Summary
Mikhail Epstein: Philosophy of love - love in five dimensions
Man is a being who loves and is called to love. Sometimes a foreign language helps you see what your own hides from you. In the center of the Russian word man - "man" is read in English "love" - love. The greatest commandments are about this man's call to love: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." All lyrics and novels talk about this: "only a person in love has the right to be called a man" – wrote Aleksandar Blok. All these thoughts and commands can be summed up in one word: man. Love is man's acquisition of the full measure - himself: in the face of the loved one, the whole other world is revealed and illuminated, the man who loves begins to notice and understand what until then passed by him, promoted in general indifference. To him, as a young man, the life of the elderly and children suddenly becomes more comprehensible; to him, healthy, the secret of pain and illness is revealed; to him, man, the life of trees and grass, lakes and streams becomes clear. The inner side of all living things opens up to him, because even in himself he begins to feel strongly, as never before. He finds in himself a source of energy, or "synergy", unknown to indifferent and self-loving people. To be human means to love, human sounds loving!
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