How do we put more love into the world? I know it doesn’t sound romantic, but I think we need a systematic approach. Just as we nurture human intelligence by focusing on education systems, we need to nurture human behavior with an emphasis on love systems.
And by love, I mean the virtue, the human behavior and the north star beyond the paths of goodness and kindness. I mean love as a learned practice and developed capability. A selfless form of care and compassion. I do not mean the romantic feeling nor the expression of deep appreciation that comes from eating pasta… such as when you blurt out with a mouthful of saucy noodles, “I loove pasta.”
Let’s keep pushing that meaning. What I mean is love as an ability rather than a feeling. It’s imperative to know we are talking about love as human behavior and an awareness of the differences because this love is the one that has the capability to generate a positive sum beyond oneself. This love contributes something to the whole collective of humanity, and that’s exactly what the world needs more of.
To create more of that love we need to create more systems for it. So I’d like to introduce the humble idea of “Love Systems.” The good news is they already exist. We just need to be aware of them and find innovative ways to construct more. Love systems are basically environments where love thrives and pushes humanity forward in a direction toward more global peace, empathy and kindness. Love systems are social structures designed to foster and create love. They are institutions and cultural constructs encouraging and rewarding loving human action. They inspire more kindness, and generosity for the greater good. They put us on lifelong pursuits to become the best we can be and contribute to the evolution of humankind's good nature.
One of the oldest love systems humanity has is marriage. “Marwagge. It’s what brings us toghedda today” (Princess Bride reference) The purpose of marriage, is essentially to create and foster an environment of love.
Ideally, if two people can vow to love each other and be good to each other for a lifetime, they become an example of love, and that love starts to spread. If they have children, their children are raised in an environment of love grow up to know and understand this love. It too inspires those around them to learn and live with love. And if those children raise children to love, love keeps spreading at an exponential rate, and a system to teach and grow love and sustain it in the world is set forth. It’s how love is learned and passed on throughout time. And slowly, because of shared knowledge and the speed of communication, it evolves and grows in its capacity of compassion and empathy. This of course is an idealistic view, a theory. But I would say it is slowly happening, almost invisibly like evolution itself. Although, it’s not perfect. The love system of marriage, like any other system, needs maintenance, care, nurturing, and a lifelong dedication to learning and growing.
It doesn’t take much to see that marriage has its flaws. People fail flat on their faces at it. For so many reasons it can feel like a prison. Divorce rates are immense. It causes insanity, violence, and even in extreme cases murder. When a marital bond is broken it can shatter individuals, and families and cause shockwaves of lifelong emotional chaos. Or it can be for the best, and exactly what two people needed. Even if your parents defied the odds and reach an anniversary of epic years and are still together you know if you’ve ever spent time with both of them in a car… it’s clearly not all honkey dory.
But that’s not the topic of this piece.
While love is core to marriages and families, it’s not limited to it. Love systems can be companies, teams, creative collaborators, friends, your neighbors. (Love thy neighbor, duh.)
Limiting your ability to love within the confines of a marriage or small family group is well… super limiting. Almost lazy. And personally, I think it’s a bit lame. You can love more. We all can love more.
While I love my family deeply and have romantic hopes to find an amazing and beautiful partner… knowing love is not limited to a single relationship in your life or a single group of people opens up so many ways to be fulfilled and deliver love into the world. Furthermore, it’s a big world, and to sustain it we must learn to extend the reach of our love. We have to evolve our capacity to love and we have to have a grasp on what the word love means and what it could mean for all of us.
So how can we create more systems to generate and encourage love as behavior? And what are some others beyond the age-old sacrament that already exist?
Families have certain sets of unwritten rules or codes. Through the parents and elders, there is a strong will and boundaries set up that steer our choices. There are defined beliefs and mantras. Things like, “Family comes first” or “We don’t give up on family.” “Family is number one.”
I’d say Love systems start within communities. Good communities in which people bring forth their best to contribute and lift other people up within the group. It’s about taking the best things we know from family structures and applying them to our social circles. It comes down to basic things like kindness, patience, support, and care… all of those things are fundamental and they point the compass toward love.
As a personal experience, even something as simple as friends in an improv troupe is a love system. It’s a system that didn’t last the full arc of my life, maybe only a year or two. But it was definitely a source of love that served for a couple of years. It worked because Improv people have rules that create a system of support and growth. There’s a sort of moral governance over the social group. “We say, ‘yes and…’” or “It’s a safe space.” Ingrained in the Love system is a code that we support each other. We encourage each other. We try to bring the funny out of each other and most importantly help each other shine. We give other people ideas and play to their strengths…“We like family” is a rather stupid thing for people to say, (perhaps even a red flag of caution from someone’s mouth.) But the truth is we (all of us on earth) are all like family. All of this… is family. All of us humans and all of life. So why do we not treat each other with love?
On one last note. In the movie Pinocchio, (the recent live-action remake with Tom Hanks) the Blue Fairy sets up a system in which choices that lead toward love will enable Pinocchio to become what he wants — a real boy. So in the span of a single day, he must learn bravery, honesty and selflessness to become one. He has a real desire and he must learn these three things that are essential on the path toward love.
For some it’s enough to believe that contributing your love will leave the world better than we found it, creating a ripple effect of good and positivity — for others, it’s a belief in some reward…whatever it may be, love is needed.
I imagine the rewards from our love won’t be so magical or easy to see, and ultimately immeasurable. To me, it’s still worth it to create a world filled with love. And the systems we thoughtfully design will make love blossom.