Love- A Driving Force
Answers
True love does not lie in receiving but in giving. Psychiatrist TB D’netto says in his work, Reaching Out In Love, that love is the force that motivates all people of good will. He sees the life of Jesus as a life motivated by compassionate love. In many schools of thought, self-love and love for others are considered mutually exclusive and even incompatible. Calvin spoke of self-love as a ‘pest’ because it signified selfishness.
For Freud, self-love was the same as narcissism and, hence, an immature love. To overcome this difficulty, Paul Tillich, the Christian theologist, suggested the term ‘self-love’ be replaced by ‘self-affirmation’ or ‘self-acceptance’.
D’netto believes that love is often like water, open to contamination. The contamination can come through intention due to jealousy, rivalry or pride and prejudice. It could come about unintentionally due to ignorance, misunderstanding or simply the weakness and frailty of human nature.
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Sometimes, what may be mistaken for true love both by the lover and loved one, is really the expression of a will to pleasure or the will to power. Other contaminants of love may be emotional needs like loneliness, self-preservation, fear or ego problems. The art of sharing is at the root of all love.
An important offshoot of love is altruism based on love and respect for the other person. True love that is at the root of all creation must result in a ‘reaching out to others’ spirit. For D’netto, what is missing is the spiritual dimension characterised by compassionate love.