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Erica nodded and grinned. "You got me on this one," she said. "You are totally right. We do the absolute worst to ourselves. We prevent love by all possible means. And then we are glum, because life isn't as bright anymore as it once was. Of course we blame each other for it in our marriage, and so we should, because we both play this game that has isolated us from the universal principle of love that should be embraced rather than be diminished. Our marriages should be buoyant with love instead of being glum and filled with want, tensions, expectations, fears, jealousy, frustrations, to the point that most of them fall apart. We seem to be doing better politically, in spite of our tens of thousands of nuclear bombs and our many wars, and threats, and large scale looting."
I nodded. "Considering what we do to each other in our private world, it's probably amazing that we haven't blown up the world yet, militarily. However, don't hold your breath, this may yet happen," I said. "But what about you? How do you deal with that? You are an intelligent person. You live in a world that seems to be more open than ours. Are you able to follow your own advice?"
Erica just laughed. "We are more open to the truth, politically, in this country than you are in the West. Our system is so rotten that its stench cannot be concealed anymore with brainwashing tricks. But socially, Peter, we share a common mythology with you that started long before the East/West division began. That deeper mythology was born in distant ages and probably for much more sinister purposes. It has kept us divided against one-another ever since, and was probably meant to do that. The tragedy is that we are not even allowed to talk about the paradox that our isolation and division represents. That's already deemed treason. We shouldn't even be talking to one-another, you and I, as two unrelated married persons of the opposite sex. That is why studying love is so difficult, Peter. It's easier to study nuclear physics. Everybody respects me for that. Nuclear physics is good for society. Bridging social isolation and sexual division, that's bad, unless it is a part of the officially sanctioned game that gets us isolated more deeply than any other form of division that we've come up with. And it's all done in the name of love."
She explained that nuclear physics is an important field of research for society, and so is microbiology, but she added that love is the field that makes us human, which should therefore be deemed far more important. "What do all these other fields matter if we can't treat each other like human beings with respect and love, and compassion?" She paused and looked at me as if she was about to say something that may sound silly. "I realize now before my research in physics and biology can have any meaning to me," she said, "I must first research how to become a human being."
"I remember a lesson from my Sunday school days," I replied to Erica, "a parable, actually." A man had entered a temple to offer gifts for atonement, but the priest asked him if he had a brother in need of reconciliation. Since the man answered affirmatively, the priest told him to take his gift and reconcile with his brother first. Afterwards he could come and present gifts, for only then would the gift be acceptable. "Maybe you are following that advice," I said to Erica. "Are you?"
She nodded. "But what about yourself?" she asked.
"Maybe I am at the stage at which the man stares at the priest in amazement, asking, 'what did you just say?'" I told her that I realized that there is a whole world out there that needs to be uplifted, but I also told her that I simply didn't know how to begin. "That is why we go to peace marches and protest the stupid policies of governments that lead to war, so that we can blame someone for our own failure. That makes us feel good. I think the parable relates to that. I see the priest in the parable say to the peace-marchers, 'go home and don't come back until you can come with peace in your heart.' And he would be right in saying this, Erica. We go to peace marches, but privately we treat each other like enemies, except for some narrowly defined circumstances. I think we don't know what love is, because we don't allow ourselves to experience it. We raise barriers upon barriers, obediently as we have been told to do, and for reasons we have long forgotten or never understood in the first place. My point is that the way we treat each other makes no sense. Why can't we treat each other as human beings with respect, generosity, and love?
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