On Loving Others

0. Where Affection Comes From

Every time we grow fond of someone, uncertainty plummets first. The other person’s inner workings shine through, the prospect of harm or betrayal recedes, and our hearts slacken—the circuit of resonance closes.

Social psychologists frame this as Uncertainty Reduction Theory (Berger & Calabrese, 1975). Children and animals are easy to love precisely because they wear no social mask and hide no latent risk.

1. Self‑disclosure Is a Peeling Process

A baby fears nothing. Whatever enters the eye is received whole; whatever stirs inside is released whole. That is the native form of self‑disclosure.

Growing up, we taste ridicule, scolding, and the pain of competition, and we conclude that offering ourselves entire is dangerous. In that instant the mind straps on armor. Armor is handy, yet it fogs our outline and buries the seeds of affection.

Disclosure, then, is not about adding tricks but about removing excess. What we once did unconsciously we must now reclaim deliberately. The task is simple to name, hard to do: watch the fear and shed it, layer by layer.

2. Hierarchy of Purpose and the Sense That “The Universe Is One”

Children dash forward naked and crash because the world is still a private island. Islands collide painfully.

As vision widens and one feels that self and other are just separate vortices in the same stream, interests overlap by themselves. When the sense that the universe is one sprouts, the line between like and dislike thins.

Survive → Nurture bonds → Realize the self → Cultivate community

Each step dissolves another slice of the gain‑loss ledger. Seen from the top step, the joys of self and other look like ripples on a single river. Drop the armor at that altitude and disclosure is read not as selfishness but as a clear motion that smooths the flow. Innocence and maturity finally inhabit the same body.

3. Encountering Immaturity, Friction, and Growth

Some still clutch the island map. Faced with them, two roads appear:

• Keep distance. Re‑armor and wait while their map rewrites itself.
• Embrace. Widen our reach and walk while holding their fear as well.

The second road is harder. We must keep disclosure from sliding into exhibition and supply safety with deeds, not words. Yet that struggle stretches us and fattens the channel of affection.

Friction is not a verdict of good or evil. It signals that the maps have not yet merged. Find the blank where new lines can be drawn and the flow reunites.

4. Look Straight into the Eyes

A baby never wonders how it is being scored. It simply mirrors the person before it and mirrors itself. For an adult, to “look straight” is to recreate that state on purpose.

1. Do not deposit your worth in another’s gaze. 2. Do not dam the impulse of this very moment.

Meet the eyes, sense your breath, pulse, and faint tension. Boundaries blur and the field of interests expands. Even before words, this stance softens the air.

5. Courage to Stand Unarmored

Self‑disclosure is “Don’t think—take it off.” It is the act of dropping armor to vibrate in phase with the universe. We love someone the instant they show that courage—when uncertainty shrinks and the boundary turns transparent.

Start by locking eyes like an infant. No words are needed. Affection is already in motion, the universe hugging itself through us.