Love vs. In-Love
(A full text excerpt from the book)

Well, everybody is always talking about love. And with so many people saying so many things about it, I guess makes sense to understand what this simple, 4-letter word means. So let's borrow from Hendrix and from Peck yet again. Right off the top lets break this into two very big and very different pieces. Let's think of love, loving, and the act of love on the one hand, and falling in love, being in love, and romantic love on the other hand. And to really talk about these things and understand, you need to know which one you've got and which one you ain't got.

Briefly, falling in love is an insane state in which we attempt to meet our own needs, to make up for not caring enough for ourselves, by completing ourselves in sexual union with another person. Loving is a chosen, purposeful effort, often done in the face of fear, to nurture our own spiritual growth or the growth of another. 

Wow. Are you still with me? I know this seems pretty radical, but there is a lot here you can use to get in control of your life. Trust me.

Falling In Love: Old black and white movies; Beauty and the Beast, happily ever after. Man, we all want to fall in love. It's the way the universe tells us who we belong with for ever and ever. And nothing could be better. Except...

Falling in love is mental illness in disguise. Mental illness?!! Yes, that's what I said. Falling in love is mental illness in disguise. Here's a short catalog of what's wrong with falling in love:

• First, we're overcome with excitement, fulfillment, and euphoria. Hello? From being close to someone who we might not even know? Doesn't sound very healthy to me. 
• Second, we lose all perspective about the person we're in love with. We idealize the person. They become the most beautiful/handsome, most loving, caring, kindest… Really? 
• Third, being in love doesn't last. The fairy tales say it will. And sometimes we might know a couple that is still "in love" after 40 years. But it's not so. Eventually reality sinks in and the glow is lost. Being in love is just a transient state of altered consciousness. That 40 year couple isn't in love, they've transitioned to loving, which is totally different.
• Fourth, we lose ourselves. Without our understanding it, our whole ego tries to merge with our love. We become incomplete without them. We need that person to be whole. Nice romantic concept. But not very healthy. Anybody ever been in love with someone who didn't love you back? I have. And it isn't very healthy. Trust me.
• Fifth, we can't control it. We don't choose to fall in love, and we don't choose who we fall in love with. Hendrix has a great theory, called imago theory, that explains who we'll fall in love with. But it ain't up to us. 
• Sixth, falling in love is always sexual. It just won't happen outside of that, because it is driven by our sexual drives.

So, when you're in love:

• You got there not by choice;
• You didn't get to choose who you're in love with;
• The one you're in love with has to be from the limited set of people you can be sexually attracted to;
• you can't think straight, because everything is idealized;
• you can't feel straight, because you're lost in euphoria (or dysphoria if she doesn't love you back); and
• you can't be whole by yourself.

As nice as euphoria is, you can do a lot of damage to yourself when you're lost in this fog. There's a little more on this feeling of euphoria in magical stuff.

The Incomplete Self: Why do we go there? We go there because, by ourselves, we are incomplete. When we are incomplete, we are unhappy. Now, you can read Hendrix to get a lot more detail about this. He says we deny parts of ourselves, and we lose parts of ourselves. 

• We deny parts because family and society disapprove. I might be a big hulking guy and love floral wallpaper. Not for long, I guess. It would be too painful. Better to just deny that part of me and go with plain off-white.  
• We lose parts of ourselves because we fail to recognize them and don't nurture them. For example, I might have been an athlete in high school, but in my years studying quantum mechanics and later working hard at the laboratory bench trying to count all those quanta, I lose the physical aspect of myself.

These denied and incomplete parts are more than just empty spaces. They are unmet needs. As people, we are not complete without them. They are deficiencies in our spirit. We cannot fulfill ourselves without them.  They are aspects of ourselves in which we need to grow. And neglecting these aspects of ourselves makes us sick, too. It causes malaise and depression. Have a look at depression & the unconscious. 

To grow, we are going to need to expend some effort. We are going to need to take some risk. We are going to need nurturing. In other words, we are going to need some spiritual growth to overcome these deficiencies. 

Which brings us to love. [continued in part 2]

Will you stay stuck in love with someone bad for you?

© 2004-6 Richard, 21CP and Dalkeith Press