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A New Way of Loving


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icarus

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I woke up this morning with a new concept in my head. The idea suddenly occurred to me. It defines a particular kind of ‘love’, and in order to avoid confusion, I have invented a new word for it: iki (which can be a noun or verb). So instead of saying ‘I love you’, one can say ‘I iki you’.

In essence, iki is a sort of nonreciprocal selfless love that knows no bounds. It has 8 properties:

1. Non-Specificity – It is not necessarily directed to a life form, but can encompass anything such as objects or abstractions, except yourself (although it is possible to iki individuals sharing your own genes, proving it is impossible). In other words, you can iki one person, or a community of people, or an art form such as music, or a belief such as reincarnation.
2. Either/Or – Either you iki or you don’t. Unlike conventional love where you can love somebody or something more or less depending on various things, iki is fixed. You can’t iki somebody a little bit. Either you iki, or you don’t.
3. Spatial-Temporal Immunity – It is not affected by space or time. In other words, if you iki a person, you don’t need to be close to it in order to iki it. With romantic love, most would say that you must first have come into contact with the person in order to love it. You can argue that the closer you are to the person you love, the more intense the feeling. Or sometimes, it’s the other way around (absence makes the heart grow fonder). But with iki, you always ‘feel’ the same, no matter how far or close you are to that person. Also, you can iki somebody who is dead or not yet born.
4. Truth – In the case of ikiing another human being, the person who ikies is always honest and truthful to that human being, except if he believes or is told by the human being that his honesty and truthfulness is not wanted. For example, if a human being who is ikied is seriously ill but would rather not know about it, and the person who ikies that human being knows the truth but also knows the human being would rather not know it, he would not mention it as it would fulfil the wishes of the human being. However, the default attitude for the ikier is to tell the truth at all times, even if it leads to unhappiness.
5. Submissive Self-Sacrifice – If you iki somebody, you are prepared to do anything for that person, within the boundaries of that person’s wishes if there are any. If necessary, you will sacrifice your own life and even those of your children (if you have any) for the person you iki. You can go as far as sacrificing the entire planet and cosmos for the object of your iki, whether it is a person, thing, or idea. If the person you iki doesn’t want you to sacrifice yourself, then you won’t. The interests of the person or thing you iki will always come before yours.
6. Unconditionality – when you love somebody, there are usually conditions to your love. For example, if you’re a girl who has a boyfriend, and found out that he was seeing other girls without your knowledge, your love for him might diminish. You might even not love him anymore. So your love for him may depend on him loving you back the same way. There is a kind of unspoken condition that he has to meet. On the other hand, if you iki somebody, you ‘love’ (him or her) no matter what he does. You don’t expect anything in return. There are no strings attached.
7. Singular Choice – Ikiing comes about as a result of a choice made by a free agent. So you must have the freedom and awareness to make your own decisions in order to iki. Arguably, since all human beings have this so called ‘free will’, every human being has the capacity to iki. Plants cannot consciously make their own decisions so they are incapable of ikiing. Also, you only iki once. That doesn’t mean you only iki one person as you can iki a group of people, but it does mean that once you’ve ikied, you can’t iki another time. If you find the urge to iki again, it means you never ikied the first time. Once you iki for real, you know it. There shouldn’t be a need to prove to yourself or others that you really iki.
8. Infinity – When you iki, you do so until the end your existence (or forever if life is everlasting). If you find yourself no longer ikiing, it means you never ikied that person or thing in the first place.

Iki is a hypothetical concept. It may not be possible to iki in practice. I believe it is, but that’s just my opinion. As with my philosophy of coherence, I am not saying that it is good to iki or that it is better than to love. I’m not making any moral judgement whatsoever. I’m simply illustrating what it means to iki.


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