Secondary Reflection on Love and Self

Secondary Reflection on Love and Self

Jerone Avel S. Cansino, M.A.Ed

Palawan State University- Bataraza Campus

jcansinopsu@gmail.com

Introduction

Love and self were seen as two platonic elements. There are notions that love is the arriving into the mental and emotional state of selflessness. It was said that if you love you forget yourself and you give it to its object (the object of love). In this analysis I bluntly and immediately reject this notion. What I believe about love is summarized into the statements below. (1) Love is not selflessness, in fact it is full of self. (2) Love is self, you cannot love without having the rudimentary concept of self. (3) Love needs to be selfish but it does not end there because it is a continuous process (4) Love has a subject and an object, then the highest manifestation of love is found on objects that are farthest from the subject. The discussion of this analysis would focus on debunking the common assumption that love is not full of self. The concept of love has faced a number of injustices because of the wrong connotation added to it by the popular conception.

Discussion

What is love? I begin with love is not selflessness. First of all, love is one of the most ambiguous concept man has arrived into. It has evolved over the years. It was shaped by popular culture, by normative perspectives and by the common people. There is a wide range definition of it ranging from religious sacred texts, philosophy books and oral traditions. So what is love? The point here is that we could not know what really love really is. For me, love is self it is you attitude of aspiring anything that it good. Love has the goal of development, care and nourishing. Love is the desire of good will and happiness. I agree with what St. Augustine has argued that love is happiness. Love is like a spring that overflows fills the land with life that is like when a subject extends goodness to an object, it is the manifestation of love. That is why self is love. In fact the highest manifestation of love is not the absence of but rather the fullness of it like a river that nourishes the land, extends oneself to others and nourishes others (objects). The most exact definition of love is self. I believe that when Confucius stated the golden rule, he is suggesting love. You would not do unto others the thing you do not want to be done unto you. It is a basic concept to be understood and I believe that love is exemplified in that statement. One cannot give love without him/her being aware of him/herself. When people hurt themselves, commit suicide or do any acts of “self-destruction” because they say that “they love selflessly” I believe that those people are living in a delusionary state of being, for there is no such thing as selfless love. Because as mentioned earlier, love is full of self.

Self is the starting point of love. Those who commit self-destruction are delusional on loving selflessly and that they are ignorant about the fact that they feel pain because they consider their objects of love as an integral part of themselves. They feel incomplete without their “objects” and being incomplete cause’s pain. When you someone destroys himself/herself because of “love” then his concept of love needs a serious re assessment. Love could be painful but in no extent of it being unpleasant. Even pain is a pleasant thing for lovers. Soldiers and heroes happily die for their advocacies and causes. Without the rudimentary concept of self where do we begin the discourse on love? If we reject all notions of love and problematize everything that we believe about love especially the ones circulated on the social media, where could one begin? What questions would or should one ask? I believe that there is a reason why children are so egocentric at birth. It is the design of nature. It is a way of survival. It is necessary that we should start with looking to ourselves. 

.If love leads someone to self-destruction, then there is a strong possibility of it being not true love.

            Love is full of self because self is the receptor of pleasure and pain. Without our ability to feel pain, we could not arrive into the conclusion that punching other people would be far from a pleasurable experience. It is in our self that we feel pleasure and pain. It is a pattern not only found on humans but also on other species that pleasurable experiences are tend to be repeated and those are not evaded. Love is a pleasurable experience because it seem to fill holes and gaps. It is the reason why most people die for it. A love that is full of self should not be perceived as a bad concept. Love is therefore the attitude of extending yourself to others. The person who is full of him/herself has the greatest motivation to love. Love is passion. It is a motivating factor why people do what they do things in spite of pain and will still be willing to do it again no matter what. When we love it is true that it will not always be pleasure. Now given that why do people stay in love? The most viable answer I could think of is that pleasure is greater than pain. For an athlete, the greatest pleasure is doing its sport, winning his games or showing his talent, for artist love is showing their arts. In the process of achieving those goals the athlete or the artist would not quit his training because there is “love” (Passion). If love is present pain and pleasure could coexist but pain in this context adds to the pleasure. Love is a personal conviction because passion is a product of self. It is a product of individual thought and judgment. In truth we choose who or what we love. We love our parent because they first showed us what love it and we love them because we see then as an extension of our self. By all these I would rest my case that love is full of self.  The concept of pain is not just a bad sensation. Even pain gives pleasure when “love” is added to the formula.

Why is love a pleasurable experience even if there is pain and sacrifices? When a father willingly carry the burden of raising his children at the expense of himself, surely it is a painful experience. But could it be considered unpleasant? The answer could be “no”. It is because when father decided to raise his children he did it in love. He did it because of his overflowing love for himself and he considers that his children are extensions of themselves that makes him willing to bear the consequences for the sake of his children (which are extensions of themselves). The key to loving is not losing oneself in the process but rather extending oneself towards others. Someone who hates and hurts himself has not right to call him/herself a lover.

In reality those person has the biggest tendency to be toxic towards other people. Those who seem to lose themselves to love has the greatest tendency of paranoia. They could become toxic because they are searching for things that they think are payment of their sacrifices. It could cause their entitlement because they deserve an exchange for the things they give. People who lack self-love tends to buy love from other people. Love could not be bought. As argued in this paper love is extended. Love is not transferred but is extended. When someone give love he/she does not lose anything he/she simply extends himself. He/she extends his/her pain and happiness receptors. He/she feels other peoples’ pain and joy. He/she desires goodness towards others and by having too much love you give and give with little expectations of having something in return. The biggest mistake any individual could do is trying to buy love.

            Self is just the first object. As mentioned in the first paragraph love starts with fullness of oneself. Without self-love there could be no true love. There could only exist delusionary love. It is mostly characterized by fragmented understanding of love that love needs sacrifice that to be order to love one must first deny himself of love. True love is extending oneself. It should be understood that having to love oneself is being selfish. There is a thin line separating self-love and self-centeredness. The latter is the earliest stage of love. But love does not end with it. Self should be an ever extending concept.  From having the fullness of love from oneself, love overflows and as it overflows, it touches others. It nourishes oneself and as it extends, it touches other. I believe that loving ones enemy is the highest manifestation of love. First because they do not belong to one’s significant others and second, on the conventional line of thought and consciousness, they do not deserve it. But having too much love means that being able to extend oneself towards people and things that are farthest. Illustrated below is my perception of the hierarchy of love.

Figure 1 Hierarchy of Love

            As seen in the illustration above, self is the base of the pyramid. Loving oneself is the starting point of love but it does not end there, love in the higher manifestation is the act of extending oneself toward his/her significant others. The Greeks concept of “philos” and “eros” this love goes in the conditional level. Self is extended towards significant others (Family, friends and romantic relationships) because of certain underlying conditions. They have shown you goodness, love, patience, debts of gratitude etc… A much higher manifestation of love goes beyond the significant others. In this case loving ones enemy becomes the highest manifestation of love.