Love’s Executioner; Four Sure Ways to Kill it
Because love is defined by Webster as; a deep and tender feeling of affection for another, and continues for a long paragraph only to describe the same thing over and over, it is no wonder we’re confused.
Many cultures have several different words for the kinds of love; intimate/sexual love, love of parents, love of children, love of siblings, love of animals, love of objects, love of ideas, love of country, etc..In English there is only one and it is woefuly inadequate. Webster would have us believe that all kinds of love are a FEELING.
One usually has a feeling asociated with the experience of loving, but is that what love is? What if we looked at it as a verb; not as a feeling, nor limit it to the kinds of love there are? As a verb it connects. What kills love is disconnection; the executioner.
As a verb, love is the action of connecting two or more objects–of any kind. We are seldom, if ever, aware of the fact that every atom in the universe is connected to every other, and that applies to everything in existence. It is, we are, ALL ONE. And since love is connection, how is it possible to kill love?
Fundamentally we cannot, but what we can do is break the conscious bond. The unconscious bond is there all the time no matter what we do, but as humans with choice–with consciousness–we can choose to make a connection to an other that is beyond the fundamental law of the universe.
Most of us wish to do that. Most of us love to love and to love in all the ways love can be experienced. We enjoy caring, of having an object matter to us, and of mattering to another.
1. The first and fastest way to kill love is to care more for the feeling than for the object we’re connecting to; self centeredness or basic narcissism.
2. Another useful tool is to strangle it by gripping the object tightly; fear of loss, another form of narcissism.
3. Then there is the tried and true ax of jealousy and possessiveness; need I repeat–narcissism.
4. Neglect works well; self-obsorption.
Love’s executioner is one’s self. Like an ax, self-centeredness in its myriad forms separates one from the love object and breaks the conscious bond. Love is dead.
