I usually don't put much thought about non-scientific articles, because, well, they aren't scientific, and as in being a student of psychology.. well, but this one seems so interesting that it has caught my interest. It's funny and it helps you see some things a bit different, which is good ;) I first read in the fall when I was making a report about addiction to relationships. And because it's not scientific, everyone will be able to understand it ;) So, the article is long 18 pages which is too long for one shot, so I decided to split it and gonna post a question and an answer from the article every few days and then we can have a discussion about it! That would be great! ;) So...
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| The orginal article can be found on this page. |
Is love an addiction? Are all relationships addictive? This article explores how all healthy relationships include at least one addictive moment and how, in unhealthy relationships, this one moment is often the basis for the whole relationship.
Is It Love?
People often ask me what many consider to be "the" relationship question; "So is it love?" And you know the truth. This is not the question they should be asking. They should be asking, "should I stay?"
"Should I stay?"
Yes. "Should I stay?"
Unfortunately, whenever I tell this to people, the stuff usually hits the fan.
"But I love him. He's so good to me. Except for when we fight, of course. But I want to stay and work it out. I know we both really love each other. If only we could just ... "
"So when your relationship is good, it's very, very good. But when he's bad, he's horrid?"
"Yes! That's him! How did you know?"
"Because that's everybody, including me!"
So how do you know if it's love?
Simple. Can you picture the moment?
The "moment?"
Yes, the "moment." If you've been in love, you've fallen. And if you've fallen, you can still picture this moment, even if it was forty years ago and even if the relationship only lasted a week or two. If you fell in love, you will still be able to picture the moment even forty years later.
You see love is a "discovery," not a craft project. It is an amazing moment, not a fine wine nor a hand crafted cigar. Of course, you can fall in love with all these things and so much more. Regardless, when you love someone, you fell, even if you think you never had this moment.
What I'm saying is, all genuine "love" begins with some kind of "eureka" moment, an "aha" experience, an "emergence" of something beautiful. In fact, all famous artists and scientists say this very same thing about their discoveries. And they're right. These moments are the same experience. Of course, in their cases, it's about falling in love with the beauty in something about how our world works, while with us, it's about falling in love with how another person works.
Either way though, falling in love is an instantaneous moment, a splice in your life events which no logic in the world has or will ever explain. One minute, you don't even see this person; the next, you feel pain if you don't see them.
In fact, the poet Rumi describes this best, when he says;
"When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them."
You don't grow into insomnias like these. You get hit over the head with them.
So what if you can't ever remember feeling this moment? Good question. And no one, certainly me, has a right to tell you, you do or do not love someone. Even so, there are truths about love. One of them is, even if the moment came and went in a flash, which is how it usually happens, you ended up with this person somehow and it's not because you are sick or wounded or simply need something they have. This is hog wash. If you ended up with someone in any way other than through an arranged marriage, you had one of these "aha" moments.
So how could this be true if you have no memory of this moment?
I can not really say, as there are far too many variables. All these "no memory" events do have one thing in common though. You missed the moment. How? You were in shock.
In shock?
Yes. And by this, I mean, this moment came at you at such an unexpected time and place that when it hit you, you went into shock and never consciously witnessed it.
Can such a thing really happen?
All the time. In fact, there is never a time when someone falls in love wherein this going into shock does not occur to some degree.
How can you tell?
The disbelief. Thus, the universal evidence that you went into shock is that you can't believe the event even happened.
Sound familiar?
Of course. In fact, how many times has one of your friends said to you, "I can't believe I like him or her so much" or "I still can't believe we even met." Some people even say these things thirty years later, in words like, "I just knew when I met your father he was the one I'd marry."
So why doesn't this happen more nowadays?
Hard to say really. But I'd bet a part of this not happening more nowadays is that we tend to analyze too darn much. In fact, when I was in my twenties and fancied myself a poet (which I am definitely NOT! <grin>), I wrote something about this very condition. I wrote;
"Love is not something to reason out.
In reasoning lies the seeds of doubt."
Certainly, I'm no Rumi. Even so, these two lines may have hit the heart of the matter even back then. Nothing kills a new love, or any love for that matter, like trying to reason it out. And my point is still the same; that whether you remember the moment or not, all "love" happens to us in an instant, a magical moment, and this is true whether this love be about our children, our partners, our callings, or our cars.
Obvious differences aside, then, love emerges like a sudden beautiful dreamlike realization. More over, you better get used to it being this way if you ever want your relationship to work.
Oh and one more thing. "Going slow." Forget it, inside you at least. Outside, yes, use brakes and steering as much as you can. Inside though, once you fall in love, any hope of not being in love is lost. So be brave and don't even try.
Ok, so, this was the first answe to the first question. Now, I want you to think about it! Think about your boyfriend/girlfriend and think, which was that moment that changed everything? If you don't have a boyfriend (like me lol ;P) think about your ex boyfriend/girlfriend and try to picture that moment. Can you see it?
I can. I can picture the first moment I saw my first boyfriend. I was on a bus stop and I saw him. From behind. I was hooked. And in my mind I was "please, turn around, turn around!!" and he turned. Oh my, I was staring. And I was falling, hard. Did I ever.. And then I knew. I think I kept trying for 2 years for us to work out everything, because of that moment. It sucks.
Then I remember another moment. With my second boyfriend. We were together for 3 months. We came home from a party and we were sitting on his bed talking and I was smoking and explaining something and he touched me lightly on my thigh. I stopped talking. I remember I finished my cigarette in silence. And then, well I won't explain what happened :P
I remember also that moment when I was in sixth grade and I first saw the boy. I stopped waking and I was just staring. I was like "Wooow who is he?" lol. I was in love with him for 2 years until he left my school. It was never anything, but hell, it was so emotional on my part. He didn't like me, but then again, that's not the point here :P
And then I remember my most beautiful moment with the guy from the library. That was amazing. You can read it here. It's not much of a long story, but I've written it in a post per se because it's important to me :)
So, how do you like this article? Or I should say the beginning of the article? How do you remember your moment? Or you don't remember it, because you were in shock? :)
And with the theme being love, here is one my favourite songs ever <3
