Love Does Not Require The Mirror of Hate

The wonderful thing about life is that on every turn it poses a new question and it is in our struggle to find the answers to them that our growth takes place. I shudder at the thought of a life where I wouldn’t struggle with these dilemmas and mysteries. How boring our lives would be.  I never want my life to be a straight highway, I like to travel on curving bending roads clinging to the mountains. The views are great but you never know what the next bend will bring. I simply love it and on that note the latest question I am struggling with is precisely that - Love!

First let me clarify that I don’t mean romantic love, which one falls in and out of. I am talking about the more persistent and permanent kind of love, the kind we feel for our parents, kids, country etc. This is a deep seated emotion in humans and we cannot function without it. The absence of love especially in our formative years can lead to psychological problems which persist throughout our lives and prisons across the globe hold evidence of this.

We are reasonably good at loving people. Our love is not dependent upon contrast. Contrast is nature’s way of making us appreciate something by placing it next to something which is its absolute opposite. For example we appreciate light because of darkness, we crave for justice when we see injustice, we focus on abundance when we come across lack in any area of our life etc. But we don’t love our kids because we find our friend’s children disgusting. Our parents don’t tell us to show our love for them by showing hate for all other parents of this world. Then what happens to us when we apply the same love on concepts,  ideas or the intangible? Why does our love for our country have to be demonstrated by hating another? Why does love for your religion mean that you hate people of other religions? Why must I protect my ideas and paradigms by exhibiting a repulsion for those who have a completely opposite thought process? In short why is love so dependent on hate? I struggle with this especially when it comes to patriotism. I am a proud Pakistani and one who refuses by choice to live in any other country but why must I hate all Indians to prove my love for my country? Frankly I don’t care about my neighbor, they can do what they want in their house and I will do what I want in mine. Obviously if the people in my next door apartment do anything which violates my privacy, freedom or safety I should and I will retaliate. But unless that happens I will not go on telling everyone how much I hate them. Same rule applies to countries and religions etc.

If we want to change the world then we have to teach our children to love. You and I are not world leaders, nor are we revolutionaries, but in our homes running around and making incessant racket is tomorrow. Its these kids who will in a few years inherit this planet from us, if each parent taught their kids how to love without hating the opposite, in the next couple of decades this would be a different planet altogether. We need to let them know the mirror of hate does not reflect love. Alas no school teaches this and no parent thinks of it. In fact at home when we crib and swear about how much we hate the politicians, our boss, our colleague etc. we are teaching our kids that to love one means to hate the other. By the time the child is 3 years old his/her  world map is almost complete, largely drawn by what he/she hears regardless of their language skills.  So if you do nothing else the least you can do is shut up about your negativity when your child is within earshot even though that child is simply a drooling, gurgling baby right now.

Life In A Loop

‘Ground Hog Day’ seems to come to mind whenever I try to describe my life.  Every morning I get up to relive the same day again and again, nothing changes, no surprises. When you are the only person living with a dementia patient there is not much room for anything else in your life. Their life and their reality becomes the dominant factor so that at times you are incapable of anything else but to get trapped in their world and it is a world that plays over and over again in a loop. My mother’s dementia worsens with time and now it seems that there are 4 or 5 questions she keeps asking all day over and over again and I have no choice but to keep answering them over and over again.  The fun and friendship I once shared with this woman is now gone forever – there is no conversation anymore just the same questions and the same answers. So instead I talk to myself.

Being an only child talking to myself is something I have done pretty much all my life but now it is my means of survival. One advantage of this self dialogue of course is that one does not have to hold anything back – you can be completely honest about your emotions and your fears with yourself. No need to keep up the mask of politeness or norms of acceptability. The disadvantage of course is that sometimes you ask yourself questions for which obviously you have no answer and then you try and reach out to someone who might. I find it hard to talk to people so I write instead, in the hope that someone may have an answer.

They say “good things happen to good people” if this is the case then am I a bad person to have been put through this situation? Some people tell me that this is a “trial from God” and good people are given this trial period as a test of faith. But both these statements seem to negate each other. I you believe the first one then bad things should not be happening and if you believe the second then if life is happy and good you are bad because you are not being tested. Somehow I am not able to reconcile these statements in my head. If someone else can please let me know.

There is another pet statement that most people make in order to make me feel better – that I will be rewarded with Heaven as a result of the care I am giving my mom.  Frankly after a while this statement makes you feel worse rather than good because you realize that nothing good will come from it at least while you are alive - and when you die? Who knows? This may sound heretic to many but when life becomes a living hell your faith in an undisclosed destination starts to falter. At least mine has. Besides implying that you take care of your parents because you would be rewarded makes this act so selfish and greedy. If there was no Heaven or Hell then would we still do the right thing? I think the test of humanity is to try to be good and do the right thing not because you expect a reward for your labours but because you cannot perceive any other course of action.

In the beginning I used to think that I am doing this out of love, but I had to face the harsh truth that it wasn’t love that was my motivator, it was responsibility. The love is there but this person is not the person I once loved – she only inhabits her body. Her personality is gone, she is only half a person – the physical is present but the spirit which made her unique is gone. You cannot love half a person completely. But there is a strong sense of responsibility which has taken over and all my actions, decisions, and will power now stems from this. I wasn’t a very responsible person so that comes as a bit of a shock for me.  I am too shallow and too selfish to really have a strong sense of responsibility. Being an only child I never really learnt to think for anyone else but myself. Perhaps this sense of responsibility is really a mask to hide my selfishness? I realize that once she is no more the house will be very very silent – no one to even ask these 4 or 5 questions. Perhaps that is why I endure this spin cycle of emotions every day.

I go through a daily cycle of resentment, guilt, frustration and remorse. I resent the state of limbo that my life is currently in and I feel guilty about having these thoughts. I feel frustrated that my life is on hold and then feel remorse at allowing these thoughts to come.  Each morning I get up with a resolve to be happy and each night I go to sleep completely spent and drained. Perhaps the one emotion I feel most often is that of loss. What happened to all the dreams I had? Where did all that promise fade away to? Sometimes I feel that my life is nothing more than a utility for my mom. I was sent so that she would not be alone in her old age and I’m of use only till she is here. This thought used to make me feel angry now I’ve kind of reconciled myself with it. The image of a flat lined cardiac monitor comes to mind when I think of my own life. No spikes at all just the same constant flat line. I grew up thinking I was destined to do something big something important so perhaps the hardest thing for me to accept has been that I will probably amount to nothing. There is no sudden bend in front of me which will take my life on another path. I am blessed that I was able to travel and have new experiences early on in my life and perhaps an attempt to recreate those days is futile but no one has ever really been able to control their wishes.

My most important question remains unanswered – why? Is there really an explanation for why this is happening? Or is life just random and we conjure explanations just to make ourselves feel better? Am I good or am I bad? Is this a lesson or a trial? Am I being blessed or is this my punishment? Is the present a consequence of actions in my present life or is it the karma of a previous one? I realize that I am going round and round in circles and perhaps I too am now trapped in a little world of my own like a person in a maze from which they cannot find their way out.