our potential

I think that sense that you have, when you’re caring for a child, that this individual child — just them, just because of who they are — is the most valuable thing in the world — not because they are particularly smart or particularly pretty; it’s just them; they’re incredibly valuable — I think that’s when we’re seeing people clearly. That’s when we’re actually understanding what human values are like.

-Allison Gopnik from On Being podcast

This is from an interview with Allison Gopnik, a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at U.C. Berkeley. She studies the minds of babies and children to help us understand ourselves and what it means to be human. This entire interview was very moving but this part hit me so deeply today that I had to try to share. 

In the interview, after the above quote, she goes on to say how she and her sisters joke about their grandchild being best. I think, even if we haven't had kids, we all can think of someone special that we've loved in this way. They're not perfect but we love them and find them "valuable" as she says. She and her sisters think of it as a funny "grandmother illusion" but she goes on to say,

...that’s not the illusion — that’s the reality. The illusion is when we think that there are billions of people who don’t have that worth, who don’t have that value, who aren’t that deep and important and worthy of love.

Somehow we can see the value and worthiness of those nearest to us but Gopnik is saying this isn't just some kind of quirk or illusion. It actually points to our potential to see and relate to everyone in that light.

This is what the great masters in every tradition show us - how to love without condition; to relate with deep care and attention to every single person as if they are equally valuable; to love and respect everyone as much as you love your dearest friend, your child, your mother or father. Even going beyond "I'll treat you as I'd like to be treated" to "I'll treat you as someone I love just because you exist and you are worthy." 

Looking at the world today, it seems the Black Lives Matter movement is calling our attention to a need to shift our perceptions and live up to this higher potential. The great news is we have within ourselves the capacity, the potential, to love and to relate to others in this way not because someone is telling us we should but because it's who part of who we really are and an expression of our truest selves.