Imagine… Limitless Life… Without Love (part 1)

(see another version of this post at www.realloverocks.org/blog) 

I recently watched the trailer to the movie “Limitless” (2011). The lead character tries a pill that, if taken daily, gives him limitless knowledge. In “Megamind” (2010), (spoiler warning) an ordinary guy is given superpowers and uses them for evil, a former hero decides to do nothing, and a villain, for the sake of love, decides to use his creativity to do good. This reminded me of a 2000-year-old poem which I have arranged below:

If I

• speak with the tongues of men and of angels,

but do not have love,

I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I

• have the gift of prophecy,
• and know all mysteries
• and [know] all knowledge;
• and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,

but do not have love,

I am nothing.

And if I

• give all my possessions to feed the poor,
• and if I surrender my body to be burned,

but do not have love,

it profits me nothing.

(1Corinthians 13:1-3)

What if I could be the best version of me? What if I could communicate, know and act according to my highest dreams, goals and ideals? What if I could attain to perfection in all of my pursuits? What if the ordinary restraints were removed and I could overcome all obstacles? What if I could be a superman or wonder woman? But… I didn’t have love…

If I have an absolutely perfect ability to communicate, know, believe and act…

but do not have love…

I communicate nothing, I am nothing and I gain nothing.

Communication, knowledge, belief and activism are forms… the reality is love.

As the body without life is dead… so the heart without love is dead.  

• Loveless conversation, loveless education, loveless persuasion, loveless preaching, loveless art, loveless music, loveless books, loveless dance, loveless movies, loveless mass media and loveless social networking…

…  make me into a annoying and meaningless noise.

• Loveless academic research, loveless biology, loveless psychology, loveless theology, loveless religious study, loveless anthropology, loveless economic theory, loveless technology, loveless ethics, loveless legal theory, loveless mathematics,  loveless quantum mechanics, loveless art history, loveless engineering, and loveless architectural theory…

… leave me absolutely empty.

• Loveless heroism, loveless altruism, loveless social justice, loveless religion, loveless idealism, loveless self-sacrifice, loveless aestheticism, loveless self-denial, loveless activism…

…  are absolutely useless to me.