Love as creative

“Love is blind” is often taken as a criticism. The lover is duped by an infatuation. Unfortunate consequences may ensue for both lover and lovee. But I have only recently come to realize the sheer practical efficacy of love’s “blindness.” Let’s face it: People are hard to get along with. (Including oneself, of course.) Right now I am smarting from a severe hurt inflicted by a loved one, and furthermore I know it will linger inside my mind for a long time and be ready to pounce in weak moments to harden my heart against her in future. This is a poison. But I now know the antidote: Loving the person as an act of will, loving as a creative act. So when I feel the urge welling up to slam the malefactor (real or perceived) with a recrimination or a punishment, say by verbally expressing anger or just walking out, instead I will assert my love for her, think only endearing thoughts about her, look at things from her point of view, perform loving and helpful acts toward her, speak no ill of her to others, see the good that has resulted from her disliked behavior, and so on. I will crowd out the negative attitude toward her that sits in my mind by filling my head with these positive thoughts and occupations. I will in effect blind myself to her (perceived) faults or bad acts. I will make of her someone beautiful instead of someone ugly.

             This is only fitting, since the original anger is itself but a perceiving. Hence so is the loving. Everything is, to some degree or in some significant sense, “in the mind” in the first place. This is the truth of Berkeleyan idealism. It is silly, therefore, to insist on the priority of a negative assessment when a positive one can have great practical value.

             In the end, however, I must admit that love as I conceive it herein is only a stopgap measure or poor (i.e., human, all too human) substitute for the Enlightenment that does not make assessments, does not cleave reality into good and bad in the first place. That is really the only sure cure, for love as I conceive it herein itself relies on a fictitious notion of “will,” whereas in fact this love is hardly more immune from malignity than the original negativity it seeks to counteract, since they are equally the products and playthings of prior causes that are ultimately beyond our control.

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