 Love and mental jujitsu
When one loves someone passionately, there are many who want to portray
such a thing as a sin and tell them instead to love everything.
When that is done, someone like Gail Klein comes in to say that when
one loves everything what one loves is really oneself, as according to
her ideology everything is reflection of self and what one loves when
one loves everyone ultimately then is oneself.
This attitude she then equates with narcissism.
But you have just said that preferential love is a sin! And then you go
and say that general love is nothing more than narcissism!
In light of such manipulations, it becomes requisite then to bring back
the preferential, passionate, human love, in which one loves someone or
something outside of oneself, or outside any expanded concept of
oneself, for their inherent worth and inherent magnificence. To love,
that is, someone or something that is quite, quite different from
oneself or any expanded concept of self, and not only to love generally
but passinately and preferentially, valuing them for their wonderful
qualities - qualities that furthermore are distinct from anything that
is found in self, and that can therefore in no way be seen as any kind
of self-reflection.
In light of this therefore I say this:
I love what, and whom, I love -
For their inherent worth and inherent splendor.
I do not see myself in flowers I kiss; I do not see myself in clouds
and storms I write poetry about; I do not see myself in the Renaissance
art; I do not see myself in Yosemite Park; I certainly do not see
myself in Julia's photographs or kind and beautiful ladies or people I
care about.
I love the people and things I love for what they are, in and of
themselves.
And that constitutes removal from self (or anything that such things
make one feel about self, or seeing in others reflection of self, or
expanded concept of self, or anything similar) -
which makes the love involved directed externally, particularly and
precisely, without any feedback loop into the self -
And if general love is to be labeled a form of bringing all things to
the self, then this is a way of bringing good things to others.
Ilya Shambat.
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