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Is love the exception? - by Oliver Sabot - Commonplace

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“In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die, the way you invest your love is the way you invest your life.” – Mumford and Sons “Is your love enough, or can you love some more?” – Michael Franti and Spearhead Try to find anything in the universe where more is always optimal. I posed this thought exercise in a foundational articulation of my worldview: the middle way. The answer, I quickly and confidently replied, was that there is nothing. Water and oxygen, courage and joy, even hope—all vital and beautiful in moderation, in balance; all distracting or destructive in excess. Everything, I happily crow, is paradox. Or is it? Is there one glaring exception to the laws of balancing contradictions that seem to rule reality? Several people challenged my use of love as a difficult example that proves the rule. I argued that even unconditional love needs to be in balance with its opposite for life to thrive, drawing on wise minds like Eric Fromm who, according to Richard Rohr, c

“In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die, the way you invest your love is the way you invest your life.” – Mumford and Sons “Is your love enough, or can you love some more?” – Michael Franti and Spearhead Try to find anything in the universe where more is always optimal. I posed this thought exercise in a foundational articulation of my worldview: the middle way. The answer, I quickly and confidently replied, was that there is nothing. Water and oxygen, courage and joy, even hope—all vital and beautiful in moderation, in balance; all distracting or destructive in excess.…

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