Why I Support Rational Self Love: A Different Kind of Love
Updated: 5 days ago
Overview of Love as Strength and as Weakness
Love can be both a weakness and a strength, and its nature as such depends on the object or recipient of love (As there are many types of love). Regardless, this weakness and/or strength is only temporary and prone to harm, as everything in this world.
When the object or recipient of love has major if not optimal control over you, like that of a tyrant, then you can definitely say that love is weakness. However, that is in contrast to true love, where you are allowed to be the best version of yourself and vice versa.
A perfect example is from the Turkish soap opera Magnificent Century, a show that tells the tale of Sultan Suleiman I, a great ruler of the Ottoman Empire, who is highly influenced by his wife Hürrem, to the point where he even executes his closest childhood friend Ibrahim, as a result of rivalry between him and Hürrem.
It was a rivalry where Hürrem won by persuading Suleiman with her seductive skill and manipulation against who used to be his second in command (and who also tried killing her). It is even often said in the show, "Behind a great man hides a powerful woman." Had the Sultan not loved her, she would've died by her many enemies.
When you make your loved one a source of meaning, a reason to endure life along with all of its hardships, a motive to overcome despair, depression, and even suffering tendencies, then your love is your strength. That is until the intensity of this emotion fades or is converted to agony, such as in the case where your loved one dies or abandons you. Then, your strength is inverted and becomes a great weakness.
Overall, I would say that love is a great strength under two conditions:
You are assertive enough to not be easily ordered around by your loved one, while being able to resist and advocate your opinions. In other words -- not a people pleaser or a simp.
The likelihood of your love for that person (and theirs for you) to endure for the long term is very probable.
Such companionship would be a good engine to motivate you, and a good shield to protect you from the different poisons that life throws at you.
Of course, this is all until your love fades or until you give in to your love more than to your individuality which subjects you to the tyranny of love or to "tyrannical love", as you become more and more dependent on your partner. And unnecessary dependency is at fault. These are two dangers that are very likely with a lack of sufficient self-awareness and self-respect.
My Suggested Alternative
I think that self-sufficient love is a better idea, though, as it is much more likely that your love will die when you die, and not end by the decision of another. Do not confuse this with narcissism, however, as narcissism is a delusional and grandiose form "self-love", that's in fact nothing more than a vain display of emptiness, like cardboard lumber.
Not all those who suffice with their love towards themselves think that they are the best person in the world, that they are superior to all beings, and so forth. All of these beliefs are false.
The self-sufficient love that I talk about is of another nature. It is a logical, proportionate, and non-compensating one. Thus, I coin the term Rational Self-Love.. Rational Self-Love is a love of oneself based on the following logical structure:
Love is a good source of motivation.
Depending on love for others would mean one's motivation would depend on others.
Depending on one's needs on others is counterproductive when the need's supplier (the external lover) may change uncontrollably, and when one can supply the need themselves already
Love is a need that can be self-fulfilled sufficiently even if it can be fulfilled by others.
Therefore:
5. Self-sufficient love is more beneficial than romantic love, where the emotion of love is most intensified.
In this way, Rational Self-Love (RSL) is not delusional like narcissism is, as delusions are by definition logically fallacious, and RSL does not have to involve extreme egotism, arrogance, overcompensating protection, or megalomania like narcissism does.
RSL simply brings safer, more controllable, and therefore more certain benefit than romantic love, which can also be a weakness once you either lose your assertiveness, or when your loved one departs, or both. RSLers can love others and be altruistic, without romance even relevant to this case.
Conclusion
Logically, romantic love will ultimately become a weakness because the potential of it becoming one is inevitable. After all, love hurts. This potential weakness includes losing assertiveness against the loved one, and the departure of the loved one by various means ranging from breakup to death.
In Rational Self-Love (RSL), however, the love dies with you and you seize the means of supplying it to yourself, not the other way around. In fact, an external love would be both the supplier and the distributor. Must we have both an external supplier and distributor, when we can be the supplier ourselves, with no distributor required?
Additionally, there is no risk of losing assertiveness because there isn't an external force outside of you that may try to order you around while you're emotionally submitted to them. You also are not required to surrender yourself to someone else, because there doesn't have to be someone else, and vice versa (you do not have the other person surrender to you). By "surrendering" I refer to allowing someone, without resistance, to be the best version of themselves (which is the loudest way to love someone).
With a sense of love towards yourself that becomes a form of emotional self-sufficiency, the craving for external love becomes less necessary. Such love can unfortunately become weakness and that, is agreed, is inevitable with departure you can't do anything about.
And if we love someone else, we better let them go. We, however, are stuck with ourselves from birth to death.
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