Self-Love in a Time of War
- Ellie Taniguchi
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
In recent months, war has begun to feel closer again in different parts of the world.
Even from far away, it leaves a faint uneasiness in the air.
Looking back at history, wars rarely begin all at once.
Before they start, something in people’s hearts has already begun to change.
In modern society, many people live with a quiet message somewhere inside:
“You are still not enough.”
Advertisements and social media constantly tell us to become something more.
Be more successful.
Be more attractive.
Become someone more valuable.
Surrounded by these messages, we gradually begin to lose confidence in our own existence, often without even noticing it.
The social philosopher Erich Fromm reflected deeply on this condition in his book The Art of Loving.
When people cannot feel a stable sense of themselves, they begin to look for reassurance outside themselves.
The nation.
An ideology.
A group.
By identifying themselves with these, they try to support their sense of who they are.
And before long, a line begins to appear between
“us” and “the enemy.”
At that point, violence becomes easier to justify.
Fromm once wrote:
“Love is not merely a feeling. It is a capacity.”
At the center of this capacity is self-love.
Self-love here does not mean thinking oneself special.
In fact, it is almost the opposite.
"It is the quiet ability to accept one’s own existence."
When people can accept themselves, others no longer feel like such a threat.
In this sense, self-love may also be one of the foundations of peace.
War sometimes begins with hatred.
But very often, it begins with fear.
Fear is the feeling that one’s own existence might somehow be destroyed.
If a person can deeply trust their own existence,
the world may not appear quite so full of threats.
Self-love does not grow from words alone.
It grows in quiet moments.
When we are in nature, when we sit in silence,
little by little we begin to feel our own existence more directly.
The sense of peace that arises from this is very quiet.
Yet it may hold the power to change the world.
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