Affection
is the first of the four loves that Lewis describes, characterizing this form
of love as the most humble and most widely spread of the loves and the one in which
humans differ the very least from their animal counterparts. Lewis asserts that
almost anyone can become an object of affection, which is something I have
never thought about before. Certain criteria, however, applied to affection,
including the inability to point to a certain day or time in which the affection
began, unlike its counterparts, which people can usually point to the day or
moment they fell in love or began a new friendship. Lewis believes that when we
become aware of an affection, it is merely becoming aware that the affection
has already been around for some time. He talks about the affection between a
parent and their offspring. That makes me think about the relationship I have
with my mother, who of course has grown into more than affection, but the
statement made by Lewis I think is somewhat true, that you can’t pinpoint the
time when the affection began, only the time when you became aware of that
affection. Especially as a child, I found
that I was drawn to my mom and it is like Lewis says, the need and the
need-love of my young-self enacted my affection for my mother. This affection
between mother and child seems to just be built in to the relationship from the
beginning and just grows with time. People expect for a mother and child to
have affection for one another, which I think is why we are so appalled when we
hear or see a news story concerning the murder of a child by his/her mother or
of a child assaulting or murdering their mother. It just seems natural for the
relationship to be this way and the absence of such affection would be the
abnormal state.
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