Tro Håp Kjærlighet - Faith Hope Love

Love's Secret, William Blake

Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,
Ah! she did depart!

Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveler came by,
Silently, invisibly
He took her with a sigh.

En reisende i kjærlighet

Jacob Holdt: Å innse min egen rasisme, er noe av det vakreste jeg har opplevd. Den opplevelsen har gjort meg i stand til å leve meg inn i de hvite amerikanernes rasisme. Og bare med evnen til innlevelse kan man gi den kjærlighet som skaper forandring. Rasismen låser det amerikanske - og etterhvert også det europeiske - samfunnet fast i et mønster av frykt og hat. Vil vi bryte ut av dette mønsteret må vi alle bli bevisste antirasistiske rasister!

Tekst av Ina Tin og fotografier av Jacob Holdt (Amerikanske Bilder)
AmnestyNytt nr. 4 / Desember 1995

Rammet av kjærlighet

Marit Haldar stiller spørsmålet "Ville mennesker forelsket seg om de ikke hadde hørt om kjærlighet?" i denne avhandlingen. Hun har intervjuet tolvåringer om hva de har hørt om kjærlighet. De setter ord på og knytter ting og handlinger til kjærlighetens romatikk og familieliv. Slik kan de sette oss på sporet av hvordan kjærligheten er konstruert.

Marit Haldar hadde følgende problemstilling for avhandlingen: Hvilke skikkelser (kjønnende subjektsposisjoner) og plott forestiller tolvåringer at den heteroseksuelle kjærligheten kan tilby?

Hensikten har vært å få fram kjærlighetens mangfold og rikdom, og tolvåringenes kunnskap om den. Men Haldar skriver også at mangfoldet i forståelsene ikke er befridd fra kulturens føringer - det uttrykker fri utfoldelse innenfor det meningsuniverset som kulturen tilbyr. Det er noen grunnforløp som går igjen, og noen hovedelementer som overholdes i mangfoldets konkrete versjoner.

...

– Jeg har ønsket å se på hva den sosiale konstruksjonen av kjærlighet kan sies å være, sier Haldar, og fortsetter: – Ideen om kjærlighet blir trukket vekk fra det hverdagslige, men det er jo i hverdagen at vi gjør kjærligheten. Så hvordan gjøres den, sånn rent alminnelig? Sosiologen har verken hatt det kvinneundertrykkende eller det poetiske som utgangspunkt, men har forsøkt å finne hvilke subjektposisjoner (den aktivt handlende i fortellingen om kjærlighet) som tilbys som script i kjærligheten.

Heidi Elisabeth Sandnes, Kilden, Norges forskningsråd

Det DEMOkratiske Kjærlighetspartiet

"Kjærlighet er religion, livsfilosofi og politikk på sitt beste"

Mother love

"There is one taboo that has withstood all the recent efforts at demystification: the idealization of mother love."

Alice Miller

Narcissus

Painting of Narcissus by Caravaggio

According to the legend of Narcissus, this Greek boy fell in love with his own reflection in a pond. In a way, this amply sums up the nature of his namesakes: narcissists. The mythological Narcissus rejected the advances of the nymph Echo and was punished by Nemesis. Consigned to pine away as he fell in love with his own reflection – exactly as Echo had pined away for him. How apt. Narcissists are punished by echoes and reflections of their problematic personalities up to this very day.


Narcissists are said to be in love with themselves.

But this is a fallacy. Narcissus is not in love with himself. He is in love with his reflection.

There is a major difference between one's True Self and reflected-self.

Loving your True Self is healthy, adaptive, and functional.

Loving a reflection has two major drawbacks:

1. One depends on the existence and availability of the reflection to produce the emotion of self-love.

2. The absence of a "compass", an "objective and realistic yardstick", by which to judge the authenticity of the reflection. In other words, it is impossible to tell whether the reflection is true to reality – and, if so, to what extent.

The popular misconception is that narcissists love themselves. In reality, they direct their love to other people's impressions of them. He who loves only impressions is incapable of loving people, himself included.

But the narcissist does possess the in-bred desire to love and to be loved. If he cannot love himself – he must love his reflection. But to love his reflection – it must be loveable. Thus, driven by the insatiable urge to love (which we all possess), the narcissist is preoccupied with projecting a loveable image, albeit compatible with his self-image (the way he "sees" himself).

The narcissist maintains this projected image and invests resources and energy in it, sometimes depleting him to the point of rendering him vulnerable to external threats.

But the most important characteristic of the narcissist's projected image is its lovability.


From: MALIGNANT SELF LOVE NARCISSISM REVISITED
The World of the Narcissist (Essay), Narcissism, Pathological Narcissism, The Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the Narcissist,and Relationships with Abusive Narcissists and Psychopaths (Fifth, Revised Impression, 2003) By: Dr. Sam Vaknin

Narcissistic Personality Disorder - Self Love and Self Destruction

Question:

If narcissists love themselves and are so self-centered, why do they have all these self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors? Isn't it a contradiction?

Answer:

There are two important differences between healthy self-love and malignant narcissism:

(a) in the ability to tell reality from fantasy, and (b) in the ability to empathise and, indeed, to fully and maturely love others. As we said, the narcissist possesses no self-love. It is because he has very little True Self to love. Instead, a monstrous, malignant construct – the False Self – encroaches upon his True Self and devours it.


... Moreover, our experience of what it is like to be human – our very humanness – depends largely on our self-knowledge and on our experience of our selves. In other words: only through being himself and through experiencing his self – can a human being fully appreciate the humanness of others.

By: Dr. Sam Vaknin

Self-Love : Is It Selfish?

Learning to love yourself may be the greatest love you ever experience and achieve. Self-love is not "selfish" or bad. When you love yourself, you will feel good about yourself, and you will feel better about the world. This will make it easier for you to give love to others. Especially if you are a parent or any type of caregiver, you must not forget to take time out to care for yourself. When you take time to re-energize, you will have more energy both for yourself and to share with the people you love and those in your care. The person who feels self-love is generally happier and much more pleasant to be around than the person who lacks self-love and self-esteem. Embodying self-love is the greatest example we can set for our children, for our loved ones, for our friends, and for all those we encounter in our lives.