I was presented with a quandary the other day and I confess I don’t have the answer. I’m open to being inspired or guided.
The quandary is how can one say one is loving if one has an interest in military matters? In protection? Aren’t the two incompatible?
I have a strong interest in military matters, mostly the Second World War, partly because I grew up watching TV documentaries and serials about it. I was always drawn to acts of courage, not as much to technology, to whiz-bangs.
I also know that I had a past life as a military general and I have some almost instantaneous protective reactions which betray something like a military background or attitude.
Are loving and protecting contradictory?
Right off the bat, I’d think they go together – when they do. It all depends.
First, to my mind, it depends on the attitude with which protection is conceived and acted upon.
If that attitude is a lust for power, hatred, or other wish to harm the other person, I think that’ll have us suffer and devolve in the future.
An animal both loves and protects. Here is a mother cat protecting her young at the risk of her own life in fighting off a prowling cheetah. She certainly is doing it out of love, with no thought intervening.
The cat goes for the cheetah’s face. Perhaps since a blind cheetah is a dead cat, the cheetah withdraws in shock.
Are love and the cat’s protective instinct separate matters or is her protection born of love?
Surgeons cut people open, out of love. Moreover, I’ve had two friends choose medical assistance in dying because their long-time cancers were so painful. Is the doctor a heartless killer?
It depends on the reason for it, the motivation, the level of agreement, the manner in which things are done.
To a certain extent, being a man – at least to a man; less probably to a woman – seems to involve a socialized willingness to protect. “You’re a man! Be one!” rings in my ears, from men and women.
On the other side of the equation, courage is a divine quality. Feeling it before chasing off an assailant is a wonderful state of mind.
The pride one feels after chasing him or her off is also a draw.
Staunch determination enters into it and is again a wonderful state of mind to reach.
It can be present for a spectrum of choices and reasons, not simply protection. And if it too is rooted in love, then it will give way when love demands it.
Fear is a state of mind that can be chased away by as simple an act as stamping one’s foot. But when true love calls up protection, it also pushes fear aside.
A loving person, in my view, will protect their loved ones. The two seem to go together.
Even though I don’t understand the matter as deeply as I’d like, I’m still aware of the social norms and inner pulls on a person that have them be (or not be) both loving and protective.