Nobody Deserves Dessert

It is human nature to be reactionary. There’s nothing wrong with it – it’s just the way we are. Take, for example, what happens when someone asks the question, “What is unconditional love?” The instinctive response is to recall memories of situations that have tested our love in the past. Random movie clips automatically play as we try to relate: a wife accepting her husband who had an affair, a son hugging his mother in rehab, parents forgiving a drunk driver who killed their daughter... The scenes go on and on, our reflexive thoughts immediately building walls around the concept of unconditional love as we stuff this notion into a box made out of our conditions.

Seeing the irony in this, I decided to think more deeply about my own relationship with unconditional love. It was an elusive subject, for the more I tried to pinpoint exactly what it meant to me, the less certain I found myself! I began to construct bizarre scenarios, each more elaborate than the last. While these stories became increasingly more creative, they also became more and more predictable. After about the eighth construction, I realized that the outcome of each new story was identical to that of the first: I believed that I could love someone -- anyone -- regardless of the deplorable act they had committed or how wrong I thought they were. I claimed that I could love anyone... "Even Hitler!" I challenged.

I continued to construct scenarios to test my assertion. When I found myself getting tired, I looked for the end of the exercise. It was then that I realized I could produce an infinite number of such cases and that I would never really be able to finish my experiment. I tried to visualize infinity, at which time my head started to hurt. I had had enough. Stepping back, disoriented, I tried to catch my breath as I measured the size of the mess I had made. I pulled off my baseball cap and rubbed the moisture from my forehead, squinting and surveying the wasteland of junk in my mind -- it stretched farther than I could see. I lowered my head, frustrated that I had invested so much time and yet made no more progress than I had. “ANY progress," my pessimistic inner voice corrected.

"Unconditional love shouldn't be so complicated!" I hissed in my own defense. I refused to give up on this exercise that had become an annoying, but definitely solvable, problem. I threw my hat to the ground and thrust my hands on my hips, locking them into steadfast supports of determinedness as I chewed on my lower lip. I stood for a moment, waiting for my inner voice to speak up again. I was ready to fire full brain at whatever might dart in front of me, but there was nothing. I waited several minutes, and still nothing happened... It was then that I knew I was lost.

At that point, I admitted to myself that I had no clue how to solve this problem that was unconditional love. My eyes welled with tears and I recognized how foolish I had been, failing to grasp a kindergarten concept and creating a disaster. I visualized myself, a blundering idiot walking stiff legged without direction, bolts jutting out of my Frankenstein's monster neck as my fingertips made sweeping circles at the ends of my outstretched, meaty arms. I was a wind-up toy headed face-first into a wall, destined to dance a stationary Running Man until I wound myself down to a no-longer-interesting child's toy.

Having seen this fiasco progress from snowflake to snowball, my masked punisher alter ego pushed his way into the starring role. The iron-chested, panty-hose-headed gladiator stood before me in black leather and steel accessories and I suddenly found myself trapped in a chain-link cage. Quivering, left-lobed, lab coat-coated mathematician that I was, I backed into the wall as the masked punisher lifted a nail-encrusted mace high above his head and prepared to hit me. I raised my scrawny forearm in defense as an announcer's voice beat down on me from the massive speakers that hung over the center of the noisy arena. The crowd cheered, anxiously awaiting a good bludgeoning as all eyes focused on the two of us in the cage. The announcer finished his introductions and set things into motion, "Let the flogging begin!"

It was in that moment that I grasped the concept of unconditional love. What I had missed in both my interactions with others and my excessively analytical scenario tests, I was now able to see quite plainly: I was mistreating myself and it hurt. I was playing the roles of both bully and victim, torn between sympathy and shame. I had caught myself -- a red-handed hypocrite -- subjecting myself to mental self-abuse because I had failed to understand the concept of unconditional love. It was profound.

It was then that I relaxed, sensing that I had somehow arrived in a place of peace and understanding. I could see with great clarity what unconditional love really meant to me -- it was simple: Unconditional love is not about loving somebody in spite of what they've done. It’s not about giving love even though you feel you've been taken. These are reactionary responses -- they don't enter into it at all! There is no force – or at least no net force, associated with it! Unconditional love does not know time, for it has no past and allows any future. There is no comparison. It is an original creation that comes from nothing -- it's generated.

It is rare to catch even a brief glimpse of this wonderful thing, but when it is seen, it is beautiful to behold. As I looked upon such delicate power, I wanted desperately to find a physical world analogy that would allow me to share my experience with others. "Dessert!" I thought, "Unconditional love is like dessert!" I justified the comparison in my mind: Both are wanted, not needed. Both lie opposite survival and require no reason – not even “just because.” Most importantly, unconditional love and dessert are only experienced as genuine when they are shared freely, with no strings attached.

I had arrived at yet another simple truth: nobody deserves dessert! Unconditional love, like dessert, can never be earned. It is not meant to be deliberated on, nor can it ever be derived from first principles. It can't be rigidly controlled -- it is a treat of the moment! Control is counter to its very nature.

Enjoy, I say! Give generously and do not hold back from the things you want for fear that you might enjoy them. Our actions -- and reactions -- speak volumes about the amount of faith we have in the concept of unconditional love. When we are afraid, we become protective and reactionary. When we judge, we impose boundaries. It is only when we love without regard to the past or the future that we allow ourselves to truly enjoy the spontaneous opportunities that arise in each and every moment of life. When we love unconditionally, life itself becomes a dessert.