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Old Documents
Oct. 13th, 2007 08:56 pmI found this in an old text file I've been hanging on to for over 14 years.
Article 1863 of wpi.students.voxhumana:
Path: bigboote.WPI.EDU!bigwpi.WPI.EDU!xine
From: xine@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (the strawberry girl)
Newsgroups: wpi.students.voxhumana
Subject: more gush-type stuff (no lyrics!)
Date: 12 Feb 1993 20:03:29 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Lines: 63
Distribution: wpi
Message-ID: <1lgvqh$2t8@bigboote.WPI.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigwpi.wpi.edu
LOVE
by Michael Crichton
Most people I know confuse love with possession. It's easy to understand why; it's built into the fundamental assumptions of our culture. "You're mine," says the popular song, "and we belong together." Hardly anyone stops to question the sentiment.
As soon as we feel love, we immediately attempt to possess. We speak confidently of *my* boyfriend, *my* wife, *my* child, *my* parent. We feel justified in holding expectations about those people. We consider that perfectly reasonable.
Why? Because all our concepts of love ultimately derive from romantic love-- and romantic love is furiously, frantically possessive. We want to be with our lover, to have him or her to ourselves, to *possess*. So strongly do we equate love with possession that we may even feel that if someone doesn't want to possess us, he or she doesn't really love us. Yet I would argue that what we call romantic love isn't love at all. It's a kind of emotional storm, an overpowering, thrilling attraction-- but it isn't love.
Real love isn't possessive. It can't be. Love involves giving, not taking. Yet the desire to possess actually springs from the lovers own need-- the need for approval from the beloved, for support from a parent, for straight A's from a child, for status-- for *something*. A possessive lover is overly focused on what he or she's getting, not giving. The lover may dignify this dependency with the name love, but it's a lie. How can you really love somebody when you're dependent on him or her for things you need? That isn't love-- that's just manipulation to keep the needed stuff coming your way. And love isn't the same as need.
Of course, a loving relationship will produce interdependencies. But too often, the pleasure of freely giving changes to a fear of not getting. This person-- your lover, your girlfriend, your child-- is suddenly so *important* that you worry about what's going to happen. And at that moment, love stops.
People sometimes wonder if they're feeling real love. These same people never wonder if they're sexually aroused, or sad. Then what's the problem about recognizing love? Most often, it's because they're sensing a conflict. They feel the depth of their need, not the heights of their love.
There *are* ways to know real love. It feels calm. It's steady, and it can easily last a lifetime. It's nourishing. People grow under its influence, they become who they really are, not what someone expects them to be. Real love isn't blind; on the contrary, people feel understood, accepted for who they really are. It's healing.
So whenever you hear that love is blind, or love can't last, or love is destructive, you can be sure that you're actually hearing a description of lust, or desire, or need. It's an accurate description, because needs really are transient and destructive.
But love is something else entirely: an emotion of deep caring that asks nothing in return. It's an emotion that is fulfilling without any expectation at all, and so rare that most people in our society can't imagine it. They can't imagine feeling it, or receiving it. They may even believe it doesn't exist.
But it does. And it's the best thing there is.
Article 1863 of wpi.students.voxhumana:
Path: bigboote.WPI.EDU!bigwpi.WPI.EDU!xine
From: xine@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (the strawberry girl)
Newsgroups: wpi.students.voxhumana
Subject: more gush-type stuff (no lyrics!)
Date: 12 Feb 1993 20:03:29 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Lines: 63
Distribution: wpi
Message-ID: <1lgvqh$2t8@bigboote.WPI.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigwpi.wpi.edu
LOVE
by Michael Crichton
Most people I know confuse love with possession. It's easy to understand why; it's built into the fundamental assumptions of our culture. "You're mine," says the popular song, "and we belong together." Hardly anyone stops to question the sentiment.
As soon as we feel love, we immediately attempt to possess. We speak confidently of *my* boyfriend, *my* wife, *my* child, *my* parent. We feel justified in holding expectations about those people. We consider that perfectly reasonable.
Why? Because all our concepts of love ultimately derive from romantic love-- and romantic love is furiously, frantically possessive. We want to be with our lover, to have him or her to ourselves, to *possess*. So strongly do we equate love with possession that we may even feel that if someone doesn't want to possess us, he or she doesn't really love us. Yet I would argue that what we call romantic love isn't love at all. It's a kind of emotional storm, an overpowering, thrilling attraction-- but it isn't love.
Real love isn't possessive. It can't be. Love involves giving, not taking. Yet the desire to possess actually springs from the lovers own need-- the need for approval from the beloved, for support from a parent, for straight A's from a child, for status-- for *something*. A possessive lover is overly focused on what he or she's getting, not giving. The lover may dignify this dependency with the name love, but it's a lie. How can you really love somebody when you're dependent on him or her for things you need? That isn't love-- that's just manipulation to keep the needed stuff coming your way. And love isn't the same as need.
Of course, a loving relationship will produce interdependencies. But too often, the pleasure of freely giving changes to a fear of not getting. This person-- your lover, your girlfriend, your child-- is suddenly so *important* that you worry about what's going to happen. And at that moment, love stops.
People sometimes wonder if they're feeling real love. These same people never wonder if they're sexually aroused, or sad. Then what's the problem about recognizing love? Most often, it's because they're sensing a conflict. They feel the depth of their need, not the heights of their love.
There *are* ways to know real love. It feels calm. It's steady, and it can easily last a lifetime. It's nourishing. People grow under its influence, they become who they really are, not what someone expects them to be. Real love isn't blind; on the contrary, people feel understood, accepted for who they really are. It's healing.
So whenever you hear that love is blind, or love can't last, or love is destructive, you can be sure that you're actually hearing a description of lust, or desire, or need. It's an accurate description, because needs really are transient and destructive.
But love is something else entirely: an emotion of deep caring that asks nothing in return. It's an emotion that is fulfilling without any expectation at all, and so rare that most people in our society can't imagine it. They can't imagine feeling it, or receiving it. They may even believe it doesn't exist.
But it does. And it's the best thing there is.