In this post I want to write about the power of love.
When societies become divided, love is in short supply. One reason for this phenomena, I believe, is because instead of seeing each other as human beings with unique stories, we start viewing each other as caricatures, representative of ideas we either immediately like or we don’t.
This is black and white thinking. People aren’t as easy to peg as we may like to think. Be it the way they dress, their religion, sexual orientation, tribe, position in society or any other number of things we may use to gauge them by, people rarely fit neatly into any one category and, in fact, will pleasantly surprise us with facets we may not see at first—if we just get to know them.
This is where we struggle. Too few of us are bold enough to truly get to know people who are different from ourselves. Some of this, no doubt, comes from fear. We may be fearful of losing a piece of ourselves if our perceptions are challenged, or we discover something new and unexpected. We may even fear becoming “contaminated” by another’s otherness if we get too close to ideas we really don’t understand.
Well, as someone who travels between many worlds, I’m here to tell you that your fears are unfounded. Discovering what makes each other tick makes us more likely to find the true essence of our own souls, not less. Our fear, in other words, is fear of knowing ourselves not someone else.
Life isn’t black and white but filled with vibrant colors. Growing is being brave enough to see that we have more in common than we may want to admit. We all have strengths, weaknesses and challenges, just as we all have areas where we truly shine. We are multi-facetted, brilliant jewels. If we see each other as the hues of a rainbow, not as the shadows of unspoken fears, I believe we can solve many of the problems that perplex us.
We are the rainbow we wish to see—never underestimate the power of love.
—Jellybean Reds, Creator of Little Creatures
