I had to learn how to love. I had to work at it—paying attention to what made me feel happy and what didn’t. There were so many mistakes. It took 60 years, which seems like a long time, and I think I was lucky in the people I knew along the way.
This is the big question I have: We have an idea that is so nearly beyond doubt, in this case that to learn to love is what makes you happy, but we don’t act on it, we don’t implement it. Nobody doubts it. I should say that nobody who understands it doubts it. And that’s the question. Why is such an important and basic idea not a fundamental part of human education and culture: how to love.
Obviously, people should begin to learn to love at home. And then they should learn in church (by “church” I mean, “spiritual activity.”) But what if for some reason they don’t? I agree, they should learn at home and in church. But what if somehow they don’t? I do believe that some people learn abuse and bigotry at home and at church. Shouldn’t learning to love just be everywhere anyway? Shouldn’t it be about the most basic thing there is? Are the people who don’t learn it in family or church just screwed? That seems like a lot of people.
Recommended: http://gtu.edu/news-events/currents/spring-2011/a-theology-for-koko
The article attached was both inspiring and at times painful to read but it made me consider how learning to be compassionate towards non-human members of our planet innately assists in teaching humans to love one another, as well as pursue self-education about how all living things need protection in our current world. Perhaps learning to love animals is a beneficial stepping stone towards learning to love humans for those who have had negative experience with members of their own species in their lifetime.