A card-carrying romantic will always say that in the end love triumphs over fear. And she may be right, but we need to go a bit deeper and ponder – fear of what and love of which kind and to what effect? Till we have done this bit of thinking, we really can’t be just happy about the triumph of love. From selfless love for fellow beings to the businessman’s love for profits there is a whole gamut of this emotion to observe.
To make matters simple we can focus here on three kinds of love – romantic love, the love for wealth, and the love for fellow humans. Love for one’s blood being defined more by biology and genes and its characteristics well known, is not considered here.Literature, history and the newspapers are replete with examples of how romantic love is ready to face all odds and how easily it conquers fear. So we have the story of Abelard and Heloise from 12th century France or that of Heer-Ranjha immortalised by the Indian silver screen.
Many are the instances of romantic love brave in the face of adversities -from jealous uncles to cruel kings. Dante said that this love `quiets our will’ and we tend to agree. Scientists who are intent on pinning down romance to chemicals point out that a neurotransmitter chemical called serotonin is among the most important in the chemistry of love. Interestingly this chemical can make people temporarily insane and insanity, as we know, often breeds fearlessness.
Love for wealth and profits has helped in the creation of huge enterprises and employment on the one hand and international crime-syndicates on the other. The worshippers of wealth do also have to rise above fear – sometimes it is the fear of failure, the tax official or angry union, while for others it is the crime investigator. Their kind of love is sometimes described as avarice but even if it does triumph over fear we can’t say straight away that its end-effects are intrinsically beneficial to society at large.
It depends on the subject who overcomes fear and with what final intent.Which brings us to the love for fellow humans, perhaps the greatest of all kinds of love. This kind of love as Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others have shown, triumphs finally and decisively over fear. The power of this love can free nations, save lives, bring peace and empower communities. Every concerned social activist will tell us a story, how such a love everyday confronts adversaries and one step at a time, spreads joy and happiness among underprivileged and suffering people. While there may be battles they lose, this growing community of men and women the world over are the vanguards of a movement, which through the power of love over fear, can truly change the world. These selfless people are the bearers of the legacy of Gandhi of Martin Luther and many others; nay they are the descendants of Prometheus!
