Love vs. Like
I got eureka! May be, I got self-realisation of one more aspect of life.
Now a days, my sleep pattern is like a constant argument centric discussion between two parts of same mind known as Conscious and Unconscious mind. Both debate each other a lot especially in last 40 percent of sleep duration. It is what I accustomed and do not try to change much because of two reason. First reason being I tried to change and it backfired. Second reason being I get answer of many subtle questions or ideas or different way of doing same thing during this time. So, I let it run through me without seeking why.
The second Saturday of October 2021 was something same. The topic of debate among two portions of brain was LOVE vs. LIKE. May be, debate had originated because I was trying to establish a cardinal relationship between these two aspects and searching a science in it. I was trying to find how to deal with it in one's life. Looks like, I got the answer finally and more reasonable justification from psychological science perspective. It might help me to behave more aptly, subtly and clearly with others in coming days. Many take life as pure Arts but I see it as composite of Science and Arts but knowing very well that composition varying from one person to person greatly.
Coming back to eureka! Let us draw a K-map of two variable Love and Like.
Now see its impact in relationship analytically. I might not be accurate but will love to share my findings or understanding and hear from you as well. Let us see how each value of K-map
impact one's life.
Zero (0). Any relation of this value will suffocate one. There is no love, no life. Better to come out of this toxic relationship if it not transitioning to 1, 2 or 3. Trust me, coming out of a toxic relationship is best gift you can give to yourself. You just need to be ready to accept the upcoming situation and time will heal all pain and prove fear as a false.
One (1): Many relationship starts with this value where one like other but not sure of love. And, these relationship transition to 0 or 1 or 3. Transition from 1->0 is a downward curve and being with small fights starting with few times but eventually repeating multiple times. Fight does not mean physical abuse but can be silent rejection, disagreement as well. In today's world (especially in context of India), most of broken marriages are seeing transition from 1->0. Talk to more about below as you explore value (2).
Two (2): You love a person but may not like. This is where you sacrifice a lot and want to do best to save your relationship in spite of knowing that the other stakeholder might return you absolute ZERO. A typical example is relations between mother and son. Come what may, mother will love his son even if he does not like a single trait in him. Very few marriages or relationship are like this now a days. Thanks to evolution of recent life which is more of transactional in nature, fast paced life and ever-ending more materialistic desire. As far as transitions is concerned, a transition to 0 or 1 from this state machine is very rare or difficult to achieve. So, there is a possibility of upgrade only and it starts happening once one start seeing value or skills or talent in other party.
Three (3): A blessing you have. You will not have more than few relationship like this for sure irrespective of how good you are. Otherwise, you are a saint! If you have few, please celebrate that and never loose that. Transition to 0 or 1 from this state is not possible as Love aspect will not let it happen. After all, someone has rightly said, love is blind. Transition to 2 is possible but requires a series of action one to convince that person is not having basic skill or talent or outdated in context of time.
Ask yourself.
Which bucket your relationship belong to? But do not disturb current status quo if answer is not aligned with your expectation. Try to make it better! Or else, you will loose whatever you have.
Coming back to (1) which requires more attention. Most of people like you and me, starts with Like. Like can be of shear intelligence, beauty, sex appeal, richness, power, aura of person, simple life-stytle, focussed mind, an easy going attitude, a sharp aptitude to deal with difficult problem.None of the above aspects of Like make you Love. Love comes through heart. Like comes from brain. You may not like a person but you still love him or her. Once you love a person, you can not do harm to him. Love requires an empathy. It comes naturally and can not be cultivated or curated. It can be one sided as well. For e.g. if someone supported you at a point of time in life where you were about to sink, a genesis of love might happen in you. For other person, it may be simple transactional behaviour which a good human being should do. But receiver of at might see things very differently. To summarise:
Love requires sacrifice, unconditional acceptance and relentless forgiving mindset. Like requires skills, scarcity of things which you might have but you aspired to have. Love originate from heart but Like originate from mind. It is easy to recognise Like but Love talks time to be tested through. So, do not consider your Like as Love and use interchangeably.
By thew way, Like and Love do not ever contradict each other. They are different aspects of a human emotion. I will not conclude what is best way to get more love or more like or both. It is simply because, I do not know myself. If you know then let me know. However, it might help you to understand subtle difference between these two behaviour or emotions. In worst case, this blog might at least provoke you to think about the difference,