27/10/2025
BEFORE WE KNEW LANGUAGE, WE KNEW LONGING. BEFORE WE UNDERSTOOD LOGIC, WE REACHED FOR WARMTH.
BEFORE WE LEARNED TO SPEAK, WE CRIED OUT TO BE HELD. LOVE IS NOT SOMETHING WE LEARN THROUGH BOOKS.
IT'S SOMETHING WE FEEL IN THE BONES BEFORE WE EVEN KNOW WHAT TO CALL IT.
Over the decades, the world has changed. We now carry our lives in our pockets curated, filtered, digitized.
We speak in emojis and ghost each other when things get hard. We confuse visibility with intimacy, productivity with worth, validation with value. And while we are more connected than ever, we are also more guarded, more distracted, and often more lonely.
What does it mean to be truly loved?
Not loved for your achievements, your beauty, your social status, or how well you hide your pain but loved without needing to earn it. Loved when you’re at your worst. Loved when you're not performing. Loved without conditions.
For many of us, that kind of love feels mythical, too fragile for the real world, too idealistic for modern life. We’ve grown used to transactional love, performative care, and surface level connection. We’ve been taught, explicitly or silently, that love must be bought through perfection, productivity, or people pleasing. But deep within us, there is still a longing. A longing for the kind of love that stays.
That sees.
That holds.
That heals.
Today, we are living in an era marked by anxiety, burnout, disconnection, and identity exploration. Love, in this context, requires new language. It must expand to include the complexities of gender, trauma, neurodiversity, chosen families, online intimacy, emotional boundaries, mental health, and personal sovereignty.
One thing the world needs more of is people who choose love even when it’s inconvenient, uncomfortable, or imperfect.
The most powerful transformations happen when we let go of what we think we know and let ourselves be surprised by compassion. Because no matter how disconnected the world becomes, love is still the only thing that can bring us back.
Some of us become the caretakers earning love through service. Some of us become performers earning love through perfection.
Some of us become protectors earning safety through distance.
Love has seeped into our digital lives, amplified by algorithms, filtered through screens, and broadcasted to audiences we barely know. Love today is often wrapped in performance.
Affection is quantified.
Connection is curated.
And intimacy sometimes
feels more like a transaction than a bond.
We are the swipe generation conditioned to evaluate worth in seconds, to showcase only the most polished version of ourselves, and to fear rejection at a scale no human psyche was built to handle.
Love as a Currency:
Social media platforms sell connection but often deliver comparison. The image we project becomes a résumé of worth: how happy our relationship looks, how supportive our friends seem, how desirable we appear. In this world, love becomes a kind of currency measured in
likes, responses, shout-outs, or emojis.
We learn to perform love instead of experience it. We react rather than relate. We withhold vulnerability until we are sure it will be "liked." Slowly, love begins to look more like approval, and less like unconditional presence.
Even in dating, the mechanics have shifted.
Swiping apps offer an illusion of abundance but often leave people feeling disposable. If someone doesn't respond the way we expect, we move on. If someone shows too much need, we ghost. If someone is too real, we retreat.
Conditional love has gone digital. It's built into the apps, the expectations, the instant gratification.
But here's the thing: performance doesn't nourish the soul. It's the raw, unfiltered, awkward moments of being truly seen and loved anyway that heal us. And this is what's being lost in the age of filters and perfectly worded captions.
To love someone unconditionally means we must let go of control.
We must release the idea that they will always behave how we want.
We must love them even when they are messy, even when they are un-certain, even when they disappoint us. And to receive that kind of love, we must allow ourselves to be seen.
Unconditional love can't thrive in performance.
It lives in intimacy. And intimacy requires privacy, honesty, and safety.
Not everything needs to be shared with an audience. Some love is sacred. Some healing happens in the unseen moments, the long conversations at 2 a.m., the forgiveness after a fight, the quiet support when life falls apart.
Here's the irony of modern life: we are more aware of mental health, self-worth, and trauma than ever before. We speak the language of healing. And yet we are lonelier than ever. It's because information isn't the same as transformation.
We can quote all the self-help books and still panic at the thought of being vulnerable. We can go viral talking about boundaries and still struggle to feel safe in love. What we need isn't more content. We need connection. We need people who will stay. Who will sit with our silence. Who won't ghost when we get real. We need to remember how to love without performance. And it starts with us.
You might have a thousand followers, dozens of friends, or a partner who says they love you but if none of them really know you, the ache persists. It's a specific kind of loneliness-the kind that says: "I'm surrounded, but still unseen."
The remedy isn't more attention. It's more authenticity.
Conditional love is usually a defense mechanism. It says, "I will stay connected with you... as long as you don't challenge my comfort."
Unconditional love, on the other hand, requires us to be emotionally mature. To hold space for others even when they disappoint us. To stay in relationship even when it's not tidy or convenient. To see someone fully and say, "Even now... especially now... I will not abandon you."
This is rare. But it's what we're built for. Human beings are wired for attachment, not to curated selves, but to real, flawed, sacred, soft selves. And the more we practice staying when it's uncomfortable, the more we start to experience what love actually is. What we need isn't more convenience. We need more commitment to connection. The courage to show up when someone is hurting. The grace to say, "Let's talk" instead of "Let's end this." The maturity to love a person, not a persona.
Unconditional love isn't outdated, it's under-practiced. And in a world of curated connections, your raw, honest, open-hearted presence is the most radical act you can offer. We laugh at things that don't feel funny just to maintain the peace. And over time, we start to lose touch with who we actually are beneath the mask. This disconnection isn't harmless. It leads to chronic anxiety. We become hyper vigilant about how others perceive us. We second guess our words. We avoid confrontation. We feel like imposters even in our closest relationships because those relationships were built on a curated version of ourselves.
This is the soul tax of conditional love: The more we perform, the lonelier we feel.
A parent may withhold affection because they were taught that praise breeds complacency.
A partner might grow distant when emotions arise because they never learned how to sit with discomfort. A friend may disappear during your hard times because they feel unequipped to support you.
No matter how disconnected the world becomes, love is still the only thing that can bring us back. Let this be the beginning of that return. ゚
