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As You Love Yourself
I’m having trouble tracking down where or who said it, but I wanted to paraphrase a recent commenter on my site, who said a little something about love. In Mark 12:31, Jesus remarks that the second greatest commandment (after loving God with all your heart) is: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Anyway, I always wondered what the hell was so difficult for people about this very simple practical advice. But the person who left the comment here made it very plain: by and large, people don’t really know what it means to love themselves.
And why should they? Most of the models we have for love blasted at us by contemporary corporate culture have to do less with love than with sex, obsession and possessiveness. No wonder we stumble and fall when we attempt to project our self-love outwards. Few of us have consistently tapped that well, so why would we be able to offer other thirsty people drinks?
Even the notion of loving yourself conjures up images from the cynicism rampant today, of either snide references to masturbation or the cheesy vacant dictums of so much New Age philosophy. Either that or we start debating issues of egocentricity and arrogance. Or we give in to further corporate pressures which confuse self-love with self-image and then promise to boost that instead. So not only do we not have healthy self-love, but we can’t even allow ourselves to create an accurate picture of what healthy self-love actually is, looks like, or feels like.
So what is it? Don’t just sit there and tell me about it. Don’t create a template which marketers can use to sell false solutions to others. Show me what it is. Show me how you radiate it in your life, and how your connection to that wellspring allows you to give thirsty travelers a long cool draught.
September 23rd, 2006 at 3:44 pm
You won’t find that in any of the comments, it was a part of my response the anti-civ flamewar thread which ended up having its comments turned off, so it was left via the ‘contact’ method.
September 23rd, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Oh cool, that explains it. Thanks!
September 23rd, 2006 at 5:51 pm
My strategy is to not make people jump through hoops. People always do exactly what they care to do, so you can not make them do anything. You can`t make anyone like you or love you. You can not control anyone. If you think you are, they are actually controlling you in a bad relationship. To me a loving relationship is one where you allow the other to act out anything , except maybe hitting.
When people figure out that you don`t care what they think, they then know they can`t control you. This can lead to a healthy friendship.
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:03 pm
I guess I’ve tended to figure that self-love means you don’t want to hurt yourself or die, and I know at least I have that — it’s part of being a wuss. I’ve heard a lot said about how bad it is to hate yourself, and I guess it can be harmful, insofar as it leads you to harm others.
Still, I don’t think it’s too hard to love oneself — I’d venture to say that pretty much everybody wants to protect their own body from pain and death, at least at the instinctive level. Whether someone “wants” to hurt his- or herself in terms of a conscious choice (based on a more cerebral analysis of one’s self-worth), this is difficult to do unless the instinct of self-preservation is overridden. And that, I know from experience, is very hard indeed. So as much as it may be tempting (even for me) to worry about self-hatred and want to boost self-love, it really seems to be under control instinctively. Of course, there are instincts that lead one to give oneself pleasure as well as avoid pain — the other side of the coin.
But what about if you hate yourself and wish you could override your instincts to hurt yourself? Cerebral analyses don’t get at the root of one’s opinion of oneself, and I personally have found that the self-preservation/pleasure-seeking instincts are tied to having a high opinion of oneself. At least, I think it is for me.
This also might be connected to the subjective viewpoint from which we see the world — we can’t help seeing everything revolve around us, because that’s what it looks like. Between this subjectivity and our instincts for pleasure and life, it’s a wonder we think of anything besides how much we love ourselves.
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:04 pm
The problem with the Golden Rule is that it is subject to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Clearly, humanity would be much better off if everybody followed the Golden Rule, but if you can’t trust your neighbor to follow it, then the next-optimal strategy is not to follow it yourself. This is the bind we find ourselves in.
I would add that there is a positive feedback mechanism in this: the fewer people who follow the Golden Rule, the better a strategy it becomes for any one individual not to follow it. Eventually, society breaks down into chaos.
This is what is happening in America now. It’s probably been happening since the 60s, but it has really accelerated under George II. Fraud is the norm now. Trust has completely broken down. Even if Jeff Wells is completely wrong and there is no 911/occult/paedophile conspiracy, it is now completely plausible that such a conspiracy could exist.
21st Century Primitivism arises in part by trying to imagine social systems where the Golden Rule is a stable equilibrium rather than an unstable one, i.e. where relatively speaking an individual is likely to suffer if he or she deviates from the Golden Rule. In point of fact, that’s always true (under my belief system) — “karma” represents the systemic effect of violating the Golden Rule — but it is a subtle effect and unless you are sufficiently aware of the interconnectedness of things you won’t see it. But in this regard, Primitivism is an illusion because it just reestablishes the Prisoner’s Dilemma at the group level, i.e. tribes are now in competition with each other rather than individuals. In a post-collapse scenario, this means tribal warfare and all the nastiness that goes with it. Think Africa.
September 23rd, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Dude, that’s awesome that you can be so open like that. Not to mention hilarious. I love it!
Haha, well there’s a lot more to loving yourself than not wanting to kick your own ass. A whole hell of a lot!
September 23rd, 2006 at 11:53 pm
Suppose that in everyone there is that well-spring waiting to be found, by means of which we are able to love everyone, starting with our own self. Then what stops us from doing it? I find that it’s insecurity. When I feel threatened, it’s easy to accuse my antagonist of being evil. If evil surrounds me, I want to zap it.
The same mechanism operates within me and it’s easy to be divided against myself so that I fight my own desires and emotions. An internal cease-fire is the precondition for self-love to be established. If my experience is anything to go by, it can take sixty years to achieve. But my experience is not anything for anyone else to go by! You have your own.
I’ve noticed in myself a huge change. With self-love established permanently, I don’t feel threatened any more, and if I am not threatened I don’t need to pay society what it demands from me in terms of conformity. Then I can devote myself to that well-spring, and find not just my brotherhood to every human but my cousinhood to every animal too.
There is no heroics involved here, just trust. To be yourself is all. I trust that when I do that - and again it’s a lifetime’s effort to do something which sounds so simple - I’m doing the best possible for my brothers and cousins. It may come out in the form of kind indulgence or a fearless challenge, but it feels like something natural and certain: a well-spring indeed, which does away with the need of philosophy.
September 24th, 2006 at 10:10 am
What an important post this is. For truly, truly self love is the secret key that opens all the doors.
One cannot love anything until one truly loves oneself. This is the first rung upon that “Stairway to Heaven” that Led Zeppelin sang about.
A little known short story by PK Dick is simply called “The Exit Door Leads In”. Freedom is within. But it is a dark and perilous journey. And only you can go there, and only you can open the One Door Away from Heaven.
And I would also like to propose that the very book that teaches us about Jesus, and love, and love your neighbor has contributed more to muddying the truth, and led to more self-hate because it teaches us that we are all descended from evil. A trap indeed.
I have a little theory, that the so called “Rapture” has already been sent to Earth. Go back and read the words to the music of the sixties, read them with today’s ears.
You might be surprised
September 24th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
I bake cookies and bring them into homeless shelter. Now, I put a lot of ‘love’ into my baking—- maybe some positive energy gets infused!
I like Jiddu Krishnamurti and he says
September 24th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
thanks connie…………
all i can say is that it`s a personal relationship. loving one`s self. it can be taken as a high self-estemate. but that`s someone else`s opinion.
catching the critic within before it ruins your mood is, for me, a major part of preserving my well being. my unconditional love for myself.
it takes discipline.
here`s an example:
i met a girl and we had instant strong feelings for eachother, but over time we couldn`t get together. there were other things going on and we were both just out of difficult relationships. we finally went out and talked seriously about relationships, children….everything.
we e-mailed a few times and made plans to do things together but then the e-mails stopped.
i know where she lives and i have her number but i know not to call because i don`t need the pain of the up and down of knowing her like this.
she doesn`t owe me anything. i don`t have the right to bother her. the romantic may say that she wants my advances…………but my guts say just leave it for now. no harm has been done and well, summer`s over and there`s work to be done.
if i was destructive i could persue her and go right back to the yoyo feelings and try to make something happen, but i care about my day to day emotions and realise that this type of thing has the potential to ruin people`s lives. her`s and mine.
i have a lot of respect for my ability to hold the course over her. and i am finally getting over the crazy part of things.
if you`ve been through this you know what i mean. if not, then……..it`s indescribable.
love comes in many guises. there are things that come disguised as love too. control, mind games, manipulation, ego gratification. life is about being able to distinguish.
my ex had a book about finding love…………..there was a chapter in there about the self and love. unfortunately it was buried in amongst all the strategies for what the ideal partner must have for you. the gifts, the trips, the magic of romance……………..
i like what yves said. it`s not about heroics. heroics are the cultural recognition of behaviours. that would feed the ego wouldn`t it? love is a relationship with the self that is based on kindness, compassion, understanding, grace, respect, admiration and all the high virtues that some teach that we should give others………..
why not give to the self, then everything else falls into line. whether others do it or not.
prisoner`s dillema? we aren`t in prison. we can come and go as we please. i will continue to smile and hold the door open and be polite and respectful and allow others in on the highway………….for me.
September 24th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Thanks for the Krishnamurti quote. I have adored him since reading , the First and Last Freedom , many years ago.
Along with some other stuff it opened my eyes.
June 5th, 2007 at 1:03 am
[…] This is good. It’s from the comments to an old post here that somebody left. It’s from Krishnamurti: Love is not the product of thought which is the past. Thought cannot possibly cultivate love. Love is not hedged about and caught in jealousy, for jealousy is of the past. Love is always active present. It is not `I will love’ or `I have loved’. If you know love you will not follow anybody. Love does not obey. When you love there is neither respect nor disrespect. Don’t you know what it means really to love somebody - to love without hate, without jealousy, without anger, without wanting to interfere with what he is doing or thinking, without condemning, without comparing - don’t you know what it means? Where there is love is there comparison? […]