The LoveBlind
What if there are people in the world who do not have the 'sense' of Love?
Some of us, at least, wonder at the lack of compassion that others seem to show. They seem to be able to go blithely about their lives, not caring that others are dying, starving, hurting.
Here I'd like to make a distinction between those who don't let their compassion and caring take over and plunge them into despair, and those who just truly don't give a fuck. Many compassionate, caring people also find a lot of joy in life, and rightly so, because this too is an expression and use of the sense of Love.
But how can one explain a personage like Trump, who truly seems to love nothing? One cannot say that he even loves himself, because if he did, he'd be in better shape, and the capacity for love can never be confined to a single object.
Those of us with the gift of sight, we cannot choose to only 'see' certain things, we must see all things in our 'line of sight'. If we are hearing, we must hear every sound. Yes, it is true that we can learn to 'tune out' certain things, but the study of autism surely shows us that our senses take in everything and it's only our brain that filters out what it deems unimportant.
The sense of Love is filtered through both the heart and the mind, so the mind can choose to block certain things. By experience, for example, we learn to temper our love for that annoying kid next door who lets his dog poop in our yard. We would still feel compassion if something bad happened to the dog, or the kid, but in every day life we pretty much ignore them as much as possible.
I would argue that there are those whose sense of Love is dulled, or limited or even absent, in the same way that some people are nearsighted, colorblind, have occluded vision or total blindness. In the same way that some people are hard of hearing or profoundly deaf.
This is how some people can choose to relegate entire races or groups of people to the status of 'non-human'.
Of all the senses to have impaired or total lack of, Love would be the most debilitating. Those who truly cannot love miss more of the joy and wonder of life than any of those lacking one or more of the other five senses. These people lead truly joyless and most likely paranoid existences, because they cannot understand what the heck other people are talking about. They must console themselves with carnal pleasures, food, sex, acquisitions, all the while thinking those who do experience love and compassion are making it all up to confound and taunt them. They live in a sickly stew of jealousy and suspicion that others are getting something they do not have (which is true) and the mistaken belief that this something can be bought or stolen or won in a game of chance or skill. And the more money they acquire and spend, the more people they cheat and steal from, the more games they win by luck or skill or trickery, the more they are frustrated to find that they have not gained this thing, and the more bitter they become about it.
It's sad because those of us who do have this sense, would be happy to share it with them if we only could, if they would only let us, but alas it is not a thing which can be shared in that way.
If we could be Love donors in the same way as we can be organ donors, then those of us with a strong sense of Love could pass that on when we die, or even perhaps, like a blood donor, could give some while still living, to those who lack it, that they might have that sense as well.
Some of us, at least, wonder at the lack of compassion that others seem to show. They seem to be able to go blithely about their lives, not caring that others are dying, starving, hurting.
Here I'd like to make a distinction between those who don't let their compassion and caring take over and plunge them into despair, and those who just truly don't give a fuck. Many compassionate, caring people also find a lot of joy in life, and rightly so, because this too is an expression and use of the sense of Love.
But how can one explain a personage like Trump, who truly seems to love nothing? One cannot say that he even loves himself, because if he did, he'd be in better shape, and the capacity for love can never be confined to a single object.
Those of us with the gift of sight, we cannot choose to only 'see' certain things, we must see all things in our 'line of sight'. If we are hearing, we must hear every sound. Yes, it is true that we can learn to 'tune out' certain things, but the study of autism surely shows us that our senses take in everything and it's only our brain that filters out what it deems unimportant.
The sense of Love is filtered through both the heart and the mind, so the mind can choose to block certain things. By experience, for example, we learn to temper our love for that annoying kid next door who lets his dog poop in our yard. We would still feel compassion if something bad happened to the dog, or the kid, but in every day life we pretty much ignore them as much as possible.
I would argue that there are those whose sense of Love is dulled, or limited or even absent, in the same way that some people are nearsighted, colorblind, have occluded vision or total blindness. In the same way that some people are hard of hearing or profoundly deaf.
This is how some people can choose to relegate entire races or groups of people to the status of 'non-human'.
Of all the senses to have impaired or total lack of, Love would be the most debilitating. Those who truly cannot love miss more of the joy and wonder of life than any of those lacking one or more of the other five senses. These people lead truly joyless and most likely paranoid existences, because they cannot understand what the heck other people are talking about. They must console themselves with carnal pleasures, food, sex, acquisitions, all the while thinking those who do experience love and compassion are making it all up to confound and taunt them. They live in a sickly stew of jealousy and suspicion that others are getting something they do not have (which is true) and the mistaken belief that this something can be bought or stolen or won in a game of chance or skill. And the more money they acquire and spend, the more people they cheat and steal from, the more games they win by luck or skill or trickery, the more they are frustrated to find that they have not gained this thing, and the more bitter they become about it.
It's sad because those of us who do have this sense, would be happy to share it with them if we only could, if they would only let us, but alas it is not a thing which can be shared in that way.
If we could be Love donors in the same way as we can be organ donors, then those of us with a strong sense of Love could pass that on when we die, or even perhaps, like a blood donor, could give some while still living, to those who lack it, that they might have that sense as well.
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