Is Love Blind?
Do you love your parents? Kids? Friends? Leaders? Does your love towards the precious ones make you blind towards their shortcomings? How big and real is your love? Interested? Then keep reading as I try to tackle one of greatest motivation in life, love…
Love surely starts at birth… An attentive set of parents, a mirroring mother, caring siblings can make us feel safe, connected, accepted and appreciated. We learn how to give and receive love from our family… Family is supposed to be the first source of ‘unconditional love’. Au contraire to the general belief, the source of unconditional love is not the parents but the babies since babies only know how to love unconditionally. Often, babies with negligent or an abusive set of parents will not find any fault to them. Instead, as they grow, they will try to cope by taking the blame upon themselves, walking away from their authenticity or suppressing their thoughts and emotions. In that sense, the love starts pretty blindly…
One would expect, as the years go by, individuals can move away from blind love and connect with people whom they choose consciously. However, anyone who had some encounters with love, would tell you how ‘crazy’ love is, how illogical and how wonderful it feels… Research show that we tend to get romantically involved with individuals not because of those crazy green eyes or that cute nose but because they seem very familiar to us. This predisposition of attachment is subconsciously related to unresolved trauma from the past or a dynamic we have not been able to solve before. In that sense, while love gives us a chance to heal ourselves, undo past drama; it makes us totally blind, once more.
Love can the blindest when it comes to leaders; eliciting a sense of collective belonging combined with a national pride can be base for a long-lasting authority but is a slippery slope. Following a leader blindfolded not only scars future generations but also leaves the leader poisoned with power. Without any objective feedback, constructive criticism, exchange of ideas; a once caring leader can turn unresponsive, unresponsible, and quite authoritarian…. It is not a coincidence that oppressive leaders first tackle independent media as they would like to keep the blinds on the eyes of the public as long as possible.
So the question is, how can we love without being blinded by it? The answer can be found in Erich Fromm’s book of ‘The Art of Loving’. He says, ‘the main condition for achievement of love is the overcoming of one’s narcissism. The opposite pole of narcissism is objectivity. Objectivity is the faculty to be able to see people and things as they are and being able to separate this objective picture from a picture which is formed by one’s desires or fears…’ Only then, your love is real and not blind… So next time you say you love someone, pay attention to how real it is, are you in love with a dream or the real deal? ;)
Happy Valentine’s Day!