Does Love Work?

Open thyself

A jackal was very hungry and he had not the energy to hunt in jungle so he decided to go to nearby village. As he came close to village the dogs of village chased him. Though he was exhausted but didn’t want to be bitten by dogs so he ran and entered the first house he encountered and jumped into a large vat to hide. It was the house of an artisan whose trade was dying clothes and the vat was filled with blue dye. As he came out of vat the dogs escaped and he in fear of being caught by human left the village to get refuge in jungle. As he entered jungle, the animals become afraid of this strange creature but they were also praising the beauty of his fur. When blue Jackal realized the fear and appreciations from other animals he called on them and declared himself as the king of Jungle. All the animals accepted him as king. He started to deal with business of his kingdom by dividing duties among animals. He gave all animals some roles and titles but none for Jackals. It was humiliations for Jackals, may be Jackals were reminding him of his humiliating past. As days were passing he was becoming ruder to Jackals. The Jackals gathered to find a solution for this political deadlock. The oldest Jackal that was the wisest Jackal said though he has different color than us but I can smell him as a Jackal. Colors could be changed but not nature. Next morning when animals were gathered to court for taking orders from King the Jackals started howling loud. The king could not resist and joined howling. When animals found that king is just a Jackal they wanted to kill him. The Jackal escaped from Jungle. Now he was again a homeless Jackal.

It is one of the stories that we were reading as children translated from old Sanskrit books. Though it is a story for children but it holds a wisdom that is applicable to all levels of minds.

In his famous book, Prince, Machiavelli has argued that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved. His reason of rejection of love is because it encourages disobedience.

Similarly, the famous late Pakistani writer, Ishfaq Ahmed argued that it is better to be treat people with justice than love, because you can’t love everybody and also in loving people everybody is biased. So he was arguing that love doesn’t work.

It is not also philosophers and men in literature who argues against love but also writers in business of mass entertainment include such arguments in their work. Indian movies are famous based on subject of love. In an Indian movie by name of “Munna Bhai M.B.B.S”, the actor who was playing the role of professor argued that it is hard to do surgery of your loved one. So treat your patient just as patient rather than loving them.

However all polls is not going against love. You hear frequently two words, Philosophy and Philanthropy. Philosophy literally means, the love of wisdom and the philanthropy literally means love of humanity. Without love for wisdom it is difficult to attain truth and virtue and also without love of humanity it is not possible to make the world a better by reaching and helping others.

Now that we have a story about the basic constant nature and opposing about a common human nature that is love, we are in better shape to enter into the next phase of exploring human nature.

We all aware that once one who holds power finds his authority unchallenged, he reach to stage of tough decisions between self and humanity and most probably he abuse his powers to benefit him even at cost of others. And it is the reason that no authority is not left without accountability. As one rose in higher levels of power, the people become more sensitive to his acts and speeches.

But it is not people in power that have authority. We all posses some sort of authority as teachers, bosses, fathers, mothers, mentors, older sisters and brothers, worker or simply as an individuals who have the authority to choose his destiny and the authorities that we have is a challenge to our judgments.

What is our strategy, fear, love, justice or treating people as others and clients?

When you reach to this critical question then I ask you to remember the childish story that I started with. The nature doesn’t change. Whatever you are, do not escape from it. Love, fear, justice and all other emotions are part of us and we cannot escape from them. They will show themselves in some form.

The best strategy is open yourself and recognize yourself and others. Have you heard that dignity is more important than wealth and dignity survive when opportunities are there. Creating opportunities are giving dignity to others. The easiest way to dignify others without any cost is to listen to others.

Listening is just one of the ways that you are opening yourself to others. When you open yourself to others you are creating opportunities both for yourself and others. Closing yourself is limiting opportunities for yourself and others and also sometimes humiliating others.

I conclude that saying that whoever advice closing self as a strategy using different reason is just closing opportunities. Nature doesn’t change.