Well, it's not really love, but we'll come back to that.
Here are the rules for being addicted to love:
- Be empty
- Find a person
- Decide that the person is special
- Find out that the person thinks you are special, too
- Exchange specialness
- Say things like, 'I love you' and 'you're special'
- Notice that you get a little shot of the drug
- Discover you're just as empty five minutes later
- Continue to exchange specialness
- Start to notice that the drug is wearing off quicker
- Start to notice that the other person is not special
- They are ordinary
- They are in fact disgusting
- Start to devalue the specialness they are offering
- Notice that they're even withholding specialness
- And treating you as ordinary
- Start withholding the specialness you're giving them
- Bicker, argue, and attack until you break up
- Feel grief (like someone has died)
- Find another one and start again
Of course, this has nothing to do with love.
Love is personally indifferent; it is universal; if it's not universal, it's specialness.
Specialness is not love.
It is a rejection of the universe for a tiny fragment of the universe.
When I seek specialness with someone, I'm really attacking them.
I'm using them: I'm swapping my perceived worthlessness for their value.
In treating anyone as special, I'm denying their part of the unity of God.
Fortunately, there is a solution. It's called the Twelve Step Programme of Alcoholics Anonymous.
How does that treat the above addiction?
Very simply.
To place my alcoholism in suspended animation, I must take the Twelve Steps.
These Twelve Steps place my self, my ego, in suspended animation.
The above addiction is a manifestation of self.
No self, no manifestations.
I did not need a special programme.
I just needed the programme.