Mokokoma Mokhonoana's Blog: Essays by Mokokoma Mokhonoana - Posts Tagged "expectations"

Why do you — or did you — love your mother? If she was not your mother, but still the very same person, would you have loved her still?

Though most of us have never really given this a thought; we love our loved ones, merely because they are our loved ones. And, also, because society subtly hints that it is normal, expected, or, a must, that one love one’s loved ones.

It is, for that reason, safe to assert that we love people because of their having met a condition or twelve — not because of them being them.

There are two types of such conditions: One is external. For example, society’s expectation that children love their parents. Or that siblings love each other. The other is internal. That is, conditions that we demand — consciously or subconsciously — that people meet, before we can “feel” like we love them. Typical conditions like, ”I am into tall guys … “, or, ”… I love women with big boobs.”

So, technically, a person cannot really be loved. The closest we get … is loving something (or, if we are lucky: “somethings”) about that person.* If that is the case, isn’t love, then, conditional?

If love isn’t conditional, why doesn’t everybody love everybody?

If you love your lover merely because of them being, say, a joker, and then, they stopped joking, would you then still love your lover?

Let’s take, as an example, your ex-lovers: What do they have in common? Your answer to that is what you loved (and, probably, still do) — not them.

Furthermore, the answer, to the above question, is not limited to a person’s so-called character. For a man’s possessions, too, can be a reason that a woman truly believes that she is in love with him.

One might love a thing for its usefulness, its beauty, or, the social standing that the thing gives them. But never the thing in itself. What one really loves, when they claim to love a meal, is the nutritional benefits that that meal has, or, the taste that they get from the meal — not the meal in itself.

Most obese people do not really love food. What they love is the comfort, as temporary as it might be, that eating provides them with.

People don’t really love porn. What they love is the “excitement” that porn gives rise to (and, possibly, the orgasms that a porn episode usually leads its “audience” to).

Things are means to ends. What people love is the ends, not the means.

To further illustrate my point, let’s bring to mind, how a relationship typically begins:

A stranger meets another. No love is claimed or felt? But after a few months, weeks, or, minutes of “getting to know each other” — the two feel what they call love (for each other).

If it is possible to love a person — not things (character, beliefs, looks, etc.) about that person — Why, then, do we see the “getting to know each other” phase as pivotal?

The simplest point that I can think of, to support my argument, is that of hatred.

We are told that hatred is the opposite of love. Now, question is, Can you really hate something or someone without any reason (conscious or not) at all?

If you answered “No,” Can you then love something or someone without any reason (conscious or not) at all (i.e., without them meeting a condition or six)?

Whether intentional or not, consciously or not, we almost always earn both being loved, and, being hated.

(Love is a by-product of a condition met. To be loved is to have met a condition or four.)

*That statement brings to the table, the question, What is a person? Or, rather, What makes a person that person? That deserves a writing of its own.

© Mokokoma Mokhonoana [ mokokoma.com + @mokokoma ]

The death of a loved one alone is “painful” (or, so we are programmed). The death of a toddler hurts, for most, a couple of times more than that of an elderly.

The cause being that, I presume, we believe that being an elderly equals to having lived. Which is arguable. For there are, as we all know, 80-year-olds who have lived one year 80 times.

But that’s not what I would like to explore with this essay.

I am sure that we can all agree on the “Gone” part of the title of this essay; when it is used to refer to someone that is no more. It is the “Too Soon” that I’d like to address.

It is safe to presume that embedded within the “Too Soon” is the average lifespan of a human being. That is to say, “Too Soon” means “way before reaching the number of years that an average person is expected to live.”

(Keep the word “expected” in mind. It is the gist of my second point.)

This is yet another example of human beings being fooled by their tools.

Statistics are the underlying cause of our unenlightened usage of “Too Soon,” when referring to the death of a young one.

As a second point, I think that we are hurt, not by people, things, or, life, but by our expectations from people, things, or, life.

I am sure that the reader can see how this links with the previous point.

When a kid dies, we get hurt, not because they died (we all know that every living organism shares this destination), but because they died before reaching the “average” age that we expected them to reach.

It is mostly the realization that the grown-up that we hoped the kid will be, and, the things that we hoped the kid will accomplish, will never be … that causes us agony.

Logically, (ironically, by the aid of statistics), we all know that life inevitably gives birth to death. However, our blind reliance on statistics blinds our logical mind’s eyes.

(Within statistics lies an odd paradox. Statistics shows that an average person lives for, say, 70 years. While statistics shows that, in some cases, believing the previous statistic is misleading.)

Because of what statistics tells us (that an average lifespan is, say, 70 years), we call anything way below 70 years as “Too Soon” — and, at times, “unfair.”

We foolishly expect nature to work as per our desires and expectations.

Our being the cause of our suffering (through having expectations) isn’t limited to our relationship with death. Our relationship with others too brings us suffering … whenever those people do not do or behave as our expections.

More often than not, at the core of an about-to-be a divorcee’s hurting lies her having expected death to be the only thing that would lead to her losing her husband (“till death do us part?”).

To halve the number of times that you get hurt, halve the number of expectations that you have from people, things, or, life.

(Life is deadly. The second life is … death is inevitable.)

I guess, from the phrase “Gone Too Soon” one can presume that, once dead, those that have survived abortion are said to have “Lived Too Long.”

© Mokokoma Mokhonoana [ mokokoma.com + @mokokoma ]

Would a child feel love for his mother when he meets her tomorrow; suppose he’d be meeting her for the first time?

Or, will he merely love her because it is expected of an offspring to love its parents?

Doesn’t a person that genuinely loves another, do so because there are memories, recollections that one wouldn’t have with a stranger, that the love is a by-product of?

That is to say: isn’t love, like all emotions, nothing but a state of mind?

Generally speaking, he who claims to be in love with a she he just met, is merely lonely, horny, or, at times, both.

(I am yet to hear of someone who shed tears as a result of a stranger’s passing.)

© Mokokoma Mokhonoana [ mokokoma.com + @mokokoma ]

Being, and having, brings with it, some form of slavery.

He who has something to lose ends up being a slave to whatever that he has to lose. In the very same way that a sensible speaker is a slave to making sense.

So, as soon as an unemployed person gets employed, he too becomes a slave to “remaining” employed. And, he who plans a journey becomes a slave to its path.

The lover in he who marries becomes restricted to loving the lover in their lover.

Likewise, a reputable man is a slave to "maintaining" his reputation.

(To be obsessed with "freedom" is to be a slave.)

© Mokokoma Mokhonoana [mokokoma.com + @mokokoma ]