The most important, most basic thing that I now know to be true: before you can truly Love something or someone in this Universe, you need to be ready loosing it, for good. You need to be ready for loss, be it a trillion times over, before you can truly gain, and measure the real value of Love and Life.
This holds true for any kind of loss. From losing your own Life, to losing your children, your parents, your lovers, your loved ones, your pets, your fortunes, your homes, your cars, your sanity, that one little piece of scrabble or puzzle, just about anything.
If you've never been confronted with real meaningful loss already, you've probably seen it many times in dramas. The guy who would give out anything or anyone when confronted to the imminent loss of his own Life. Or the gal that would sacrifice herself many times over so her own children would be spared. So many books and TV shows revolve around such simple plots.
In some countries, for some people, this can happen quite routinely. In the Bible and other sacred books too. Obviously, drama writers got it from somewhere. But really, nowadays, it's much less frequent than we let ourselves to imagine. Most times, it's this one story with way too many echoes. Real meaningful loss of many people, strangely, we care less. Because natural disasters, wars and pandemics are events most can't comprehend, which is a different topic entirely.
The prospect of losing something personal, or a loved one, that's what I'm talking about here. First thing you have to realize about things and people you cherish: they're not yours. They never been. You might act as being their protector, but things you call yours are not, and all other people surrounding you are not either. In real, you own nothing beside yourself, and you never truly own anything or anyone else. You are your own and only person, the only thing you'll ever have real control over.
Of course, that's not what most people think. Because the stories we all tell ourselves have been written by others before we've even been born, for the most part. Fathers and mothers have been raised thinking they own their progeny. They don't. Because every person can only own oneself. You don't own your animals either. They own themselves too. You may care about your children and pets, you may Love them, but in the end, thinking you own any other living creature, that's blissful ignorance, and probably vanity.
Millennial cults and centennial business empires have been build solely banking on how much you'll pay for the illusion of not losing what you think you already own, be it persons or things. Most criminal enterprise's favourite activities will only endure because most people truly believe they have so much to lose. Then, in the end, this is all just dust in the wind.
I'm not saying you should not fight for what you believe in, for what and who you Love. I'm not saying you should stop believing you can make a difference, quite the contrary. All I'm saying, it's that in the face of certain loss, you should never give in, or give out, out of the fear of loss, even if it's about losing your own Life. For one, we never really die unless we choose to, and for two, for every time one succumbs to the fear of loss, everyone else is losing an opportunity to evolve beyond fear.
All that I'm saying here might be hard to grasp while believing the lies you've been fed with your entire Life. But in the end, you truly have nothing to lose. Mainly because there is no end. Every time you accept a less favourable outcome than you should, we all lose. Every time you refuse to stand up for what you truly believe in, we all lose. Every time you perpetuate the lies of ownership and control over anything or anyone, we all lose, exponentially.
Ask yourself about one simple thing: why have we been witnessing so many breathtaking and mind-blowing technological advancements in the last centuries, while we've experienced so little evolution in our private affairs? What's truly holding us back, if not our own credulity, our obedience to fearful voices, our apathy and fear toward the prospects of change, and the ignorance of our inner voice, ignorance of our very soul?