Colette Obrien

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.

Following up on yesterday’s post about intimacy is the old; if a tree falls in the forest conundrum.   If no one hears it, did it fall? If no one sees me do I exist?

At around 2 years old children must work through the developmental issue–the conundrum– of whether they’re special or not; whether they exist as a unique entity.  Every other sentence, is “look at me . . .” As parents, it’s exhausting however, if the child isn’t adequately reflected he turns inward to see himself- and like Narcissus in Greek Mythology, he’s forced to hold up his own mirror to realize his existence. He now lives in his own eyes but lacks an ability to see others.

If the child is seen by his parents the conundrum is resolved in an ability to know he’s the only one, but he’s not the only one who’s the only one.

Held in solitary confinement or being stranded alone on a desert island, will drive anyone mad. The ego cannot hold  it’s grip on reality without support from the environment. Like the child unreflected, the solitary human will turn to the unconscious for validation which is the definition of madness; the boundary between the ego consciousness and the vastness of the collective unconscious is broken and the ego is drowned in archetypal images.

Psychological existence is dependent on visibility. If, like the tree that falls in the forest, he falls and no one hears him, he doesn’t exist–to himself.  And since no one else is there to see him fall, to anyone else either.

Whether physical existence is dependent on visibility is a question for tomorrow.

http://www.inpurplish.com/?p=1610