I came across a video today that had an interesting title but turned out to be dealing with some extraterrestrial conspiracy baloney and of course the tinfoil-hatters loved it. And one of the comments claimed in all capitals that "love is the ultimate truth and everything else is illusion." Well, sorry to disappoint you kids, the exact OPPOSITE is much closer to the truth!
Like it or not... time to take apart LOVE!
And brace yourselves because science is on my side. I was surprised the article even compares love to addiction just as I've always seen it - ok, it says it "shares some of the neural underpinnings with addiction." And to be honest, "as I've always seen it" isn't quite true, it's more like "ever since I've been an adult warrior and gained insight into life" I've been able to see this. There were times when I did feel lonely and was looking for love in a way. At least I thought it was love I was looking for when really it was just friendship and appreciation. I didn't understand then that "love" between humans usually involves mating behavior. It took me a very long time to understand this since I don't have any mating instincts myself and I didn't realize just how much different I am in this from 99% of the general population. I still don't really know why I'm so different in this - just lucky? - then again, there is no such thing as coincidence... but that's a different topic.
Being this different gives me a great advantage in my quest though, it's a truly immense burden I do not have to wrestle. Love makes you blind, it leads you astray and it ties you to the human world.
It actually is a function of your organic body, it's brain chemistry, it is indeed very much like a drug addiction.
Someone I know who has been suffering a lot from depression said to my puzzlement that they uphold the view of materialism just because of the reason that they hope to just "rest in peace" after their physical death, that there will be nothing. Myself, vehemently refusing to ever cease to exist, I would have thought one might simply hope for the suffering to end, but not one's entire existence. Yet I do know very well what depression means, having spent my entire teenage on the brink of suicide. But this person is considerably older than I am even now and I would have thought they would also have realized that there is more to existence... What I mean is, depression is for the most part caused by faulty brain chemistry. It may or may not have been first induced by external factors like a horrible childhood (as in me), and even when these external causes have been removed the brain chemistry remains the way it got used to over all the years of suffering.
The way I'd put it: You are not your body, and so you are not your suffering. But it may be hard to make this understandable to anyone who does believe they are their body.
Love is the same way. I guess most people enjoy love and therefore they would protest to even try to see my point. Even more they enjoy the obscene, physical part of it, sadly, the part entirely tied to their animal biology. Only when their love causes them suffering, as the New Scientist article talks about, might they consider they'd better be without it.
Of course, the "mating" kind of love is not the same as the "divine" kind although they're sometimes and in some traditions even seen as related. I certainly want nothing to do with the former but nor with the latter.
There are certainly things I love in my life - I love sharks, I love spring, riding my bike, blue skies and beautiful things - but that's something different, it's just personal preferences and appreciation. When I love something it means I have positive feelings for it, and when I hate something I feel negative toward it. Both equally define my personality. For instance, I love serene nature landscapes and hate crowded events - if it were the other way it wouldn't be me! I need both my love and my hate (and many other things) to define my personality but neither my love nor my hate are things that exist independently from me, just as my running doesn't exist unless I'm running, and my dreaming doesn't exist unless I'm dreaming. Knowing one's preferences is good... but one should at all times try to stay in control of them. For instance, if there were a preference for a certain type of food which is unhealthy then I'd certainly adjust my preference to exclude this food.
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This being said... ok, time to confess I do sometimes like to cuddle up with someone I truly love. I do like the feeling of a soft fin stroking my face...
Yes, I said a fin.
A shark fin.
I love my sweet Bela Jaws. <3 br="">
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