“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.” Viktor Frankl (Psychiatrist, Holocaust Survivor and Author of ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’).
Hmm. Seems a little hubristic to claim you can even define what the ‘essence’ of another human being is much less grasp it. And I think most of us struggle to see what our own potential is much less that of another person.
Perhaps it would have been more true to say “No one can become fully deluded that they know the very essence of another human being unless he loves him”. Like God, people are an unbounded mystery.
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