The Illusion Of Loving Yourself

Eva Illouz on Why Love Hurts:

 One of the things which surprised me when doing this research is how much "self-blame" seems to be an art of the female psyche. Women connect their self-worth much more closely to the realm of love and relationships and when that realm poses problems and difficulties, they view it as a direct reflection of and threat to their self-worth.

This is what the hackneyed "you've got to love yourself first before someone else can love you" comes to express, without really knowing it—it comes to express the idea that you must make your self-worth independent of others' love of you, because their love cannot be counted on, whereas yours for yourself can.

The problem however, at least for a sociologist, is that you can never be the source of your own self-worth. This is an idea concocted by psychologists, which does not have any sound sociological basis. We can only build self-worth through and with others. This is why building good and nurturing environments, as families, schools, workplaces, is so crucial.

Making Life Submit

Do the ugly paintings really exist?

I was afraid of this question. Sure. But to me, their importance was as a thought. A question. A metaphor for other things.

What do you suppose the metaphor is?

It’s there in the book—Sholem’s approach to making an ugly painting is like Sheila’s attempt to construct a beautiful life—thinking she ought to marry and whatnot; follow the rules of how she thinks she should be, just as Sholem has rules about what’s beautiful and what’s ugly and tries to follow them in his painting.

I see. All those “oughts” equal something very different from beauty.

Yeah. Trying to live the image of the life which you have in your head ... it’s really hard not to do that, but I do think maybe it’s cheating.

How do you mean?

Cheating life. Cheating yourself out of a real engagement with life, which involves surprise, not just you moving through your environment with this pre-determined idea of what you intend to do with it and how it should react to you. It’s like thinking you’ve been put on this earth to master life and make it submit.

- Sheila Heti