On Love

25 Nov

Mothers spend a great deal of their time and energy on their kids, especially newborns. They spend far more time thinking, and working to ensure welfare of another human being (their kid), than most humans will spend on any other human being, say their romantic partner or sibling. Add to this that till the child reaches adulthood, often till much later, the relationship is overwhelmingly one-way – with children thinking little about their parent’s welfare. Still, most mothers find the experience, and the work that goes with it, greatly rewarding.

Joy despite this sizable disparity has been explained by cynics, but only poorly. While parents proclaim that children bring joy to their lives, it doesn’t cause parents to invest time and money for often similar joy can be had at much lower rates of work. And financial investments, investments of time, the toll on the mother’s body, and inconveniences like lack of sleep, problems traveling, etc. likely outweigh potential financial benefits, which are likely either way away from most parents’ minds.

In this puzzle there are perhaps a couple of lessons about love – one is that relationships that are overwhelmingly one-way, say in resources like time and money, can still be basis for mutual joy; second perhaps is that spending more time on people we love can make those relationships more fulfilling, and us happier.

Measuring Love

Love and to love are vague conceptually and in minds of people who use these terms. The concepts have evolved such that attempts to define or deliberate these concepts rile sensibilities – offend the notion that love is really the domain of emotion, not thought. Such thoughtlessness has meant that nearly everyone can get away with claiming love, even when the overall impact on the quality of life they have on their loved one is a deeply negative one.

One way to think about how much we love each other is to take into account how much time we spend actively thinking about the welfare of those we love. Such exercise when done without deliberation elicits an emotionally biased line up of instances where we were thoughtful. To move beyond such selective counting, for what matters are averages, with a penalty for egregious negatives, one ought to think carefully and honestly, and perhaps base assessments on the testimony of the loved one. Intentionality ought to play a part in calculations but not as a blanket defense – I truly want your welfare but there is nothing in the record that backs up the claim – but to down-weight some instances of sub-optimal decision making under pressure, and limited resources.