…Fatherly and motherly hearts often beat warm and wise in the breasts of the bachelor uncles and maiden aunts; and it is my private opinion that these worthy creatures are a beautiful provisions of nature for the cherishing of other people’s children.
—Louisa Mae Alcott—
Nature has beautifully provided that all humans can love all other humans. We don’t have to be related by blood, nationality, or even language. Unlike the great apes, we have no unbreakable patterns of rivalry and aggression; we’re free to choose love as our means of relating to the world.
Many people choose a sort of great-ape behavior, instead of enjoying the miraculous freedom of their power to cherish others. The choice of mistrust, rivalry, and aggression sometimes threatens to imprison us all in a zoo, surrounded by fences and patrolled guards.
The choice is ours: we leave the apes behind? Human love looks risky, from a cage. Let’s dare to be human today.
I can choose to bestow the gift of my love.