I've
committed
to distinguishing attraction from
love.
I'm a
lover
of
love.
It's interesting to me confronting the biological
automaticity in my "great"
love affairs.
It's sobering for me noticing the mechanical no-choice
magnetism in my grand romances. It's eye-opening for me
distinguishing all the
machinery
I once mistook for choice and
creativity
in the matter of being in
love.
I
love
my biology. I
love
my body. I
love
my body when it's next to your body. And I'm noticing when I'm "in
love"
how much of it's really my biology - not me - speaking ie I'm noticing
how much of it my body - not me - runs.
When I make a point of distinguishing it, the disproportionate
imbalance of automatic behavior over free choice in
love
is almost too disappointing, almost too hard to confront. First I got
the myth of the tooth fairy. Then I got the myth of Santa
Clause. Now I see it's only my biology wearing the
lover's
mask. I don't want it to be this way. I'm not ready, yet, for this
cherished myth to be exposed.
But it's this way nonetheless. Built in to the
machinery,
it's nature's way of ensuring perpetuation of the human species, of
any species actually. And the truth is when I uncover it
in myself and in my life, there's about as much
love
in it, there's about as much romance in it as in two
hamburgers
programmed to procreate.
The way we're wired, we're craaazy about being "in
love"
when in fact all we're "in" is biological magnetism. We're crazy about
all those great feelings nature rewards us with when, programmed with
biological magnetism, we spawn and reproduce. We're just crazy that
way. One of the hallmarks of being crazy is the cessation of
distinguishing. That's why (and how and when) the distinction between
attraction and
love
becomes blurred.
Attraction is automatic, biological, programmed, and as such isn't a
reliable foundation for
creativity,
for
mastery,
for deliberatelove.
The best attraction calls for is allowing body, biology,
automaticity, and
machinery
to be. In this way, there's only programmed, driven procreation
machinery.
It's not a foundation on which to reliably build a
created
life.
Creativity
based on automaticity, falters.
Love,
on the other hand, calls for allowing being,
presence,
and
acceptance
to be. In this way, there's deliberation and the possibility of choice.
This is a foundation on which a
created
life can
stand.
Creativity
based on
creativityworks.
Creativity
based on
creativityallowing body, biology, automaticity, and
machinery
to beworks
even better. In this way, I'm
love
deliberately allowing for automaticity. In any other way, the
automaticity is programming
love,
the inmates
are running the asylum, the tail's wagging the
dog.
This distinction is all the more pertinent because when I distinguish
love
from attraction, I also distinguish
love
from repulsion. Once I've
trained
myself to
love
deliberately and to
create
space for attraction ie once I've
trained
myself to
create
space for automatic, biological, and programmed patterns of behavior,
then as a natural easy by product of
training
myself this way, I notice I've also
created
space for repulsion.
Repulsion, the opposite of attraction, is similarly comprised of
automatic, biological, and programmed patterns of behavior. I can
create
space for another's repulsion ie I can
create
space for being rejected by another, allow it to be simply
their expression, and let it be. It's not personal, and I don't take
being rejected personally. It's not me. Repulsion, too, is
machinery.
And all repulsion's
machinery,
like attraction's, is on automatic.
When your
lover
breathes "I want you", a fitting response may be "Of
course you do. So what else you got?".