Relationship and Love; Unfinished

     Life never fails to surprise. I knew that I would eventually no longer have the friends I thought were lifelong but I never assumed it would happen so soon. I never thought that I could emerge from the situation almost blissfully, as well. There was a time when I considered that if I were to lose my friends, I would potentially commit suicide. I believed they were what held me to this Earth. I thought they grounded me. What if they held me back? This is something I've entertained plenty, I have been filled with shame for years. I thought that it was me who was responsible for my own shame, and I still stand by that it was/is, but it doesn't help to have people around who question who you are and are so obviously conditional friends. All relationships are conditional, this is true, but the conditions can vary greatly and determine the depth and closeness of the relationship. The Philosophize This! podcast spoke about and elaborated upon philosopher Eric Fromm's views on love in a way that spoke to me. Maybe he and I are similar thinkers or maybe his influence was passed to me through the media, either way, he had incredibly salient and personally influential ideas. The main idea, from memory, was that, perhaps, in order to truly love another we must first love all. What this means to me is that any love that is conditional on anything besides love, is not love. The give-and-take mindset in many relationships is doomed to fail because eventually, no matter what, one will be unable to live up to what is expected of them. If you place these conditions onto another human, when they are unable to live up to your expectations due to illness, for example, your focus will be on them improving for your own sake, not for the sake of their health. This, alone, is perhaps reason enough to understand that conditional love is not sufficient. It can work but it seems like love that comes from a place of love for the person itself is most likely to survive hardships and promote empathizing and understanding. This is probably a poor paraphrase of Eric Fromm's philosophy but this is what I gather from it and it, in some ways, has helped me put words to a concept that had already planted its seeds. Fromm also says that the best way, and perhaps the only way to find love with this concept, is to extend this aspect of yourself into the world unconditionally. There is a reason to love all things if you view life in an absurd manner. Everything that happens is so bizarre and seems so arbitrary that everything is laughable from this perspective. Laughter is love. If everything is laughable, everything is lovable. Of course, this must be managed. You cannot always express your love for everything, for your love might then be pointless. Love should be uplifting. 

    What is love? It's a complicated question with many potential answers. I've spent a lot of my life searching for love but it is so difficult for me to define. What if the feeling I consider to be love is actually another feeling? When have I felt love? I feel love for my friends. Ultimately, though, the most outstanding example of love I can think of would be for