La Voz de Galicia – February 14, 2025 →
Perhaps in the times we are living in, celebrating love is more necessary than ever. I’m not talking about the commercial-romantic love that paints storefronts red these days. I mean that other kind of love we sometimes forget—the invisible, selfless love that moves the world (even though it is violence that dominates the headlines). When the war in Syria broke out, my friend Kinan Azmeh, a clarinetist and composer from Damascus, would always introduce one of his pieces by saying: “Falling in love is one of the very few rights that no authority can take away”. And those words always made me reflect on the many types of love that shape our lives, about the role that fraternal love, altruistic love, familial love, and self-love play in our daily existence.
In the culture of narcissism we find ourselves in, cultivating these kinds of love may be more important than ever, as it is all too easy to fall into a world where our “selfish self” matters more than anything or anyone, forgetting the needs of those around us. The world of social media seems designed precisely for that—to nurture narcissism. And in the culture of fear that many countries are clinging to right now, the love that brings well-being to others—altruistic love, fraternal love, or familial love—may be the only thing some people can hold onto in order to, quite literally, survive.
Yes, Kinan Azmeh was right—love is “a right that no government can take away”, but perhaps it is also a responsibility we must take on, especially now, when selfless, altruistic love—the kind that seeks the well-being of others—seems to be in danger of extinction.
