The business of love

Of all the preoccupations we frail, flawed human beings are into, there is one that never gets old.
 It is a quest ongoing, filled with tasks unending, and issues forever resolving. This permanent occupation we have revolves around a universal business.

The Super Secret Law of John Lennon’s Failed Purchase:  Prostitution may be the oldest profession, but only because love is the oldest business.

I am in the business of love. It’s a very bad business. It is filled with more liars than a law firm.  More dirty tricks than a card-cheat inside a garbage truck. With no return on investment, the business of love is all expense and no income. The customers are unruly and never satisfied. Everyone involved in this business is underpaid and underappreciated. There are no sick leaves, and no vacation leaves — and while summer love is a super-hot commodity, it often leaves nothing behind but a trail of broken dreams (read: hymens).

I have been peddling love since I learned about it. I have been trying to stockpile it for myself as well, so that I can put a sign on my door that says “Come to me!  I have tons of love!”

Except I don’t actually have it.

As I said, love is a bad business. Like insurance scams and Ponzi schemes, the business of love centers around a commodity that I do not actually have in my possession. My customer-base is built upon the foundations of promises. I am attempting to move a product that a) I do not own; b) cannot be transferred; and c) has no listed price.

Love — True Love, which I shall spell with a capital “L” — is not something that I can find and take. Love finds me and owns me. I cannot move Love, it moves me.  I cannot distribute Love or ration it out. I cannot compartmentalize (root word, “mentalize”?) or categorize Love. It is a whole with no parts, variants, or versions.

Love is The Original. I can take a picture, but I cannot take it home for myself.

All this time, I have been dealing with replicas. I have been buying and selling copies of Love. Pirated love (which I spell with a small “l”): BluRay DVD-rips of love compressed into tiny MP4s so we can watch it on our iPads. Scanned photos of love silk-screened on T-shirts so we can wear it on our sleeves.

I am in the business of love because I so badly want to own a piece of it:  to profit from love. Love laughs at me, “Stop trying to manufacture Me, and most of all, stop trying to earn Me.”

I am looking to get out of the business of love, and I need to take you with me. So here are a few things that might help us differentiate love from Love.

• If your love is a Two-Way Street, it is pirated. If you have any transactionist paradigm in your concept of love at all, then you are in the business of love.

I hear all the time how people define love as a “give and take” deal. That’s business. First of all, there is the word “deal” within the definition. Secondly, there is an exchange — a “give” for a “take.” It is never Love when there is a transaction.

“Give and take” is a myth. Love is just giving — with no terms and conditions in fine print.  It is a one-way street: because when Love exists, people move in the same direction.

• If your love involves Sacrifice, it is pirated. Sacrifice is by definition a tradeoff. My queen for a checkmate. Sacrifice is an investment, and you are the investor. You are either investing unhappiness now for the promise of reward later, or trading someone’s discomfort for another’s satisfaction.

Investments, trades, transactions. All conditional.  All business.

I cannot even count how many people I know who are out there doing things they don’t really want to do in the name of love.

“Pinagbibigyan ko lang, kasi mahal ko siya.”

That deal works out in the short term, but everyone I know who keeps trading away their personal comfort for another’s rescue is a dam that will eventually burst. Yes, we are dammed.  It breaks at breakfast one morning when the glasses come off and I throw the napkin down on the table and shout “All right, that is enough!!”

“Binigay ko na ang lahat sa kanya — and oras ko, ang puso ko!!  At eto lang ang kapalit?!?”

This inevitable drama is built from years of imperceptible resentment — drops of it filling up a bucket. Years of investing — and expectation — culminating in bankruptcy.

The Super Secret Law of Swindler Cupid: Never forget that while that creepy archer-in-diapers promised you love, he actually shot you in the back and flew away.

• If you are in the business of love and expect a return on your investment, you will be disappointed. How many parents invest in their child — or, as they like to phrase it, “in their child’s future” — hoping he will one day become the star athlete or dotcom tycoon who builds their retirement home? What happens when he graduates college and decides to be a bus driver and tour guide? “What, our Zohan wants to cut and style hair?!?”

The next time you ask your significant other to “Please see a doctor because I worry about you,” think hard about what it is you are really worried about.

Chances are, you are worried that your loved one will get sick and die and you will be left sad and lonely — and with all the credit card bills.  Face it, bottom line:  you are worried for you. You are protecting yourself from potential discomfort.

So, lover, when you insist that I visit the doctor, is that Love, or are you simply protecting your investment?

The Super Secret Law of Roses and Car Maintenance: We don’t rotate the tires and change the oil because we love the car, we do that because we’d like to keep using it.

For all you know, your loved one has no qualms about not living forever.

• If you are dealing in feelings, then your love is pirated.  You are a drug dealer surrounded by junkies. That’s the business of love.

Most people I know think they have to feel Love before they can act Loving. Consequently, when they do not feel anything, they are depressed and stop caring to do anything.  They sit there and pray, waiting for “that feeling.”  Until then, no fix, no go.

The Super Secret Law of Mom’s Energy in Motion: Love is NOT a feeling that inspires action, but an action that creates feelings.

My mother uses the term “E-Motion” to refer to feelings as “Energy in Motion.”  She is my mother, and she is probably reading this, so I have to agree with her. Love is a verb, as well as a noun.

Love does things. Doing feels great. Feeling great, I Love to do even better, even more.

Love is action, but every time I log onto Facebook I see an entire generation whose passion is regurgitation. Existing not to do or say things, but mostly to share what others have said or done. I sit there staring at miles of “news feeds” and wonder why almost nobody creates their own experiences anymore.

• If your love is a constant struggle to deliver, it is pirated. I say this because Love is the easiest thing in the world.  You just go for it — honestly, and without fear of consequence.  Without need for compensation.

When acting out of Love, there is no internal debate with my conscience. I don’t believe in conscience. There is no voice inside me that tells me what is right. Whenever “I hear my conscience speaking,” what is really going on is that I am connected enough to my Loved Ones to feel what they are feeling. 

I believe in empathy. It is empathy that tells me not to do things that hurt people. I feel the pain as they would feel it, so I willingly do things to protect myself from feeling this empathic pain. 

Empathy means “I feel what it will feel like for you, and I don’t want that.” This is why I always let a kid finish a game before nagging her to brush her teeth and go to bed. If she has run over 10,000 meters on Temple Run for the first time, I am going to allow her to experience that greatness, because I know if it was me, I would hate to have to quit just because some fool who can’t relate wants me to stick a toothbrush in my mouth this very instant.

Empathy is a connection Love creates and is further strengthened by. There is no internal struggle, because we are already wired to protect ourselves. In protecting ourselves, we automatically protect the other.

• I do not Love because I feel empathy. I have empathy when Love is between us. I do not put it there. It just comes in through the doors of an open heart.

So let’s open our hearts to Love — clear it of the barricades of conditions, guarantees, and transactions. Give flowers, if you must, but don’t use them to purchase forgiveness or bedspace. Just give! Remove the misconceptions that get in the way, and we can finally get out of the business of love.

Love, after all, is a charity.