This morning’s cup of coffee offered a pause long enough for some wondering about the heart and the head. I’ve long been aware of ways I self-sabotage by a tendency toward over analysis; this passage seems to offer a little philosophical generosity toward better understanding.
“We deceive ourselves about love — about who; and how; and when; and whether. We also discover and correct our self-deceptions. The forces making for both deception and unmasking here are various and powerful: the unsurpassed danger, the urgent need for protection and self-sufficiency, the opposite and equal need for joy and communication and connection. Any of these can serve either truth or falsity, as the occasion demands. The difficulty then becomes: how in the midst of this confusion (and delight and pain) do we know what view of ourselves, what parts of ourselves, to trust? Which stories about the condition of the heart are the reliable ones and which the self-deceiving fictions? “
Martha Nussbaum, from Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature
workspace wall, 2017