Randy Bachman and affirming oneself: Within or without?

It all started with Randy Bachman and his Saturday night rock and pop radio program during which he recalled the sad drug death of Whitney Houston.

This led him to philosophize about the personal importance of loving oneself. He then moved on to advise us how we could all achieve this therapeutic self-love: Go into the bathroom with a lighted candle, turn out the electric light and contemplate the image of your reflected face in the mirror. Then, repeat three words over and over: “I love you.”

My flesh literally crawled. Was this a modern re-enactment of the Greek Narcissus myth which tells the story of Narcissus kneeling before a limpid pool contemplating the beautiful reflection on its surface and proceeding to fall in love with himself? The ancient interpretation of this myth – smarter than some modern psychotherapy – did not see this as a beneficial healing but as communication of a disturbing existential truth. We humans are blighted by self-absorption.

This deludes us into believing that as a result of loving ourselves we can optimistically move out into the world and love others.

I argue an opposing position, namely that it is as a consequence of the experience of being loved by another that the conviction is drawn out of us that we have dignity and worth.

That is what the Christian message says. “God so loved us that we ought to love one another” (John 4:11).

Further, “we love because he first loved us,” (1 John 4:19).

There is a disturbing implication to all this.

Human flourishing depends on being loved and affirmed by another. How many persons have we damaged by our failure to love them? What has been the effect on our spouses and partners, children, friends, and colleagues, of our failure to manifest a caring love, concern and affirmation for them?