Missing Love
By Ingrid Muñoz
When love is gone, missing, nowhere to be found, or avoided at all costs, what is it replaced with? What is the opposite of love?
Is it anger? Is it hate? Is it violence, vengeance, or the visceral outpour of misinterpreted and misplaced mourning? Are those not all the same thing in the end?
Humans are meant to love and be loved. As much as anyone might deny needing anyone else in their life, there is ample evidence of the harmful and potentially irreversible effects of human isolation. Why else would it be a widely accepted form of torture in prisons? We learn how to survive from other humans. We learn our place in the world from other humans. We learn how to communicate. We learn who we've been, who we are, and who we strive to become. All of which are only possible through the endless interactions we have with fellow humans. Those interactions have the potential to produce positive or negative results. The more love there is engrained into those interactions, the more positive the result. The more there is a lack of love, the more negative the result.
So, it's no wonder that the void left behind by missing love is replaced by its opposite...with things that make us less human. If we are meant to love and be loved, then what else can we do but mourn in its absence. If you deprive a person of love for long enough, they will inevitably resort to expressing their grief through some form of violence, which they can inflict upon another, or even upon themselves. (Suicide is self-violence. Depression is self-hatred and self-punishment.)
This is why you cannot fight violence with more violence. I mean technically you could, but no one would really win. MLK Jr. knew that. Those who stood beside him knew that. Many others throughout history probably knew that, and they were also targeted for it.
When will the rest of humanity know it too?