Love and hate are universal emotions found across the animal kingdom. Their expressions may differ from species to species, but both emotions are deeply ingrained in the fabric of life. Humans are no exception. Yet, despite all our intellect and progress, humanity has never mastered the art of finding love.
Over time, we have tried to channel this powerful emotion through institutions like family and marriage—constructs designed to give love a stable, socially acceptable form. But while these structures can provide companionship or social order, they do not guarantee love. At best, they offer the security of togetherness; at worst, they create emotional prisons where people cohabit without affection or understanding. There are countless homes where people live under the same roof but remain emotionally estranged. This is why people continue to search for love—even while seemingly having everything that society says they should.
Why does love remain so elusive? Why can’t we always find it within our families or marriages? The answer often lies in the absence of gratitude, compassion, and respect—the very essence of love. Ironically, people who live closest to one another can be the most hurtful. They see each other’s best and worst moments but often fixate on the flaws. Over time, empathy fades, and emotional manipulation replaces care. When one partner becomes the constant target of control or neglect, any affection that remains is not love—it’s emotional conditioning, sometimes resembling Stockholm syndrome.
Love cannot be manufactured by rituals or sustained by duty. It flourishes only where people genuinely care, respect, and try to understand each other. Yet our societies measure relationships not by emotional depth but by adherence to tradition and its length. Those who do not conform—people who choose to live single, pursue unconventional partnerships, or reject societal templates—are often judged as incomplete or abnormal. Their happiness is questioned simply because it doesn’t fit within the accepted framework of family or marriage.
Although modern societies are slowly opening up to nontraditional relationships such as live-in partnerships, the pressure to conform to conventional routes remains immense. People continue to marry not always out of love, but out of fear—fear of judgment, loneliness, or social rejection. And so, even within these well-defined systems, the search for love goes on.
True love—rooted in compassion, gratitude, and respect—cannot be institutionalized. It cannot be bought, forced, or guaranteed by law. It must be nurtured freely, beyond the boundaries of tradition and expectation. Until we learn to value love for its essence rather than its form, humanity’s search for it will never end.
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© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved. Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com
