6: On Self-Love

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Cliff came upon a group of young men and women sharing incredibly flattering photos of themselves in the town’s marketplace.  Among those favored most, were artists of appearance: they worked for hours in some cases to capture the essence of their looks in a photo to take to the gathering.  The most dedicated would wait and spectate after dropping off their photos to see who admired and liked their face.  As this ritual developed, they began forming a tradition, a sort of economy of adoration: they commented on the photos of others and were thus repaid with comments on their own photographs.  The tradition snowballed and some lost their heads and began to mistake their photos for their reflection: they lived through their photos and became enormous.  Through the enormity of their photos�"among the those who lost their head�"they began to think of themself as a paragon of beauty, they preached self-love and showed great self-care.  But this quickly became sad, appalling even: those watching from the outside saw through the photo’s straight into the sharer’s heart.  Cliff entered the marketplace, parted its young people and began to speak.

“Friends!  If you should love yourselves, great!

But self-love makes no noise, it is done in complete silence.

Thus, none of you practice self-love!”

After Cliff had spoken, the ones who lost their heads began to cast doubt on his words.  They said he knows nothing of self-love because his looks are lacking.  They said he is only jealous.  Cliff took in their words and calmly began again.

“Self-love is done in silence.  What you practice here is a trying attempt at self-love.  Such a trying attempt pushes that real seed of self-love ever further from the surface: it becomes obscured, blocked of its sunlight needed to grow.

When you share your photos you craft a mask�"some of you in the literal sense�"which you begin to fall helplessly behind.  Thus your mask sits on the surface while you float away.  And if you keep it up, you will soon find that you mistake your mask for your self and the difference becomes indistinguishable.  Thus you have lost yourself.  In this case, among the worst victims of this losing, you will cling to precisely the opposite of what your behavior reveals: you will preach self-love and acceptance and health to try and make yourself believe.  It will grow increasingly difficult to distinguish what you believe of yourself and what others believe of you.  You soon become convinced of the others’ image of you.

What you practice here is not self-love.  It is love of yourself through the eyes of your neighbor.  From lack of self knowledge or poor self image, you desire self-love, but lack the means to it.  Thus, you employ the neighbor.

All you who have lost your head, all you largest photos, all you who live through your photos, you popular ones, listen to this:  what you propagate is hate and poison.  You largest, you sickest of sharers, teach self-deception and self-loathing.  All from poor self-image.  Your words praise self-love, but your actions are cause and result of self-loathing.  Thus when the impressionable�"desiring self-love�"hear your words, they think you are the key to self-love.  Mistaking you for the key, they begin to emulate your actions, thinking they will receive self-love as a result.  Thus their poor self-image festers.  You largest of heads are sick, for your entire identity constitutes a well performed act, one championing and self-love with you as the means to it.  You preach self-love, self-acceptance, and happiness without having tasted of any of it.”

The popular ones began to laugh at Cliff and maintained what they said earlier.  Some of the more moderate among the sharers didn't know how to feel.  Some sided with Cliff, some with the largest photos.

“For all you moderates, you sharers who leave the marketplace occasionally for fresh air:  do not allow things to go too far.  Do not allow yourself to become like the largest of photos, those without heads.  Its never too late for any of you, but among those who can still decide, learn yourself and why you carry these photos to the marketplace.  Thus you will not lose your head.

And for all who believe my words, do not be overly harsh on the popular ones, their game is quite small, their sickness is not yet a pandemic.  But be wary, for it could spread and likely will.  Should they become the ideal for human beings, the model human, do not barrate them.  Beratement will be dismissed�"as you have just seen�"as jealousy, which will give them more strength.  Do not barate or apprehend or insult, rather become a model for real, living self-love.  And for this, you must know what self-love is.”

At this point, the crowd split in two: half followed the largest photos to carry on their sharing, while the other half stayed with Cliff to listen.

“Friends, real self-love is much like nihilism: you must find that nothing matters, excepting you.  When practiced correctly, self-love turns into love of all else, into affirming life.  But first, you must find that no external standard of judgment is suitable for you, you must disbelieve in everyone and everything's’  appraisal of you, approving or disapproving.  This is no easy task, and cannot and should not be done by all.  It is ingrained in humans to gravitate toward praise, to accept it generally.  But you must reject all praise and scrutinize it, unless that very praise already existed in you as a virtue you hold.

For all who attempt this, know the dangers involved.  Self-love is a climb, a continual moving up, the air often becomes thin and lacks the proper oxygen: some lungs cannot handle this lacking.  You will often become lightheaded and question yourself.  That is the biggest danger, for after such questioning, one often finds answers in what is external, in the approval or disapproval of the crowd.

So, climb up! You who’s lungs have the strength and depth. Climb up and find yourself.”

By the time Cliff finished speaking, most of the remaining listeners had left the town, some went back to the photo sharers, and only a handful stood before Cliff.