“What is this love that we love so much? The love of one ego for another?
Of one false self for another? My avatar loves your avatar? My lie loves your lie?
Is it a person we love or love itself?”
--Jed McKenna

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"If you say that you love your husband, what does that have to do with him? You're just telling him who you are."
--Byron Katie



Valentine’s day is coming, so let’s talk about love.

Recently I brought home two adult cats. One was very cuddly right away, immediately followed me around, purred when I pet him, and slept next to me while I worked. The other was more skittish and kept to herself unless playing with her brother. Her love has still to be won; I have to work for and earn it.

So to be clear, one cat is already very loving and already all about me. The other is taking some work to make her all about me.

OK, are we detecting a common denominator in there?

Meanwhile, when it comes to love in our human lives, what is it and why do we want it so much? And why do we connect more to some than others?

The answer probably isn’t in how wonderful the other person is.

I mean, even Hitler had a girlfriend.

So maybe reviewing some very typical thoughts humans have about loving others can help us figure this out. See if you recognize any:

“Is that other person thinking about me? (Hey that makes two of us thinking about me- we’re so compatible!)

Do they like me? Are they nice to me? Are they interested in my looks, my job, my lifestyle? Do they think I’m funny, smart, cute, sexy? Do they have the same ideas and likes that I have, do they agree with me about important things? Do they appreciate my help, my considerateness, my skills and ability to solve problems? Can I be myself around them?”

Hmmm. Not one of those thoughts is about someone else.

Each one is about the Me.

Could it be we love our spouse, our kids, our pets, because they love us?

Could it be we love Love because it proves something about us, means something about us, pays attention to us?

What we call “love” is starting to look like Me creation, masquerading as love.

Maybe that’s why it feels so good.

And maybe that’s why the appeal of someone else seeing us in a way we like, paying attention to us, and thinking we’re lovable, is so very strong.

Because if someone else thinks we’re great, doesn’t that mean we are great?

Although then we might also begin to notice that when we think others love us, that’s just us, thinking.

And when we think about how others see us, that’s also just us, creating our own liked story and attributing those thoughts to others.

And when we see these loved ones, and touch them, and hear them, those are experiences dependent on us, experienced by us.

The thoughts, the touch, the sights, the feelings- all of that- is nothing without the Me.

In which case, where’s the so-called other person whom we love?

Yoooo hooooooo.

Ugh. No thanks. Much more fun to think we’re seen and cared-for and esteemed by a clear and distinctly not-me someone else.

It seems our literal existence as an individual depends on the kind of idealized image-making we call Love.

Oh well, hey, at least then we're a loved individual.

At least then we’re something.

As opposed to nothing.

Or as opposed to all-encompassing everything.

Darn it. So much for nice stories of The One and forever and Twin Flames and Soul Mates.

Because it turns out it’s just us here.

Just us, pretending we’re a separate thing, which is involved with and loving other separate things.

Just us, Being everything.

That's the game here.

Isn't it fun?

We do love it.

After all, what else can everything do but love itself?

And who is there who doesn’t love that?


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