Imitating love.
If I am feeling it, there must be someone feeling it too.
Lately, I have a growing sense that most of the dialogues I find myself in are all the same but repeatedly.
By default, when I meet someone that I know (maybe a close friend or just a passenger), either one of us throws a quick “hey! how is everything”, with a typical “All is well, how is everything with you?” from the other as a respond.
While some may say everything is good and mean it, I think that some of us say it as an instant reply; a programmed one, even if nothing is fine. At all.
I started to reflect profoundly on this situation as if we are this human software; programmed by our minds and brains after years of experiencing a certain culture, norms, religion, or environment, to respond in a particular way to specific words, gestures, different sounds, and features.
Why do we ask people how are they doing in life, in their jobs, how are their families, etc., why is that happening spontaneously and so uncontrollably during our days whenever we meet someone that we care (or pretend to care) about?
Well, when someone asks me that question, the first thing that happens is that: in less than 3 seconds, I say “life is okay, what about you?”, and now it’s time for him to say that he is supposedly “okay” like I am. Because if he is not, he doesn’t want to bother me the “life is okay” one with his “not okay life” after all. While, on the other side, I say it is “okay” because of the number of times throughout my life when I said, “it’s not okay”, “I am not okay”, “well, life is terrible. I want to die” and then it led to an awkward situation with the one on the other side of the dialogue. Maybe that person is not “programmed” to respond to “the not okay” situation, so why bother him and yourself with all the effort.
Do we mean it when we ask about one another? Do we care? Are we ready to provide psychological or physical assistance for someone who is “not okay”? Or are we going to say something that we are, again, programmed to do? Like for example, saying, “Life is going to be fine do not worry.”
During these times, I find it hard not to rethink most of the things that we are used to doing or saying. I am always questioning my actions and the things I breach. Am I just providing a programmed output for a programmed input, or am I speaking my truth, my real thoughts, or am I just another copy of this software? which is, in my opinion, one that had been taking us so far away from meaning, leaving us with this emptier and disconnected version of ourselves.
This software had been running for so long, crafted and shaped by the media, and by the blind imitations of toxic human practices that had been normalized by those who profit the most from the current fractured and self-involved society. Do you love your partner? Or are you imitating the media’s idea of a relationship, do you love her like characters in Hollywood movies love their partners? Do you even know what love is? What does it mean? Or are you just familiar with the media’s version of such an instinctive pure feeling? Do you think that you need the media to define love for you? Did you try to love yourself and others differently; in another way or form that you think is more convenient than what you have been imitating for years on several levels, and not just through your romantic relationships?
This could be applied to our ideas about many aspects of life. The idea of “work”, “sex”, “love”, “food”, “water”, “nature”, “earth”, “society”, what “being human” actually means, etc. All of these terms could be redefined and rediscovered again. Imitating drove us far away from ourselves, and turned us into those passive actors who are led and driven by prioritizing profit over our holly “self.”
Finally, I would like to leave you with these words from Assata Shakur (Black civil rights activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA) :
“This is the 21st century and we need to redefine r/evolution. This planet needs a people’s r/evolution. A humanist r/evolution. R/evolution is not about bloodshed or about going to the mountains and fighting. We will fight if we are forced to but the fundamental goal of r/evolution must be peace.
We need a r/evolution of the mind. We need a r/evolution of the heart. We need a r/evolution of the spirit. The power of the people is stronger than any weapon. A people’s r/evolution can’t be stopped. We need to be weapons of mass construction. Weapons of mass love. It’s not enough just to change the system. We need to change ourselves. We have got to make this world user friendly. User friendly.
Are you ready to sacrifice to end world hunger? To sacrifice to end colonialism. To end neo-colonialism. To end racism. To end sexism.
R/evolution means the end of exploitation. R/evolution means respecting people from other cultures. R/evolution is creative.
R/evolution means treating your mate as a friend and an equal. R/evolution is sexy.
R/evolution means respecting and learning from your children. R/evolution is beautiful.
R/evolution means protecting the people. The plants. The animals. The air. The water. R/evolution means saving this planet.
R/evolution is love.”
