one of the great intellectual puzzles
that daily life forces all of us to
consider on a slightly to regular basis
is why are other people so awful how
come they’re so unreliable aggressive
deceitful mean two-faced or cowardly as
we search for answers
we tend quite naturally to fall back on
a standard compact and tempting
explanation because they’re terrible
people their appalling crooked deformed
or bad and that’s simply how some types
are the conclusion may be grim but it
also feels very true and fundamentally
unbudgeted however when things feel
especially clear-cut
we may be goaded to try out an unusual
thought experiment which stands to
challenge a great many of our
certainties and render the world
usefully more complicated we can try to
look at our fellow human beings through
the eyes of love the experiment requires
particular stamina and is best attempted
a quieter less agitated times of day
when we manage it it can count as one of
our highest ethical achievements we are
normally resolutely on our own side
deeply invested in our own point of view
and prone to trade in settled and
moralizing certainties yet very
occasionally we have the strength to
look at other people through a different
lens we notice that their reality is
likely to be far more complicated and
nuanced than we first expected and the
contrary to our impulses they may be
deserving of more sympathy and
consideration than we thought even
though they might have hurt or
frustrated us even though their behavior
might run contrary to what we expect and
even though the temptation is always to
call them idiots and numbskulls and move
on looking at another person through the
eyes of love involves some of the
following steps imagination moralistic
thinking identifies people closely with
our worst moments loved thinking
pushes us in another direction it bids
us to use our imaginations to pick
why someone might have done a
regrettable deed and yet could remain a
fitting target for a degree of
understanding and sympathy
perhaps they got very frightened maybe
they were under pressure of extreme
anxiety or despair those who look with
love guess that there will be sorrow and
regret
beneath the Furious rantings or a sense
of intolerable vulnerability behind the
pomposity and snobbishness they
intimated that early trauma and letdown
must have formed the backdrop to later
transgressions they will remember that
the person before them was once a baby
to the loving interpreter holds on to
the idea that sweetness must remain
beneath the surface along with a
possibility of remorse and growth they
are committed to mitigating
circumstances to any bits of the truth
that could cast a less catastrophic
light on folly and nastiness the child
within to consider others with love
means forever remembering the child
within them our wrongdoer may be fully
grown but their behavior will always be
connected up with their early years we
overlook the need occasionally to ignore
the outward adult sides of others in
order to perceive and sympathise with
the angry confused infant lurking inside
when we were around small children who
frustrate us we don’t declare them evil
we don’t bear down on them to show how
misguided they are we find less alarming
ways of grasping how they’ve come to say
or do certain things we probably think
they’re getting a bit tired or their
gums are sore or they’re upset by the
arrival of a younger sibling we’ve got a
large repertoire of alternative
explanations ready in our heads this is
the reverse of what tends to happen
around adults here we imagine that other
people have deliberately got us in their
sights but if we employ the infant model
of interpretation our first assumption
would be quite different given how
immature every adult necessarily remains
some of the moves we execute with
relative ease around children must
forever continue to be relevant when
we’re dealing with another grown-up
patience more realistic thinkers
reach their certainties swiftly love
thinkers take their time they remain
serene in the face of obviously
unimpressive behavior a sudden loss of
temper a wild accusation a very mean
remark they reach instinctively for
reasonable explanations and have clearly
in their minds the better moments of a
currently frantic but essentially
lovable person redeeming features love
thinkers interpret everyone as having
strengths alongside their obvious
weaknesses when they encounter these
weaknesses they don’t conclude that this
is all there is but they know that
almost everything on the negative side
of a ledger could be connected up with
something on the positive they search a
little more assiduously than is normal
for the strength to which a maddening
characteristic must be twinned
we can see easily enough that someone is
pedantic and uncompromising but we tend
to forget our moments of crisis their
thoroughness and honesty we may know so
much about a person’s messiness we
forget their uncommon degree of creative
enthusiasm there is no such thing as a
person with only strengths but nor is
there someone with only weaknesses the
consolation comes in refusing to view
defects in isolation love is built out
of a constantly renewed and gently
resigned awareness that weakness free
people do not exist we are sinners to
the single greatest spur towards a
loving perspective on others is a live
awareness that we are all so deeply
imperfect
and it points quite plainly mad the
enemy of generosity is the sense that we
might be beyond fault
whereas love begins when we can
acknowledge that we are in equal
measures idiotic mentally wobbly and
flawed it’s an implicit faith in their
own perfection that turns some people
into such harsh judges looking at the
world through the eyes of love we’re
forced to conclude that there is no such
thing as a simply bad person and no such
thing as a monster there is only ever
pain anxiety and suffering that have
coalesced into unfortunate action
we’re not just being kind in this notion
this isn’t merely an exercise in being
nice it’s an exercise in getting to know
the truth of things which may when we
get down to the details of human
psychology be roughly an almost
coincidentally the same thing to learn
more about love try a book on how to
find love which explains why we have the
types we do and how our early experiences shape how and whom we love
that daily life forces all of us to
consider on a slightly to regular basis
is why are other people so awful how
come they’re so unreliable aggressive
deceitful mean two-faced or cowardly as
we search for answers
we tend quite naturally to fall back on
a standard compact and tempting
explanation because they’re terrible
people their appalling crooked deformed
or bad and that’s simply how some types
are the conclusion may be grim but it
also feels very true and fundamentally
unbudgeted however when things feel
especially clear-cut
we may be goaded to try out an unusual
thought experiment which stands to
challenge a great many of our
certainties and render the world
usefully more complicated we can try to
look at our fellow human beings through
the eyes of love the experiment requires
particular stamina and is best attempted
a quieter less agitated times of day
when we manage it it can count as one of
our highest ethical achievements we are
normally resolutely on our own side
deeply invested in our own point of view
and prone to trade in settled and
moralizing certainties yet very
occasionally we have the strength to
look at other people through a different
lens we notice that their reality is
likely to be far more complicated and
nuanced than we first expected and the
contrary to our impulses they may be
deserving of more sympathy and
consideration than we thought even
though they might have hurt or
frustrated us even though their behavior
might run contrary to what we expect and
even though the temptation is always to
call them idiots and numbskulls and move
on looking at another person through the
eyes of love involves some of the
following steps imagination moralistic
thinking identifies people closely with
our worst moments loved thinking
pushes us in another direction it bids
us to use our imaginations to pick
why someone might have done a
regrettable deed and yet could remain a
fitting target for a degree of
understanding and sympathy
perhaps they got very frightened maybe
they were under pressure of extreme
anxiety or despair those who look with
love guess that there will be sorrow and
regret
beneath the Furious rantings or a sense
of intolerable vulnerability behind the
pomposity and snobbishness they
intimated that early trauma and letdown
must have formed the backdrop to later
transgressions they will remember that
the person before them was once a baby
to the loving interpreter holds on to
the idea that sweetness must remain
beneath the surface along with a
possibility of remorse and growth they
are committed to mitigating
circumstances to any bits of the truth
that could cast a less catastrophic
light on folly and nastiness the child
within to consider others with love
means forever remembering the child
within them our wrongdoer may be fully
grown but their behavior will always be
connected up with their early years we
overlook the need occasionally to ignore
the outward adult sides of others in
order to perceive and sympathise with
the angry confused infant lurking inside
when we were around small children who
frustrate us we don’t declare them evil
we don’t bear down on them to show how
misguided they are we find less alarming
ways of grasping how they’ve come to say
or do certain things we probably think
they’re getting a bit tired or their
gums are sore or they’re upset by the
arrival of a younger sibling we’ve got a
large repertoire of alternative
explanations ready in our heads this is
the reverse of what tends to happen
around adults here we imagine that other
people have deliberately got us in their
sights but if we employ the infant model
of interpretation our first assumption
would be quite different given how
immature every adult necessarily remains
some of the moves we execute with
relative ease around children must
forever continue to be relevant when
we’re dealing with another grown-up
patience more realistic thinkers
reach their certainties swiftly love
thinkers take their time they remain
serene in the face of obviously
unimpressive behavior a sudden loss of
temper a wild accusation a very mean
remark they reach instinctively for
reasonable explanations and have clearly
in their minds the better moments of a
currently frantic but essentially
lovable person redeeming features love
thinkers interpret everyone as having
strengths alongside their obvious
weaknesses when they encounter these
weaknesses they don’t conclude that this
is all there is but they know that
almost everything on the negative side
of a ledger could be connected up with
something on the positive they search a
little more assiduously than is normal
for the strength to which a maddening
characteristic must be twinned
we can see easily enough that someone is
pedantic and uncompromising but we tend
to forget our moments of crisis their
thoroughness and honesty we may know so
much about a person’s messiness we
forget their uncommon degree of creative
enthusiasm there is no such thing as a
person with only strengths but nor is
there someone with only weaknesses the
consolation comes in refusing to view
defects in isolation love is built out
of a constantly renewed and gently
resigned awareness that weakness free
people do not exist we are sinners to
the single greatest spur towards a
loving perspective on others is a live
awareness that we are all so deeply
imperfect
and it points quite plainly mad the
enemy of generosity is the sense that we
might be beyond fault
whereas love begins when we can
acknowledge that we are in equal
measures idiotic mentally wobbly and
flawed it’s an implicit faith in their
own perfection that turns some people
into such harsh judges looking at the
world through the eyes of love we’re
forced to conclude that there is no such
thing as a simply bad person and no such
thing as a monster there is only ever
pain anxiety and suffering that have
coalesced into unfortunate action
we’re not just being kind in this notion
this isn’t merely an exercise in being
nice it’s an exercise in getting to know
the truth of things which may when we
get down to the details of human
psychology be roughly an almost
coincidentally the same thing to learn
more about love try a book on how to
find love which explains why we have the
types we do and how our early experiences shape how and whom we love
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