Thordis - It's ... hard to explain. He loved me in this down-to-earth way that is ... unfazed by outside influences, somehow. Since our relationships began I've won a few awards and gotten media attention for some of my projects. He's happy for me but also somehow ... unaffected. He's as much of a loving rock for me to lean on whether I'm off winning victories or having a bad day.
Tom - He sounds like someone who knows himself well, who's comfortable in his own skin
South of Forgiveness ~ Thordis Elva and Tom Strange
It seems counterintuitive to say you can't really love others before you learn to love yourself. After all, loving yourself sounds so selfish, and loving others is supposed to be selfless and self-sacrificing. But the lack of self-love often becomes self-loathing. And people who loathe themselves are really quite self-absorbed. They think of themselves constantly, though not positively. They, too, are vain and desirous of attention. When they think of others, they're not actually considering others but themselves, how they compare to others and how others are viewing them. I say 'they,' but I mean 'us.' I think everyone is guilty of this for at least some time to some extent.
It's shocking how difficult it is to discern loving someone for who they are from loving someone for what they do. Sometimes they provide and take care of you, but it's not just the material things they do. It's also the immaterial. Sometimes they fill a void that desperately longs to be satisfied: the need to be needed, the need to be wanted, the need to be admired, the need to be noticed, the need to be cared for.
Can you love someone without expecting anything in return? Is real love always returned, or is real love sacrificial and unrequited, demanding nothing and expecting nothing? Can you love someone without receiving any advantage from them, without being affected at all? Can you love someone without wanting something in return—their attention, their respect, their affection? Do you really love someone if you don't want such things from them?
He told me that self-blame was a pattern he'd grown addicted to. I battle that same addiction myself. Blaming oneself and taking responsibility for one's actions are two separate things. The former leads to self-flagellation that feeds the self-pitying ego; the latter looks beyond the self and acknowledges one's role in relation to others
Tom and Thordis both struggled with self-loathing throughout their lives, for things they had done and for things done to them. They didn't love themselves at all, and, as a consequence, they could be extremely egocentric. Their insecurities took a toll on them and their relationships with others. Unlike Vidir, Thordis's partner, they could be too insecure to celebrate the successes of others or sympathise with their trials. They had their own problems to contend with; they couldn't take on others'. It's not that they were callous or didn't want to; they just didn't have the capacity to.
Vidir did. He had the capacity to empathise with others and care for them because he was confident, comfortable in his own skin. He didn't need others to assuage his insecurities or reassure him of his value. He knew it. He didn't exalt in it, but he knew it. He knew his worth, which enabled him to show other people theirs.
When Tom notes Vidir's confidence, I think he sounds a bit envious, a manifestation of his own insecurity in juxtaposition to Vidir's assurance and self-possession. Tom envies those qualities and feels their absence in himself. He thinks of Vidir but also of himself—how he compares to Vidir, how he measures up (or falls short).
Again, I think we're all guilty of this to some extent—we're all self-conscious, and we all have insecurities. So I'm not castigating Tom, or Thordis or anyone else. I think I'm reacting just as they are, with envy of Vidir for being comfortable in his own skin. It grants him contentment and elicits admirable qualities from him: consideration, consolation, companionship. It makes him able to see others and forget himself entirely. Instead of constantly, obsessively, seeing himself and his insufficiencies in relation to everyone else, he simply sees everyone else
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