays by your side to the very end.

So, we need to accept the gifts of life and love with great humility, and start using them right. We need to believe we can become the change we want to see, and that we have an obligation to help the new generation by building a better future together. Let's rid ourselves of cynicism, of ego, of fear, and instead open our hearts, our minds and our eyes. Let's broaden our horizons to respect others for their own opinions, just as we can expect the same in return.

It's time to change our ways, to evolve and break free of this vicious cycle, and love can help us do that. That's the point of love in life. It gives us the power and the incentive to battle against corruption, oppression, injustice, and fear - not to end them, but to balance out the odds and bring harmony to the world, and our lives.

Yours in love,