The Opposite of Love … An Educationist’s Perspective

Piglet: How do you spell love?
Pooh: You don’t spell it, you feel it.

In an earlier blog, I had asked for responses to the opposite of love. From the many responses I received I realized that there are also many different ways that one can spell love.

And along with Pooh, there were some who said that love was a feeling, an emotion with different degrees — from highly positive to highly negative.

It was unconditional acceptance. It was binding. My elder, almost 14 year old granddaughter summed it up beautifully that to her, love is when you care about the person and would look out for them.

A doctor friend had this to say: Love is a feeling in the brain produced by Serotonin and Oxytocin. I wonder whether these are the chemicals which make the heart go dak dak or thump thump.

To understand the opposite of Love we have to actually start with love and what it is.

The word love can be used loosely, for e.g. I love chocolate ice-cream! She loves History!

Yes, we can love things that cannot love us back. It could be sensorial or even cognitive. The word love can then be replaced with a synonym like; I enjoy chocolate ice-cream!

However, between human beings love shows relationship, it is a relational word. According to the Webster’s Dictionary, love if used as a noun is ‘a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.

And as a verb ‘it is to feel deep affection, or express desire’.

I have always believed that it is only partially correct to restrict ‘love’ to a feeling. Love has to transcend the feeling. This line of thinking was reinforced in my mind when I chanced upon a thought provoking article by Rabbi David Wolpe (in the February 16, 2016 issue of Time Magazine) entitled, “We are defining love the wrong way” in which he says that “to love is not only to feel but to also act lovingly”. He further goes on to say “That love is a feeling that flows into the world in action.”

However, I would like to share with you what I believe to be the most complete definition of love — by Scott Peck from the book, ‘The Road Less Travelled’. Love is “The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”

The word ‘will’ implies choice, it is a decision. We do not have to love, we choose to love. It is good if the feeling exists, but if it doesn’t, the will to love still exists; still stands. I am sure; I am unlovable on certain days as is my husband, or a child, a student, a sibling, a friend or anyone else. However, if will is exercised then it is a committed, thoughtful decision whether or not the loving feeling is present.

And the purpose of love is to extend oneself, (which could be joyful or painful) to nurture growth in oneself and in others.

I guess many a relationship falls apart when feelings cease to exist. We also tend to think it is all over. On the other hand we see many difficult relationships holding together, I believe this is because there is an unequivocal decision and commitment to love. Having said this if abuse creeps in, a review of the original decision may be desirable. Abuse has no place in love!

Here are some responses to the opposite of love: conditional love, denial, stops caring, apathy, total lack of feeling and my 12 year old granddaughter amazed me by saying, it is to be indifferent.

Most said that it is not hatred as that is too harsh. To corroborate that, my doctor friend said that hatred is a feeling produced by entirely different neural chemicals such as adrenaline and steroids. So hatred can never be the opposite of love. So let’s put that away.

I strongly feel that indifference is the opposite of love. Indifference is not caring about what the other person does in a relationship.After all, relationships help us not only to love another human being but also helps to grow as persons.

In this context, we can be indifferent to,

• Oneself, where one does not care about one’s growth as a person
• Spouse, an existence without communication and caring
• Parent to a child of any age
• Child of any age to a parent
• Teacher to a student/s. I know teachers who are excellent teachers and teach the subject very well, but who are indifferent to the student’s learning.
• Students to teacher/s
• In the home and the dynamics of a home. Treating the home like a hotel or restaurant.
• To friends

And others;

• Like being indifferent to the injustices taking place around us
• The deprivation of the environment

There could be so many more that I have missed out on. Do think about it.

In essence, indifference is,

• Closing down caring
• Closing down learning
• Closing down growth
• Closing down compassion
• Closing down sensitivity
• Closing down communication
• And sometimes closing down life itself

We need to introspect ….

Pooh says,
‘Love isn’t what you say,
Love is what you do.’