Okay, I said I would write a post, and here it is.
Love is not what you think it is. I always wondered about traditional models of love, that of partnership, jealousy, possession, role playing etc and I did not like what I saw. It was not until I found my soulmate that I got to the bottom of it, in all respects. For those who want to read about that, the Best Scandal Ever Series is the direct route to thought process over about five years or so.
Wolfe was the perfect candidate because there was no danger of us getting together at that time because I was not developed enough to fully grasp the philosophy, despite living by it.
I was correct in my assumption, fairly early in life that what we think of as love starts with us wanting to have something in us that the other person has. That can be a characteristic, a quality, a perception. We thrive on learning, and so love occurs when we want to learn something from the other person.
What people often think of as love is the need to procreate, the desire for companionship, the drama of the day to day. None of these things are truly anything to do with love. That is to do with lack. Plato deals with this beautifully in the Symposium, video below although I seem to remember the 8th minute or so being significant.
I read this to death in my youth, so I am well acquainted with it.
Anyway, true love is about inspiration, it is not about being with the person at all. Thus my true love was Wolfe, a person I neither wanted to bother by actually being there, nor change. If you are fortunate enough to be with your inspiration, you then have to figure out how to be an equal partner in the force you create.
We are all forces of nature, and you choose the level of force you want to exude. I am capable of far more than I have been encouraged to expect, and so the aberration of falling in love with Wolfe on really very little input was about growth and potential, both his and mine.
What you need to get away from is the idea of togetherness. Togetherness is nothing to do with it. Looking at yourself and figuring out what you don’t have and the object of your affection does have makes the process far less tedious and far more rewarding. It also takes away issues of timewasting drama, ownership, jealousy and other more negative aspects of being in love.
You may find this a rather lonely way to look at it, but if you take this healthier view of what love is, it is far easier to lose the need for attachment.
Buddhists will tell you that it is not love, loss of love, end of love that causes unhappiness, it is attachment. If you remove the attachment from your feelings of love, you not only free yourself from unhappiness, you allow yourself to grow.
This is what I want you to do.
I want you to experience love without attachment. I want you to focus on what you feel you lack, and I want you to take the opportunity to learn about yourself. Stop thinking of it as a burning need, and start thinking of it as an opportunity.
As an example, despite trying to move on with life, I won’t stop loving Wolfe as long as I continue to grow, which is probably never, and even if it isn’t never, I will be eternally grateful for not being lonely any more. Neither he nor I have to actually do anything at all for that to be the case.
This does not mean I cannot love someone else, it means that the intangible exists. It does not involve emotional infidelity of any kind. Love is far bigger than almost all religions allow us to believe.
(FFS Wolfe, I’m weeping again. Hope I made a better job of it this time.)
